SK Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Germany that has teams across the world competing in different titles. SK is particularly known for their success in Counter-Strike (CS) tournaments. SK's Brazilian CS team won the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major. SK currently has players and teams competing in League of Legends and Hearthstone. SK Gaming was founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players in Oberhausen. History Beginnings Schroet Kommando was founded in 1997 as a German Quake clan by four brothers and three accomplices in Oberhausen. The original line-up of Schroet Kommando consisted of Ralf "Griff" Reichert, Daniel "Godlike" Beames, Tim "Burke" Reichert, Benjamin "Kane" Reichert, Kristof "Speed" Salwiczek, Carsten "Storch" Kramer and Sven "Ramses" Tümmers. According to Ralf Reichert, the original naming of the organization originated from one of the members repeatedly shouting "Schröt!" This was a common occurrence from whenever a double-barreled shotgun would be handled, due to the translation meaning "shrapnel". Eventually, the team adopted this into their name, thus becoming "Schroet Kommando". Since then, the organization began using their abbreviation more often, until it eventually became SK Gaming. Initially, the Beames family home operated as the Schroet Kommando headquarters, concentrating primarily upon the Quake series. Early on, Schroet Kommando became one of the first clans to feature an all-female team; the most notable of which was Annemarie "XS" Warnkross, who later became a well-known host on German television. The organization expanded into Counter-Strike, where it became known as one of the most-successful squads in all of Germany. In September 2001, Andreas "bds" Thorstensson merged his Geekboys team and news syndicate with that of SK Gaming, with a long-term prospect of emphasizing the success of his own organization. Thorstensson revolutionized electronic sports by having SK act as the first organization to have payable premium services ("SK Insider", a virtual marketplace in which subscribers could download demos (replays), mods and add-ons better and earlier than others, talk directly to SK gamers etc.). The organization's international Counter-Strike success came when they signed on the players of the successful Swedish Counter-Strike clan Ninjas in Pyjamas. In 2003, SK Gaming became the first electronic sports organization to contract players, beginning with the SK Sweden Counter-Strike squad. Later years The 2006 season brought no successes to the Counter-Strike team, the most notable of which, the team failed to qualify for the Electronic Sports World Cup, in which