DOTA 2 pro-player Ravi "Ritsu" Kodippili was kicked out of the North American eSports DOTA 2 Team Cloud9 after allegedly leaking other teams' strategies in their scrimmage matches.
According to the reports of Kotaku, Ritsu's alleged strategy leaks began to surface last week on Twitter and Reddit after Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao, a DOTA 2 pro-player, posted on his Twitter account an image showing an online chat record of Ritsu leaking information of the scrimmage match played between Cloud9 and another North American team, Digital Chaos.
"Events preceding the attendance of the Frankfurt Major weighed heavily on both Ritsu and Cloud9 as an organization. His out-of-game conduct was consistently unbecoming of a professional player, although he began taking steps to change himself and how he interacted with the DOTA2 competitive community," said Cloud9's General Manager, Danan Flander. "His past indiscretions combined were too much for Theeban, myself, and the rest of the organization to overlook moving towards the next Major."
Kitguru reported that although there is no actual rule that says sharing other team's information is illegal, there is an unspoken professional code against it. The news site also said that there is a big difference between discussing the match up, and conspiring to use the information to help other teams win against your recent scrimmage opponent during real pro-matches.
"Ritsu's performance on the roster was better than I expected and while I will miss having him around as a friend and teammate, the indiscretions of his past inevitably lead towards this outcome," shared Cloud9 team captain, Theeban "1437" Siva. "His recent efforts to improve his behavior came too late and following our elimination from the Major, it was determined that Cloud9 was no longer the place for him to be," the team captain added.
In the report from Kotaku, Ritsu shared his thoughts about his experience as a professional player with the team, and the decision of Cloud9 to kick him out of the team.
"While it's coming to a bittersweet end, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the guys at Cloud9. I made a consistent effort leading up to and during the Major to improve my behavior and felt that I was making progress. I feel that my play and behavior at the Major were both acceptable, but the conclusion Cloud9 drew in removing me isn't something I can fault them for," shared Ritsu. "In the end, I'm happy I had the opportunity to attend two LANS, participate in my first Major, and work with Theeban, Brax, MSS, and SVG."