ShahZaM.

ShahZam spent his childhood playing on a variety of consoles with his older brother, including a Sega, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and PlayStations. When Halo was released, he later switched to playing primarily on the PC. When he purchased Half-Life 2 in late 2004, he received a free copy of Counter-Strike: Source as well. They became very involved in it and frequently played against bots together.

His desire to excel at the game led him and his friends to begin competing in Counter-Strike tournaments during CAL S10. As his team, Denial, began to perform well at ESEA during his third year of college, he gradually gained recognition in the community. While still in college, he was given the opportunity to accept his first job with a professional team, Cloud 9. Accepting the job was risky because it would force him to travel frequently and the CS professional scene wasn't really developed yet. This would force him to drop out of school. When he explained the idea to his parents, he was surprised to learn that they approved of the prospect. After that, he continued to play for a variety of other teams, including Optic Gaming in 2015 and Echo Fox in 2016. In addition, he was a member of Misfits Gaming from 2017 until February 2018, when he returned to Optic Gaming. His membership was brief, though, as in May of that year he quickly switched to compLexity. Then, until April 2020, he stayed with them before switching to Sentinels.