What I know, what I think, what I assume

When you make a decision in a match, your head holds three different kinds of information. Mixing them up is one of the most common causes of mistakes.

• What I know: I saw or heard it, now or very recently. "I saw a defender in A main 2 seconds ago". It is a fact.
• What I think: it is likely, for concrete reasons. "There are probably two on B, because that is how they usually play and nobody saw them elsewhere". It is an estimate.
• What I assume: I am taking it for granted without proof. "Nobody is in mid" (but nobody checked). It is a bet, often an unconscious one.

Strong players do not know more things in absolute terms: they are better at telling these three levels apart, so they know when to trust and when to check.

To get from information to a decision, five questions work in almost every situation. You do not need to ask all of them every time, but keeping them in mind helps you not miss anything important.

1. Which positions are still possible? Given what you know, where can the enemies you have not seen be?
2. How much time have they had to rotate? A defender seen on B 15 seconds ago may already be on A.
3. Who is missing? Count the enemies you have seen: the ones missing are the real danger.
4. Who usually plays there? The enemy's habits in earlier rounds count as information: if their Killjoy has always been on B, they are probably still there.
5. If we go there now, how many will we meet? The final question, the one that decides: the answer is an estimate, not a certainty.

Assumptions are necessary: you cannot know everything, and sometimes you have to act anyway. The problem starts when you do not notice you are assuming something.

Typical examples:

• "the site is empty" because nobody saw anyone (but nobody looked);
• "they are saving" because they lost the last round (but they might force);
• "the lurker is still on B" because they were there 20 seconds ago.

A simple trick: when you talk to your team, use different words for the three levels. "I saw" for what you know, "probably" for what you think, "we don't know if" for assumptions. It helps everyone, you included, remember how solid a piece of information is.

The opposite mistake to assuming too much is never deciding, waiting to know everything. But in VALORANT certainty almost always arrives too late: by the time you are sure where everyone is, the time to use it is gone.

Good decisions are made with the best estimate available, and updated as soon as new information arrives. A plan is not a contract: if halfway through you find out your assumption was wrong, you change it.

At first this reasoning feels slow. It speeds up with practice, especially outside matches: when reviewing a round, pause at a decision point and say out loud what you knew, what you thought and what you were assuming. After a dozen rounds like that, in matches you will naturally ask "do I know this or am I assuming it?" before rotating or going in.

The next chapter, the worked example, follows a round step by step using these three levels and the five questions. Here is a short one.