Why Do Pro Gamers Tilt Their Keyboards?

Something as mundane as a shortage of desk space can sometimes lead to pretty drastic adaptations in the world of esports, where every millisecond is the difference between winning a trophy and going home. One of these adaptations is cocking the keyboards at some pretty absurd angles. Let's hear it from one of the pros themselves for why this is a thing. Turner "Tfue" Tenney, one of the most-watched Fortnite players, once explained on stream that sitting flat, a keyboard swallows way too much of the table at a LAN tournament. These events have players sitting relatively crammed shoulder to shoulder.

However, shooter games almost always demand fast-paced precision, and for that, the mouse has to be configured accordingly. Competitive players, therefore, deliberately run a very low mouse DPI setting. The view then swings less for every inch of hand movement, allowing for far granular targeting. The downside, though, is that a full 180-degree turn then demands dragging the mouse 40 centimeters or more across the pad. With space running low, a manoeuvre like that ends up with the mouse smacking the keyboard. Rotate the keyboard and you no longer have to deal with this.

At the same time, it offers another major advantage. Your left thumb is no longer limited to mostly the spacebar. The new angle opens up access to a whole row of keys above that. This is especially important for games that spread controls across dozens of keys.

Plenty of players also tilt keyboards in a second way: by propping it up at the back using the flip-out feet. This isn't as beneficial as you might think. In fact, Kinesis, a company that develops its keyboards alongside esports physical therapists, says that you leave those feet folded flat. Raising the keyboard from the back means your fingers end up sitting higher than your wrists, and over extended sessions, it strains the joint or affects blood flow. To compensate, gamers often use the best keyboard wrist rests.

Cleveland Clinic's advice goes even further. The medical center has an esports medicine program that checks over competitive players' setups, and its recommendation is to lay the keyboard completely flat, square in the middle of your body. They also advise you to keep the mouse right next to it. Unfortunately, if you watch any tournament, you'd quickly spot that many players break all three rules at once.

It's worth noting that it's not just keyboards that end up getting angled — it's monitors too. This thankfully doesn't have a downside to it. The thing is that most esports tournaments run Zowie monitors, built by BenQ for competitive play. These mostly rely on older TN screens, which are all about speedy refresh rates. Prioritizing that often costs picture quality and viewing angles. So players try to get the best possible view by tilting the screen according to the position of their eyes – whatever angle offers the crispest image.