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One of my favourite players has just retired, a guy known as Jinro, the guy who inspired me to stick with Terran, when I was thinking more and more of going to Protoss. He was the most accomplished western player and still is, the only foreigner to reach GSL round of 4, not just once, but twice. He's been in a bit of a slump for over a year. So while it's not a surprise that he is quitting the fact that one of the biggest names just wasn't enjoying the game. I really don't know how I feel about this, but Walsh wrote why he was leaving, I would suggest that anyone read it:

To some of you, this comes as a surprise. To some of you, it does not. The latter group will say: "Just look at his results, of course he's retiring." The latter group is right to not be surprised, but they are wrong about why.

When I was thirteen, I had a dream of going to Korea, of playing Starcraft on TV. I worked hard to make it a reality, and by the time I was seventeen, I was a member of Dream.T, one of the best Korean clans on battle.net. Getting there was a little bit like reaching the top of a mountain, looking out, only to realize that this was but a rocky protrusion, the actual mountain still looming ahead; Korea was a long way away.

Shortly before my eighteenth birthday, I was introduced to poker. During this time, I had already been on a month break from Starcraft to play Go when an old BW friend of mine (old school SC guys might know him as GroT, poker players as Jelle) posted in a thread on TL asking to learn the basics of Go. We hadn't talked in a while, but I offered to teach him the very basics of Go, and in return he would show me poker.

Here was a game where my every increase in skill met was met with a clear indicator of progress, where (unlike SC in the west), there were more stages to your development than "not in Korea playing on TV" and "in Korea playing on TV." For those of you who weren't around in 2006, if you were playing SC seriously but not in Korea, you did not get much out of it. There were no big sponsorships, no MLGs. There was WCG once a year (and not even that if you lived in certain countries like Sweden), a relatively small DreamHack, and not much else. So, I gave up on my dream and chased a new one, never expecting to return.

jinrotlo.jpg

When SC2 was announced, something stirred inside of me and old dreams resurfaced. Poker is a hard game, and by nature, I tend to obsess over my interests, which can often lead to some balance issues in life. At this point, I was playing mid-high stakes, and as a nineteen-year-old not used to dealing with being up or down thousands of dollars on a daily basis, I found it all very stressful. Playing SC2 and chasing an old dream was very tempting.

When the opportunity to go to Korea came along, I took it, though not completely without hesitation. Even at this point, I think a part of me knew... But it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, it was exactly what I had dreamt of doing.

jinronaz.jpgI think I have told the story of how, shortly before winning MLG Dallas 2010, I told Victor he should not bother sending me, that I was not good enough. What I don't think anyone got from this was that I was already at that point questioning whether I should be playing. Of course, most people know what happened after that. I went back to Korea, qualified for GSL, and poured all that I had into it.

In an interview during GSL, InCa was asked about me, about how much I practiced. He replied, "At least fifty games a day." Later on, I asked him why he had said that, feeling like the number was overstated. He was perplexed: "You ask for games from the moment you wake up until everyone else is asleep. You play at least fifty games a day."

My efforts carried me to round of four, and when I eventually fell to MC, I was both proud and dejected.

The next GSL came around, and once again, I practiced hard. Not as hard as before, but harder than most. By the time the semis came around, I was pretty much spent. The minute after my fourth game versus MarineKing, I swallowed and realized my throat hurt like hell. The next day, I was sick with a fever. Despite this, life was easy: I had made the semis twice in a row, and by the time I advanced 2-0 through my GSL group for the third time straight, I felt like I was walking on water. Things were just a little bit too easy.

jinrotlomodern.jpgWhen I was fourteen, I had a dream. An actual dream. I was playing NaDa PvT on Lost Temple on the WGTour I think, back when all the Korean pros suddenly decided to play on it. He was at six, and I remember flanking his famous tornado push with a seemingly endless wave of zealots. I woke up happy until I realized it had just been a dream.

Eight years later, there I was, practicing with this guy I'd once dreamed of beating. Practicing, winning games, losing games. Once before one of his GSL matches, NaDa called me just to ask for advice on what maps to remove against his zerg opponent. "How cool is that?" the thirteen-year-old inside me said. "What now?" I hear the twenty-something reply.

Over a year ago, around May 2011, when I dropped out of Code S, I told Victor I was thinking of retiring. I don't remember how long I considered it for, but the thoughts were real and not easily dismissed. In the end, I decided to attend DreamHack and HomeStory, and despite not having the best of results, it was a break in the monotony and, coupled with a good contract offer, I signed on for another year.

The new contract, along with having had a lot of fun at the events I attended during the summer (HSC and MLG above all), brought some new motivation, and I could feel myself improving again.

This lasted a few months, at the high point of which I found myself within one game of qualifying for Code A again. I was in the finals of the qualifiers vs. IMMinSeok. The last map was Daybreak. NesTea was watching behind him.

Later on, I was told that halfway through the game, NesTea had sadly exclaimed that the game was over, that MinSeok could not come back. Unfortunately for me, MinSeok fought back through some inspired play, and my control failed me in two crucial battles.

At the time, I did not feel too dejected by this; it felt like proof that I was actually improving again. Yet looking back, I see that was the last time the advancement of my skill level was ahead of the pace of the general population.

The winter was not good for me. I was unhappy with my game, my life, with SC2 -- and I think it was very clear to anyone who watched my stream, or just my games. Something was wrong. Tilting was common, and honestly I behaved pretty poorly.

jinromodern.jpg

More and more I found myself practicing just so that I could be sent to events, to meet the friends I could so rarely meet. I'd had a dream...and I had given it up. What I had left was a child's dream half-remembered, and in the back of my mind, I'd always been aware of how tenuous my drive was. For motivation, I was almost completely reliant on external events to drive me: going to Korea, winning MLG, qualifying for GSL, going far... Even during the beta, I had to force myself to play. I was running on the fumes of a dream that was no longer mine.

InControl once said that if you find yourself needing a reason to play other than the enjoyment of the game, then it is time you stop playing. I don't always agree with this -- there are many people for whom it's not true. I remember a NaDa interview from SC1, during which he talked about how he no longer enjoyed the game, and yet, you'd still see him post good results just a few months later.

But for me, it was true. I was running on empty, and while I was making pretty good money, I was no NaDa. The day after MLG Columbus 2012, I arrived in Vegas... and I realized I was done. IPL4 would be my last hurrah. I knew it was not a decision to be made lightly or at once, but I brought up the possibility with Victor. I would say that IPL was the last time I played anywhere near good, and I made it unexpectedly far (yet not far enough to be worthy of note).

I've often wondered about the drive of the guys who switched from one game to another, such as BoxeR, NaDa, Julyzerg, Moon, Grubby, ForGG (but also lesser known examples such as Junwi, Dayfly, Garimto, Insomnia, Draco). Where do you find it within yourself to dream again? NaDa was one of the most talented players to ever touch SC1, and one of the hardest workers. In SC2, I believe he subsisted almost entirely on a diet of talent and past hard work. He would have periods of inspiration, of rigorous practice, but I don't think he ever had the same drive that he had for SC1 (for which, every SC2 player in the world should count themselves lucky).

I am no NaDa, no BoxeR, no Julyzerg, Moon or Grubby. But I did work hard on my dream for many years. Exhausted a large amount of its reserve, without much to show for it (for SC1, at least. For SC2 I would not say I am content, but I would also hesitate to call it 'nothing').

I just wonder if it is possible to approach a game ever again, especially one so similar, with the same childlike enthusiasm and passion.

All of the above I'm sure sounds very dark, and I want to take a moment to make it very clear that I do not regret my choice to become a progamer for a second. There are moments within that career that I do regret, things I could have done much better, but what I will never regret is having embarked on this journey.

When I was a kid, my dream was to be a progamer. I didn't want to be a football player, I didn't want to be an astronaut or what have you Sure, when people asked (before I knew what progaming was), I would say I wanted to be a sea-rescue helicopter pilot (on account of some documentary I had seen), or a long distance runner because of how awesome I thought Moses Kiptanoi was. But my first true feeling of "this is what I want to do," was Starcraft. In Korea. And I got to do it!

The people I've met -- friends, acquaintances, fans -- and the life experience I've acquired in the meantime have helped me grow tremendously and I firmly believe I leave progaming a much better person than I was when I entered it.

Many people will no doubt wonder where I am going, and what I am going to do. The answer is: nowhere, and poker. We got the apartment well after my decision to quit was mostly decided, and I am tremendously excited at the prospect of re-learning poker and practicing BJJ.

You might ask yourself why I would return to something that I already left, how it's going to be different. Well, truthfully I do not know that it will be, but I do know I've done a lot of growing up in the past two years, and that I appreciate the freedom poker brings, to an extent that I could not at the time. I believe it is the best choice for me now, and in the long term, who knows.

To everyone who ever supported me, thank you, truly. I am not really a spotlight guy, but every moment that I was in it, you made me feel like home. I often wonder how it is that I still have people telling me they believe in me, or that they hope I can make it into Code A again next season, or what tournament they will see me in next... For a while now, it's pained me to not be able to answer those questions/well wishes honestly, and so this post is, in a way, a big relief.

jinrogoodbye.jpg

In particular, I would like to thank the following people:

My parents for supporting my ambitions at all times, be it Starcraft or Poker.

Victor for his support throughout these years, his invaluable insights during my first GSL run (he seriously watched and analyzed every practice game I played), and for being a good friend.

Gon and TheWind, my two coaches in oGs, for always taking care of us, and for putting up with my horrible temper.

To all my teammates, past and present, in both Teamliquid and oGs. If I wasn't still living in Korea, this goodbye would be a lot sadder

To everyone on the TL staff for making life when traveling a lot easier than it has any right to be, and taking care of all the things your average gamer is too uncaring to take care of.

To my friends, I hope I will have the opportunity to meet the ones of you I only got to see at events, even as a 'civilian.'

It's been emotional (

cookie for anyone who catches the reference).

- Jonathan

http://www.teamliqui...topic_id=358724

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Yeah this sucks, Jinro was one the first players I started following, watched his stream, his more recent training for the Code A qualifiers and how close he was to winning his qualifier games. I wonder what would have happened if he had made it :/

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That's sad, i just finally read that story. I've never been very good at starcraft, but the little bit I followed SC2 pro gaming, jinro was always one of my favorite personalities.

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I could see that Jinro had worked too hard towards the game. He had clearly been suffering due to all he has poured into the game. The same way that Day9 had when he recently had a month off. I sincerely hope that Jinro will return one day, however unlikely this is.

I currently think that the most interesting players to watch are Grubby, Moon and Select. All three were WarCraft 3 players, Select also a DoW player. Taeja is also really exciting, he has been tearing tounaments apart recently winning Assembly and MLG. The upcoming MLG championship is going to be excellent to watch!

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Yes SeleCT is still going strong, he's been streaming lately and interacting with chat and he's going to MLG championships, will be cool to follow him.

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Lots of HotS streams going on now, any make it in the beta? It's a whole new metagame and Blizzard will have its hands full gathering feedback and stats and then balancing. I hope the transition will be relatively smooth, how long usually from Blizzard betas to release?

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I don't remember how long the beta for WoL lasted, but they first released it saying it would be 3-5 months long, maybe a similar length for HotS.

By the way I just started watching one of your sc2 ladder videos, great choice with the CT music :D

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By the way I just started watching one of your sc2 ladder videos, great choice with the CT music :D

You watched one of my videos :) Which one? How do you like my bronze skills, and what's CT music?

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Chrono Trigger, I watched the first SC2 video I scrolled down to, I think it had magical in the name. I only saw the first game actually, but your opening was really tight and much better executed than I expected (just judging off my bronze buddies). I had to stop eventually because my laptop can't handle 1080p in all its glory :P

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Chrono Trigger, I watched the first SC2 video I scrolled down to, I think it had magical in the name. I only saw the first game actually, but your opening was really tight and much better executed than I expected (just judging off my bronze buddies). I had to stop eventually because my laptop can't handle 1080p in all its glory :P

Ah I probably had rainwave running (rainwave.cc) I've been listening to it for weeks. I'm actually playing Chrono Trigger now for the first time. Playing on iOS and just started the end boss fight against Lavos. No idea whether my dudes are good enough to finish it though.

As for my opening I've been watching Filters tutorials and been through his opening many times so I'm pretty good up until the 10th minute, then I need start macroing and making decisions and it all comes crashing down, I lost a game the other day where I had 18k minerals at one point :D

edit: If you would have finished watching the first game you would have seen some conveniently prophetic rage from my opponent, here is a link with a time marker to said rage: http://www.twitch.tv/donktv/b/329558547?t=20m

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So, with the advent of Heart of the Swarm, I am suddenly interested in playing Starcraft 2 again, which also makes me realize that I had a LOT more free time when the first game came out.

 

I also want to get back to GSL watching but am confused by all the seasons. Do the seasons last about a month? Is the monthly fee interchangeable with the season fee then?

 

Anyway, as for the game, I have found the time to play the first two missions. I'm excited, though it's a good thing I can laugh at astonishingly cheesy things happening, all the time. 

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Anyway, as for the game, I have found the time to play the first two missions. I'm excited, though it's a good thing I can laugh at astonishingly cheesy things happening, all the time.

I had forgotten how unbelievably corny the writing is (assuming it was this bad last time around). That combined with the overwrought score and production values and acting makes it altogether surreal.

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I had forgotten how unbelievably corny the writing is (assuming it was this bad last time around). That combined with the overwrought score and production values and acting makes it altogether surreal.

Yeah, it's in a weird place between laughing AT it and WITH it, even though I'm not sure it really intends for us to laugh at it. Right from the off! "Out of my way, son." Ugh.

 

Honestly, there are times that the script is so predictable it becomes a little annoying. But all in all, I am enjoying myself and will probably now go back and lose a lot of multiplayer games over the next few weeks.

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It's so earnestly presented that it seems like the people in charge have no idea of how cheesy it is. 

 

I'd bet you anything Chris Metzen thinks he totally nailed it and made a riveting tale of personal whateverthefuck.

 

I don't want to bash the dude too hard, but I read an interview in which he was asked about his literary inspirations, and his answers were Star Wars and Dragonlance. If he considers those high water marks in the realm of storytelling, then as far as he's concerned, he's killing it.

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It's so earnestly presented that it seems like the people in charge have no idea of how cheesy it is. 

 

I'd bet you anything Chris Metzen thinks he totally nailed it and made a riveting tale of personal whateverthefuck.

 

I don't want to bash the dude too hard, but I read an interview in which he was asked about his literary inspirations, and his answers were Star Wars and Dragonlance. If he considers those high water marks in the realm of storytelling, then as far as he's concerned, he's killing it.

Yeah, Metzen is an interesting guy. I met him once very briefly but I was astonishingly drunk. I suspect if he remembers it at all (doubtful) that his impressions are not fond! To be fair, he plays up to a character that Blizzard fans still really dig. He's the cool kid in jeans, an untucked shirt and cool specs, and he gets up there and he does whatever the nerdy version of broing out is. I've been to lore panels that he's been on and he does seem to be really into it.

 

So I don't think you're bashing him (I hope it doesn't seem like I am, because I'm not either). I agree though that he probably feels like he's killing it. Raynor is that nerdy bro form given life really. I think they just get away with it but it's touch and go. If the game wasn't so bloody fun it would be a much bigger issue but... it is!

 

So we all win, is what I'm saying.

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Ugh, this game. I won four of my five placement matches though really it should have been 3-2 but one of my opponents quit early after thrashing me. I got put in silver (this is a big deal for me!) and now I'm getting crushed. Again and again. And again. And again.

 

I remember that this happened to me last time, I lost ten or eleven in a row before I won one, and at one point I won about thirty in a row (I think something was going wrong with matchmaking there). That was Terran, this is Zerg, and I'd like to play Zerg. But I'm getting crushed. I'm trying to drone up and not panic and just be ready. In my placement matches I felt comfortable, doing pretty well at holding off the other guy with a couple of units and a spine crawler. Now, I'm just getting eaten alive and I've slipping down completely, getting torn apart by quick strategies (pylons teleporting zealots into my expansion, Terran bio).

 

Now, I profited from the Terran bioball myself a couple of years ago, vaulting all the way into silver. But any general tips here on playing zerg would be nice. I'm trying to follow some Day 9 stuff but I'm essentially useless at this game. 

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These 3 videos are probably the best resources you can have for all the fundamentals:

 

 

 

<-- this one isn't embedding for some reason, but it's the most important of the three

 

it's old so you can safely ignore the exact builds he uses as examples, other than that everything is still relevant.

 

For advice from myself, I've got a few things to say: don't pay any attention to winning or losing.  Competitive starcraft is focused on improvement, which will eventually propel you to higher leagues but any individual victory or loss is not indicative of your skill.  You may be playing better than usual and still lose a game, or be playing poorly and win.  Focus instead on certain aspects of your play, say injecting larva and using all your larva before it caps, and judge yourself by those metrics regardless of the larger outcome of the game.

 

Here are some mechanical tricks to help, if you don't know them already:

 

1. while having any of your units or buildings selected, you can hold shift and press a hotkey to add whatever you have selected to that hotkey group.  Say 8 zerglings just popped out and you want to add them to your ling-roach army, you can select those 8 lings, hold shift, and press 1 and they'll be added to that hotkey.  This is useful in a lot of situations, adding more barracks to your production hotkeys, adding another hatchery, adding more units to your army, etc.

 

2. you can look into your customizable hotkey section and change the numbers that are out of reach (7 through 0 for me) into more usable positions closer to your hand, like Q or T or F or something.

 

If you're super into it you can put even more in by reading How to Improve Efficiently, which you can view and download here.

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Cheers man, thanks for the advice!

 

I think I'm slowly improving, it's a matter of figuring out when to actually put units together now. Also, I tend to freak out. I had a weird game yesterday against a Protoss player. He sent down that new flying unit (the core) and I freaked out and spawned more queens because I didn't have any AA. Yeah, I don't know why I did that either. So I'm getting ? and WTF? on chat from the other guy. Now, I can see where he has coming from (I suddenly have five queens on two hatcheries and a few roaches around the place) but I thought he was being a jackass.

 

Turns out that for whatever reason I was put up against a diamond player (he may have been diamond for an earlier season and was getting placed maybe?) and so I could see his point of view. 

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Sitting here at the start of the WCS EU finals, watching this alongside 120,000+ other people!  Go Stephanooo!

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Sitting here at the start of the WCS EU finals, watching this alongside 120,000+ other people!  Go Stephanooo!

:(

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