Hi Jinro, Hi HuK! Welcome back to the Weekly. Happy to be back home in Incheon again?

Jinro: Of course!

HuK: Yes.


We heard the flight back wasn't too pleasant. What went wrong? Any lessons learned?

HuK: We missed our connection flight because the first flight was delayed due to problems with the plane. Not sure what it was, but it seemed serious. Once in Istanbul, we were herded with the rest of the cattle to try to rush to our connection flight, fail and that our flight was going to be a day later and that we would be spending the night in Turkey.

MC and Jinro passed by fine but when I went to cross the passport guy told me I needed to go back and get a visa. So I go to the visa place and try to get a visa and they tell me to take out money from the ATM. I go to the ATM and it wont accept my Canadian bank card or my Korean bank card.

I proceed back to the visa place and am told to go back to my airline. My airline tells me go back to the visa place, the visa place says they cant help me and the guy from the airline who escorted me basically bailed after that. I then go back to the passport guy and tell him what's going on. He says he cant help me to go to the police station on the other side.

So I go back to my airline desk (on the walk there I explain the situation to him) and once we get there the guy talks to someone at the counter then proceeds to walk away with them never to return. Afterwards, I meet Jinro at passport clearing and tell him to take out money for me.

He returns later with Turkish money. I tell him that I needed euro, and he goes back and brings me some. Then, the passport guy wont let us exchange money over the little shitty fucking gate they have there. He tells us to walk down to the police station to exchange the measly 60 euro or whatever the fuck it was. After convincing the policemen to let him give me the money, I go to buy my visa and cross the border. At every point, every single person involved in this process was extremely rude, unhelpful, and generally, an asshole.

After that, the stay and flight back were pleasant.


Jinro: OK, so we are all just sitting there waiting at Arlanda and everything seems normal, right? Then, we get to 30 minutes before boarding and there's not a single airport staff member in the entire room, and a bunch of people are starting to wonder wtf is going on. Sooooo, after not finding a single board with information anywhere, and the board over our gate saying LONDON instead of ISTANBUL, I venture up a staircase, find a security type guy who lets me through to check out an info board. Here we discover two things:

1) They changed the gate for our flight without telling anyone (same room, but still).

2) Our plane has a smoking engine. Cue 1+ hour delay.

We land in Istanbul, they fuck around a bunch about where we are supposed to go, we miss our plane. We try to go through customs, they let me and MC through but tell Chris they don't like him because hes American (actually they just said he needs a VISA), and tell him to pay for a VISA. He tries to grab money from ATM, fails with both Korean and American card, asks me to grab money... I search half the airport, find out I have to go outside the airport to take out money, ask if I can come back in if I do, get told no.

Go on tilt, talk to another guy who tells me first guy was incorrect. I get 100e in Turkish Lire, run back to Chris, only to be told that no, they do not accept Turkish lire. What the fuck kind of country doesn't take their own currency? OK, back to ATM, find a different one that lets me take out euro instead, run back, give money to Chris... or I would have but the customs guys stops me and tells me I have to go through the police to give it to him.

... which I eventually succeed at doing. They find us a hotel (which had very nice food, and was nice overall), and we spend the next day playing Wesnoth on my laptop while waiting for our plane which didn't leave until midnight.


Jinro, you begin your GSL Code S run this month against San. How do you feel about this match?

Jinro: I feel I have a scary group but if I can win the first game I have a decent chance, so I'm focusing on that.


If you look back at the first time you played Code S, what similarities and differences do you see between your approach back then and the way you look at the event now?

It's routine now... basically.


If there was one thing you could tell your rookie self as you headed out to play your first Code S match, what would it be?

Not much to tell, I was super prepared practice wise and everything else comes from doing not hearing.

Awesome. Good luck on Saturday, Jinro! We look forward to seeing you live!


HuK, this is your first time in Code S and you're going to face your house mate Inca. What are your thoughts on this series? Will the fact that you know him so well make it easier or more difficult to play him?

HuK: I think Inca is the favorite, his PvP is really good. But I hope to do well overall and move on. It's PvP so nothing matters.


What does it feel like heading into GSL Code S? This was your goal all along of course, but now that you're here, just a week away from your games, what's going through your head?

My goal was to win GSL, not make it to Code S. All that's on my mind is to continue that pursuit.


You've played a ton of tournaments this past year. Does the GSL feel any different to you or is it just same old, same old to you now?

Well, the GSL is obviously the golden egg among white shells but other than that it's another tournament. The biggest, sure, but in the end they're all the same.

All right! Good luck, HuK! We look forward to seeing you on stream next Tuesday.

As already announced by the ESL, Liquid player Dario "Liquid`TLO" Wünsch confirms his withdrawal from the German ESL Professional Series. Dario will not be able to play in the tournament due to a scheduling conflict with MLG Columbus, a tournament that he has to participate in due to contractual obligations.

The exact dates for EPS were not publicly announced but the week was (and the weekend as such was implied). This lead to a communication problem where the fact that it would most likely be in the MLG weekend slipped by our scheduling until two weeks ago. At this moment Dario was already committed to MLG because of his sponsor Sony Ericsson. At the time of hearing the EPS dates, at that point still not publicly announced but only implied, we heard about the exact dates from someone with insider knowledge making us aware of the scheduling conflicts between the two tournaments. We immediately informed the EPS of this issue and they asked for some time to think of a solution.

You are hearing about Dario withdrawing 8 days in advance not because we waited that long, but because EPS used this time to look for a solution. Near the end of this internal EPS process; TL and EPS agreed to an announcement date on the 21st of April, something which they failed to adhere to and as such delivered an incomplete press release that did not give us a fair chance to explain the situation.


Here is Dario's official statement on the matter.