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I posted a rough copy of this on bw.com back when the community was somewhat decent, I figure with 4 days to go till the next ongamenet starleague match it might be a good idea to spark up this thread again.
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I've been following SC since 1998 when I ripped it of my College's LAN and played on Kali for 20 bucks. I have since bought the game (actually bought it 3 times!) and started following the pro gaming scene about a year and a half ago. My knowledge is sparse about much of it so if you can help please do.
Basically, there are snippets of events that I remember regarding SC Pro-Gaming. Here they are . . .
Blizzard releases Broodwar around Christmas of 1998. They hold a Broodwar tournament a few months later and XDs'Grrrr wins. Meanwhile, SC is such a huge hit in Korea (selling over a million copies in the first year) that Grrrr decides to visit Korea. During Grrrr's 3 or 4 week stay he manages to win a tourney or two and come in 2nd in another. His winnings from the tourneys totaled about 5 to 10 thousand dollars. Grrrr heads back home and I'm assuming thinks, "Holy shit. I just got payed some major mullah to play games. Could I make a career out of this?"
Meanwhile several Koreans are already making careers out of pro-gaming. (Unfortunately, I don't know who or what tournaments they won, help anyone?)
At about this time the KPGA starts and Blizzard even incorporates support for their league in patch 1.06? The KPGA runs pretty well, but it is soon overshadowed by Ongamenet.
GhemTV and Gembc also enter the mix.
The World Cyber Challenge happens in 2000. An international tournament won by Go_Rush. The following year the WCC becomes the WCG, the World Cyber Games, with participants from about 40 differenct countries. Prize money of $20,000 is offered for the winner of Broodwar (and Quake 3, CS, AOE, and FIFA Football too). In Broodwar, Slayers_Boxer defeats Elky somewhat decesively 2-0 in the finals. The first match was on LT with Elky (went Terran) winning the resource war but losing after Boxer switched to BCs. Elky being a true competitor wouldn't quit until Boxer nuked is island expo. The second match was on Hall of Valhalla, a map designed by a Korean who has been since hired to design Ongamenet maps. Elky chose Toss this time and Elky tried a goon/zeal rush, Boxer's counter of 4 Gols was lethal and showed off excellent micro.
The win by Boxer was yet another championship in a long string of impressive victories. During this time Boxer was seen as nearly invincible . . until Garmito defeated him 3-1 in the Ongamenet finals.
Back to Grrrr he eventually decided to move to Korea to pursue gaming as a profession. He received several endorsements and won several tournaments. At one time he was considered one of the top players (arguably the top player for awhile) in Korea. He received sponsorships, prize money and endorsements for over $100,000 in one year.
Elky, another foreigner (French) placed 2nd at the WCG 2001 and moved to Korea full time. He's been doing well, recently placed 2nd in Ongamenet's first War3 tourney winning $8,000 and 4th in Ongamenet's Fall 2002 tourney.
Boxer reportedly made over $150,000 last year and is considered in many minds to be the best BW player of all time.
Currently, there are a number of challengers to Boxer's crown as King of Broodwar including: HOT Forever, Red Nada, The Marine, Yellow, Chnrh, Elky, Chojja, and Ooops Reach to name a few.
Please feel free to add to this history of SC pro-gaming, including information about the PGL, IGL, WG Tour, CPL, and whatever else I left out, I'm sure there's plenty.
Cheers. 
--Sword_Siege
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damn i will think about this and post something tomorrow ^_^;
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Your missing a great deal before that including a couple pgls I think gad won the first one, grrr won the 2nd with d22-soso placing second, also you forgetting the i2e2 tourneys. There was also a stint where
)DL(October was considered the best gamer
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I just started follow progame when i heard about the 2001 WCG. You guys think the WCG is what made most people outside of korea aware of proGameing(As most people i see on bw have at least heard of it now)? I also think Reps did alot for it. People see boxer reps, and are like omg who is that? Then they become more interested in it. Thats how i started following proGameing anyway. Yes im also aware this got very 
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theres a 30 min interview with grrr.
link on bw.com
some new stuff along with the usual stuff that u hear from grrr...
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you also forgot the last 1.07 match between boxer and grrrr. was one of my first vods (i think grrrr vs theboy were the first matches i saw D: ) and the start of boxers run. ^^
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I started getting into progaming from Game-q, my Korean friend on useast told me about the website and that Hot was best zerg, Rain/Grrr best toss and boxer upcoming best Terran(think boxer was fairly new then to the scene) Was the first I had heard of any of them, was game-q 1 I believe..(the one where Rain wins)
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Canada398 Posts
first game I seen of boxer was from game-q, him vs maynard TvZ, maynard dominated him pretty hard back then.
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Greetings:
While I am not positive the names of the tournaments these chaps participated in, I do recall them from the early days, such as Zileas, Larry-the-Weird, Agent911, SCVGod, Ghost1, and the rest of the gents. I am positive I recall tales buried on a few SC sites (this was long before replays, where screen shots, and story telling had to suffice) about these fellows (as well as getting seeing them on ladder, until KBK started, especially XD's Insane~ (Grrr..'s other alias I believe, whom my friend, at the high point of his SC obsession beat Grrr... when he played a little lax with zerg, and then vehemently accused my friend of cheating, most amusing in fact). Once again though, I am not positive if they would be considered "progamers" in the context they did it for money, as SC wasn't quite "Real Art" at that point, and tournaments seemed exhibitionary only.
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Canada5062 Posts
On December 10 2002 00:00 Grudge wrote:
Your missing a great deal before that including a couple pgls I think gad won the first one, grrr won the 2nd with d22-soso placing second, also you forgetting the i2e2 tourneys. There was also a stint where
)DL(October was considered the best gamer
Yes. October beat Grrr in the finals of the Sports Seoul Tournament (the largest of its kind back then) in 1999. After that tho it was all Grrr - until some fellow named Lim Yo-hwan came along and took gameplay to the next level...
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Canada5062 Posts
Thx for the post sword_siege. Maybe we can get a decent thread started with new info being added every day.
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Canada5062 Posts
FYI, Shin Ju-young (aka [SG]Honest) is often considered the first SC pro gamer (i.e. a person who gets paid to play SC) in Korea. He was quickly followed by Lee Gi-seok (aka Ssamjjang aka Larry-the-Weird), a clanmate of Shin's and also the first genuine SUPERSTAR in pro gaming, getting his own TV ad (for the "Kornet" ISP company), doing game commentaries on various shows and just being generally recognizable.
Sadly, Shin's career got cut short at its apex when he had to do his military service (it happens a lot here in Korea - promising careers being cut short that way). In his day, he was the best Protoss user on the planet and influenced Lee to switch races to toss. Lee (originally Terran) was one of the first Terran gosus to appear back when people considered the race impossible to play at a high level - Lee demonstrated the possibilities with the Terran race like no one else before him. Both have recently tried to revive their pro gaming careers, but I don't think it's working out for them. The Game's just changed too much. Not sure about Lee, but I hear Shin's going to (or already has) open his own PC Bang.
Man, I'm getting all nostalgic now...
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hey mensrea Ask naz if u can add a section to the site. Like the history of progameing mayb.
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Canada5062 Posts
Working on that, one league at a time. GOGO Articles Section!!!
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holy cow i bin posting on this forum since day 2 and i never seen the article section lol
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Honest[SG] was zerg player though. He played in the early BW ladder tournaments and was known for his gosu muta-control. Many western players thought he hacked, and Larry-the-weird actually used hack at some point in the tournament just for fun.
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Canada5062 Posts
Well, Honest played both races, as far as I know. Even played the first widely-publicized "mega match" between himself and Ssamjjang with toss.
Dunno about the hack part tho so won't comment...
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On December 10 2002 02:11 InToTheWannaB wrote:hey mensrea Ask naz if u can add a section to the site. Like the history of progameing mayb.
I think stuff like that will have to come in the Articles section.. else the site would get a bit too crowded maybe? atleast that's what I think
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I dont know if any of you have seen Ssamjjang vs grrr on lt (tvp) it was from a while ago but it has some of the best macro ive ever seen. btw, i think its only fair to add the practically unnoted zileas to the list of great players. his micro is fantastic and he was good enough to get offered a job with blizzard for his skills. 
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I think the fact he had a MIT degree in computer programming of some sought and had already made an RTS game had ALOT more to do with him getting hired than the fact that he one the BW Beta tourney!
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EPT
