Professional+-+Lim+Yo-Hwan+(Ailan)

 Overview
StarCraft is to Korea what baseball is to America, so much so that there are two Korean e-sports channels where people can watch televised StarCraft matches at any time with three different announcers providing commentary. Bars even turn on all their TVs to show the big match of the week. Fans can go to live matches in eSports arenas, where a StarCraft mascot may be prancing around. StarCraft is so popular that the largest companies in Korea have their own teams, including Samsung, Hite (the #1 beer in Korea), SK Telecom, and even the Korean Air Force, which was created by pro-gamer Lim Yo-Hwan. [[|1]]

Lim Yo-Hwan (aka SlayerS_`BoxeR` aka BoxeR aka The Emperor) is one of the most famous Korean StarCraft pro-gamers, and he can be likened to Derek Jeter in terms of fame and pay. BoxeR's career consists of 500 wins and 336 loses, which ultimately led him to an income of $300,000 a year with an additional $90,000 in endorsements. He also has a fan club of 600,000 members, most of whom are female. [[|1]]

BoxeR has played professionally since version 1.07 of StarCraft, originally starting with the Protoss race until eventually deciding to switch to Terran, a more defensive race (and generally considered weaker than Protoss and Zerg). In his career, BoxeR innovated heavily, creating many strategies which greatly influenced modern gameplay, and the tactics are still used today. BoxeR is also renowned for his micromanagement skills (which some consider to be his strongpoint as well as weakness), and his ability to churn out victories despite heavy disadvantages. However, BoxeR has been gradually losing dominance among other players, as he placed 11th in the April 2006 Korean e-Sports Players Association rankings. He make it to the finals of the EVER OnGameNet Starleague of late 2004, which he lost to Choi Yeon-Sung aka iloveOOv, a team member of his. BoxeR also made it to the finals of the 2005 So1 OnGameNet Starleague (which he lost to Anytime). [[|2]]

In August 2006, Lim announced that he had been drafted into the Republic of Korea Air Force, due to serve later that year. However, when he joined the Air Force, he found several retired pro-gamers who were also serving, and formed the first army pro-gaming team ever, the Airforce ACE. [[|2]]

When his mandatory military service ended, BoxeR returned to his team, SK Telecom T1. He eventually switched over to professionally playing StarCraft 2, continuing to competitively play in leagues, which he has been losing. However, he was one of the few Koreans to be drafted for the North American Star League, which has a prize pool of $400,000. [[|3]]

[1] [] [2] []

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Yo-Hwan

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