After becoming a progamer, I was busy with climbing up to the top. At first everything was fun and exciting. I felt like I could do anything, and I was filled with confidence to the point that it seemed obvious I would win in any tournament that I entered. But nothing happened the way that I had hoped or wanted. In the fall of 2002, I yielded my seat as a champion. I had always thought that the seat at the top would be in my possession. There is a saying – if there is an uphill, there awaits a downhill. I could not defend my position at the top and stepped onto the downhill road. I thought I would continue to rise forever, but as soon as I passed the peak of the summit and stepped onto the downhill road for the first time, a harsh winter was waiting for me.

The contract with the company was also over. After that, I was alone. Without a single partner to practice for me, I was completely alone. I had thought that just doing what I had always done would make things all right, but in the matches that followed, my feelings of insecurity surfaced clearly in my plays. I thought increasing the amount of practice and playing well in the matches would work out, but that alone was not enough.

To break through the mountain of problems, all I could do was to show my strength. I had to show everyone that the seat of the ‘Emperor of Terran’ was a position that one could not easily look down on. I was in need of a championship, and very urgently. Fortunately, the opportunity came very quickly. At the 2002 WCG that was held at Daejeon in November 2002, I was eligible to participate as the champion of the previous tournament. This tournament had a special meaning for me. If my performance was not good at a state where my contract with the company was over, there would be talks that the problem was with leaving the company, and it was possible that a contract with a sponsor that was not finalized would not be easily resolved.

In the 2002 WCG, the problems began with the group leagues. Of each group, only two could enter the round of 16, and I was at a point where I had already two losses from the players from the US and Peru. My standings in the group league was four wins and two losses, and if I was to win the final seventh match, there would be a rematch, but a loss would mean immediate disqualification. Disqualification from the group league was something I had not even considered, and that was a situation that I could not come to terms with. One way or another, I had to overcome the crisis.

My opponent for the last match in order to enter the round of 16 was Dimitar Aleksandrov DIDI8 of Bulgaria. The map was Neo Legacy of Char, and the Bulgarian player picked Protoss. Among foreign players, there were many that expanded at an early timing, while using an expansion-centered play where one would expand in several places. He was also the same. I was at 7 o’clock, he was at 5, and it came to a point where the resources of the map were almost completely used up. With several guerilla maneuvers I tried to strike a blow to my opponent’s base, but with repeated failures of the initial attacks, the situation became more and more difficult. The Bulgarian player blocked my attacks well every time, and continued to expand one by one.

As the game progressed, it only became more disadvantageous for me. It was because after losing all of my units, the situation had developed to where I continued to unfold a precarious strategy with units being produced from my remaining resources, while my opponent defended well and continued to expand. After watching my opponent effortlessly take the starting point of another region, I also attempted to secure another starting point as my own expansion. While trying to advance to the center, I unexpectedly saw the number of my opponent’s zealots and was dumbfounded. I found out about this later, but he had over twenty gateways. With his overflowing resources, he had increased the number of gateways and was pouring out zealots. The moment I saw the zealot troops that had accumulated, I could truly experience the feeling of being pushed to a bleak condition. But this was something I could not give up on. If I typed GG, I would not be able to enter the round of 16 and I would be eliminated. Somehow, I had to push this to a rematch. Was this what a critical and hopeless moment was like?

It was the first time I saw a Protoss produce zealots like zerglings of the Zerg. In the fight at the center, it seemed as if the opponent barely controlled at all, and simply pushed his way through. The number of the zealot troops was immense, but my main units were vultures. By the numbers, I was definitely behind. But with the attacks of the vultures and the splash damage of the mines, it came to a situation where they were killed together by the explosions. My opponent as well as myself entered a state of momentary lull to produce units again. I seized this opportunity to attempt a guerilla attack. Inside his expansion with two vultures, I took out 30 to 40 of the opponent’s probes, destroyed his pylon before the carriers could come out, dropped 3-4 goliaths on the slope to cut off the resources, and continued the guerilla attacks to buy time somehow. It was at a point where the Bulgarian player had already taken two-thirds of the entire map; I had barely used one-fourth of the resources. It now came to where the winner and loser would be determined based on who would take the last remaining starting point. In the end, I was able to take the expansion and pull the hour-long bloody battle to victory.

After the match was over, I was completely exhausted. Though the match was an hour long, I was being dragged along from the start, and because the conditions were bleak throughout the entire match, my strength was depleted even more. While I sat there absent-mindedly, I suddenly heard a sound of a crack. The opponent had broken his keyboard and left. The player afterwards received a warning. How wronged he must have felt, giving away a game that he had won. If I placed myself in his position, I would also have wanted to smash it all, whether it was the keyboard or the computer. If I were to give away a game that I had already won, more than anything else I would have been angry at myself. Like this, I was narrowly able to enter the rematch.

But the road I had to take was still long. The rematch took place that day at the living quarters. The four countries of France, U.S., Bulgaria, and Korea were tied. I lost again to the player from the U.S. It seemed that the foreign players saw right through my strategies. Without any practice partners, I had not been able to practice properly, so I had no choice but to use the strategies from the previous year’s tournament, and the U.S. player had already known the strategies well. After losing to him, it eventually came to a fateful match with the Bulgarian player.

With the dropship, I seized the slope of the opponent’s base and blocked his gathering of minerals, while my opponent had produced dark templars and had broken into my base. If I were to return to defend, the opponent would be able to gather resources, but if I did not go to defend and continued to attack, it seemed that my main base would be destroyed. For a moment I was conflicted, but I decided to continue my attacks. In a word, it was an elimination battle. It came down to who would be killed first. But during that moment, my opponent made a critical error. The turrets should have been destroyed first, but he had only destroyed the turrets in the front, and was attacking other buildings. I did not lose this opportunity and constructed a defensive formation. My opponent’s mistake had pulled me out of the pit and led me to the bright skies. If my opponent had moved in a little further, I would have lost the match. But after the game was over, I was smiling with victory.

As if I had received a compensation for entering the round of 16 with such difficulties, I unexpectedly was able to enter the finals quite easily. The finals was against Hong Jinho Yellow, who I entered the tournament with as a Korean representative. Whether it was because of the thought that the Korean representative team would receive the gold medal no matter who won, my mind was a bit at ease. The result was two consecutive WCG championships – whether it was because I went through the tournament during the difficult time, I was quite moved by the victory. Like this, I was able to show that the ‘Emperor of Terran’ would not crumble so easily, and though I did for a moment step onto the downhill path, I showed that I was able to jump right back to the top.