ELKY~a brief tale of a French man in Korea

Well, some of you may still be interested as to why is Elky, who has now decided to focus on poker still living in Korea? After all he really isn't playing Starcraft that much considering he is Europe right now.

Most of you already know that Elky came to Korea during the 1st World Cyber Games back in 2002 and he came in second place and stayed in Korea and signed with AMD to play with the Dream Team. He made it on the Starleague twice getting 4th place and got the entire Korean gamer celbrity treatment with a fan club, fan site, recognition on the street, young girls scream his name and stalking him at tournaments and lots of gifts from fans including a weekly supply of Hersey's Chocolate Milk (he has kicked the habit of excessive chocolate milk drinking).

Well, what happened to Elky to make him stay in Korea. Maybe something like that happened to another gamer like Rekrul or Giyom. Korea is kinda like home for Elky now. He can speak Korean enough to get by, and can even conversate online in Korean. He has a long term beautiful Korean girlfriend who can speak Korean, English and Chinese fluently. He is still quite popular and recognized on the street by 100% of starcraft fan which equal about 70% of the Korean population between the ages of 14-28.

Foreigners take to Korea in two ways. Either they look down on everything in Korea and compare it to their home country; dont' bother to learn the language or appreciate the food/culture and end up hanging out in the foreigner areas with English teachers and trashy Korean chicks. or. They learn the language, find a great girlfriend from a good family, meet and get to know Koreans who are sucessful and internationally traveled and they can enjoy Korea for what it is, Korea.
Well good things in Korea that Elky likes:

Korean Night Clubs: it's expensive, but beautiful Korean women get introduced to your table by the waiters and if the introduction goes well, then conversation, drinks and dancing will follow.

Real Fire BBQ at your table: anywhere in Korea, you can eat sliced steak at your table over hot live coals.



So, getting back to Elky, Korean people adore him, they think he is polite, good looking and very skillful. Yet, the live of a Pro Gamer in Korea is brutally tough and for a while, Elky was on top of the Korean gaming scene, he was feared for his mass expansion strats. But, when poeple are practicing 8 hours a day and reviewing your replays; it gets signficantly tougher in that, even if you put your heart into it, the amount of effort you put in may amount to just a very minor improvement.

Of course the top players do that, but Elky as a French Man in Korea does prefer the finer things in life and came to a conclusion that he could play 8 hours of starcraft and still lose or play 8 hours of poker online and win 3k for the day. mmm...there are differences. To be the best player in starcraft, you'll make about 500k in total of salary and endorsements per year, but to be the 15th best player in starcraft you'll be lucky to make 2k a month in salary without endorsements.

Now that Elky's been in Korea for about 3 years now, he has a place where he shares with his other pro gaming pal, the legendary Giyom Patry "Grrr...." and also hangs out with his many Korean starcraft buddy like Rex.Spunky who just got ets from the Korean army.
Win or lose in Vienna or even winning it all at Monte Carlo, Elky has his home in Korea and will be return back at the end of March.