Ex-Pro and Free to Play Star hyhy Regrets Studying Instead of Focusing on Dota

Every gamer’s dream is to play all-day, even if it means sacrificing your school. Former player hyhy from Scythe had the option, but chose schooling anyways.

Benedict “hyhy” Lim of Singapore was a rising star for Dota 2, especially in the first The International. He was regarded as a prodigy after he and his team shocked the world with their performance in the 2011 Dota 2 tournament where they managed to get a top 3 — a huge win for SEA as they were facing the biggest names from different sides of the world.

Following Benedict’s TI debut, he has had multiple opportunities under his name. Following the second TI however, he decided to quit Dota and focus more on his studies– a decision he is now regretting.

“I regret that I didn’t give up my studies earlier,” hyhy told.

Currently, Lim is under the management of Emerge Esports who also has one of Dota’s legends, Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier as part of its pool of talents.

The Free to Play star also said that he had fun shooting for the documentary, although he mentioned that it exaggerated some of the stories in order to put up some drama on the story.

In the said movie, it was boasted by Benedict’s family that he was an ace student — a very good one who has always had high scores in school. They also said that Dota was the one who was holding him down from being successful.

All these are part of hyhy’s narrative on the movie, including chasing for his ex-girlfriend, and for his Dota 2 dream simultaneously.

“Rewatching Free to Play just gives me a lot of bittersweet memories,” the former pro told in an interview.

“It reminded me of the good times where I was playing and competing.” he added.

In the same interview, hyhy also revealed that the movie despite having a happy ending for him was not the real case for him at the moment.

“We broke up last year. We were supposed to get married, it was a good 13 years, but it’s over. We both decided we were not suited for marriage, that’s it,” Benedict said. This is contrary to the show’s ending for his narrative where he and his girlfriend ended back together.

Hyhy revealed that if he was given the chance to redo his choices, he would focus more on playing Dota, specifically pursuing it to the max.

Following hyhy’s bittersweet TI runs, he decided to change his game and tried to shift to League of Legends and joined Joshua “ToFuBoi” Tan Jun Liang, his former teammate.

“I actually decided on LoL because I was just one year away from serving national service. I had already given Dota so many years, and I was really disappointed with my performance at TI1 and TI2, so I decided to give it another start with a different game.” he said.

His run in the game did not last long as he quickly rejoined the Dota 2 scene only to permanently quit in 2017.

Being a retired player now, hyhy admits that he still wants to get involved in the scene even at the slightest chance.

“If you want to have success in whatever you do, you need to be really committed. I didn’t allow myself to go to sleep until I perfected something. It requires a lot of commitment to correct your own mistakes, to watch your own replays and analyze what needs to be done. In esports, a lot of it comes down to your analytical skills.” Benedict stressed, emphasizing that an aspiring pro needs to invest more time on himself.

He also added that if you were committed, it’s better spend your time on school. “I see a lot of younger teenagers who spend a lot of time gaming. The thing is, you have to be true to yourself, you should only do this if you have talent. Otherwise, your time could be better spent on studying.”

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