Ken
Ken Hoang
Ken Hoang at the Survivor Finale showing, at CBS Studios, Los Angeles, California
Status	Active
Date of birth	(1985-10-10) October 10, 1985 (age 30)
Hometown	Westminster, California
Current team	Team Liquid
League	Major League Gaming Evolution Championship Series
Games	Super Smash Bros. Melee Project M
Nickname(s)	SephirothKen LiquidKen

Ken Hoang (born October 10, 1985) is an American professional electronic sports player who plays Super Smash Bros. Melee. In the competitive gaming community, he is known simply as Ken or by his gamer tags SephirothKen and LiquidKen. Ken plays Marth in Melee and is known for his comparatively aggressive style of play. His dominance with the character has led to his becoming the namesake of the "Ken Combo", an effective combo used in gameplay.^[1] Ken is also known by the nickname, the King of Smash.^[1]

Hoang was the 2004-2005 national champion of Major League Gaming, the 2007 international champion of Evolution Championship Series (EVO) World Finals,^[2][3] and was the highest ranked Super Smash Bros. Melee player in the United States. He was also the world champion for several years, having defeated reputable players from around the globe, including top Japanese players.

Hoang possesses the highest major tournament win-to-loss ratio of any Super Smash Bros. Melee player from 2003 to 2007.^[4] His three years of dominance earned him the nickname "The King of Smash" within the community.^[3] His primary character in the game is Marth, and his secondary is Fox. He received minor television coverage in MTV's True Life: I'm a Professional Gamer, and received further coverage in the fall of 2006 after MLG arrived on cable television.^[5] Ken retired in 2006. In 2012, he officially returned to the Melee scene. In 2014 he and fellow Melee veteran Daniel "KoreanDJ" Jung joined Team Liquid as the team's first Smash Bros. players.^[6]

Hoang was a contestant on Survivor: Gabon, which aired in the fall of 2008. He was the fifth place finisher, and sixth member of the jury.

Smash Bros. career[edit]

Hoang started playing Super Smash Bros. when it was released for the Nintendo 64, but never competed in an organized tournament for the game. When Super Smash Bros. Melee was released for the Nintendo GameCube, Ken initially did not enjoy it, but the game grew on him after a period of a few months.^{[citation needed]} By the time he attended his first tournament, he already built up a reputation in his town as the best Smash player. This tournament differed from most later Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments in that matches were free-for-all matches between four players rather than a 1 vs 1 match. The other players teamed up against Hoang to eliminate him.^[7]

In 2003, he competed in his first major tournament, part of the Tournament Go (TG) series, one of the first major Melee tournament series. In this, the fourth installment of the tournament series, Hoang won the singles (1 vs 1) tournament and lost in the doubles (2 vs 2) tournament to the winners of the first two TG tournaments.^[7][8]

Seven months later, in August 2003, Hoang attended and won TG5. This was the first tournament where he partnered with Joel Isai "Isaiah" Alvarado (otherwise known as "Malva00") for doubles in a team known as El Chocolate Diablo. Their victory in the doubles tournament started a two-and-a-half year winning streak. They won every doubles tournament they entered until MLG Chicago in July 2006, where they were defeated by Azen and Chillindude829 in the finals and received second place. However, they reclaimed their title later that year in August at MLG Orlando where they defeated Azen and Chillindude829 6-3 in the finals.^[9]

For the next two years, he continued to win nearly every competition he entered. The worst loss he ever garnered in his competitive career was in August 2004 at TG6 where he placed 9th out of approximately 128 competitors. He traveled to Japan several times and defeated top players such as Aniki, Captain Jack, Masashi, Bombsoldier, Korius, and Mikael in the summer of 2005 and 2006.^[10]

Ken retired from competitive play in 2008. Although retired, he was regarded as one of the top players long after his departure from the tournament scene.^[2] In September 2006, Ken was nominated in "The Dangerous Five" as one of "The World's Most Dangerous Gamers" by Electronic Gaming Monthly, in which he was called "The Duper" for his fast, smart, and aggressive play.^[11]

Hoang returned to the game in 2012 after a five year hiatus and placed 33rd in Kings of Cali. He has since attended several additional tournaments most recently the EVO 2013 where he placed 49th out of 696 participants, then the Smash tournament with the largest number of entrants in history.

In 2013, Hoang's career was profiled in the documentary series The Smash Brothers.^[1][12] At the end of the year, Ken was ranked in the final spot at 100th in Melee it on Me's 2013 SSBMRank listing of the best Melee players.^[13]

On March 18, 2014, Team Liquid announced that Hoang and KDJ would be joining their new Super Smash Bros. team.^[14] Ken rose to 58th in the 2014 SSBMRank.^[15]

At Apex 2015 Ken finished 81st. At Apex he also played PC Chris in a Salty Suite exhibition match and lost 3-2.^[16]

At EVO 2015 Ken finished 13th, his highest placing a major since Super Champ Combo in 2007.

Notable tournament placings[edit]

Melee[edit]

Project M[edit]

Personal life[edit]

Hoang's family is Vietnamese.^[1] Ken attended California State University, Long Beach where he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration.^[19] He credits his earnings from playing Super Smash Bros Melee for financing him through college.

Survivor: Gabon[edit]

In August 2008 it was announced that Hoang would be appearing on Survivor on the American television network CBS.^[20][21] He stated that he believed he was the underdog but hoped that it would garner him popular support.^[20]

Hoang was chosen to join the Fang tribe in the first episode when Danny "GC" Brown picked him. Fang was weaker than the opposing Kota tribe in challenges, losing five of the first six immunity challenges, and Hoang was in danger of elimination several times during the pre-merge stage of the game. He formed an early bond with fellow Fang castaway Michelle Chase,^[22] who ended up being the first person voted off. During the second Tribal Council, he was a target for elimination by Gillian Larson, but was spared as the rest of the tribe saw Larson as the weaker player. Hoang won the first immunity challenge for Fang, in which his puzzle-solving skills were pitted against physics teacher Bob Crowley of the Kota tribe. Though Kota was in the lead at the end of the first section of the challenge, which allowed Crowley a head start in solving his puzzle, Hoang solved the puzzle first and saved his tribe from Tribal Council.

Hoang made the merge and was in the merged tribe, named Nobag, a phrase he coined himself.^[23] He was the fifth place finisher, and sixth member of the jury. He voted for Susie Smith in the final Tribal Council, who placed second.^[24]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Ken Hoang biography for Survivor: Gabon at CBS.com

Super Smash Bros. series Games Super Smash Bros. Melee Brawl 3DS / Wii U Developers HAL Laboratory Sora Ltd. Masahiro Sakurai Game Arts Bandai Namco Entertainment Fan games Project M Super Smash Flash Super Smash Bros. Crusade Super Smash Land Community SmashBoards Evolution Championship Series Apex The Smash Brothers