Zhihao ‘Hao’ Chen is a Chinese 26-year-old top Dota 2 player from Longmen, Guangdong. In the world of esports, he is better known by his alias Hao who used to play the carry position for the Newbee team.
The Chinese Dota community named him General Hao for he is the most aggressive in his game plays. In the country’s pop culture, walnuts are similar to the shape of a brain which is believed to calm your mind when you eat these type of nuts. As Hao was Newbee’s carry, in several games he had the impulse to dive in killing his opponents. Every time Chen played aggressively, the Dota community tell him to eat walnuts to calm down.
Where it all began:
Hao began competing professionally with Tyloo in 2011, where his first match was TI1, where the squad ranked in the tenth place.
In Chen’s gaming career, he has joined several Dota 2 teams like Nirvana.cn, TyLoo, Pandarea, Tongfu, Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming, acquiring the skills and abilities to be one of the top players. Hao was known to be very enthusiastic and intense while competing in LAN competitions.
The Team:
Newbee is a Chinese esports association that was founded in 2014. The company have various squads that specialise in different games like Hearthstone, League of Legends and Dota 2.
When Newbee attended The International 2014, the Dota squad set a new Guinness World Record for winning the biggest prize in esports of an overwhelming $5 million at the time.
Competition Participation:
Competing with Team Newbee, he attended the World Cyber Arena 2014 beating Cloud 9 winning $322K and the Nanyang Dota 2 Championships Season 2, beating Wings Gaming, taking home a prize of $100K.
When Hao was with Vici Gaming, he took part in i-league Season 3 and beat Invictus Gaming at the StarLadder StarSeries Season 12 taking home a reward of $67K.
Winnings:
In the history of Hao’s gaming career, he has participated in every TI tournament that was organised. The greatest achievement in Chen’s professional career was with Newbee winning the TI4 against Vici Gaming becoming the Dota 2 Champions of 2014 taking home the prize of a spectacular $5 million.
After TI6, Hao announced on his social media that he was going to leave competitive Dota and possibly retire.