Hour 1: a practice league game and 2 ranked matches

I've chose Terran as my race and I played a couple of games against the AI to start to learn how the game works. I picked up 3 Rax All-in as my first build since I feel that in any game, if you can't handle cheese plays, you won't be able to learn the rest of the game.

I practiced a few (4-5) games against the AI and then headed out for my first ever practice league game against a real opponent.

I was crushed.

My problem is that I practiced using 2 player maps. I simply couldn't find my opponent on the 4 player maps that the practice league uses and by the time I did, I had already lost. I decided to skip the rest of the league and play a couple of real ranked games under the assumption that THOSE would be 1v1 maps. I lost twice again because I couldn't find anyone.

Time to learn what this scouting thing is all about...

The challenge

I have never played a game of starcraft 2 against another player. I have only played the solo campaign for a couple of hours total. The last RTS game I played for more than a couple of hours was Dune II.

Having said all this, I keep seeing references to SC2 videos on Reddit and, after clicking on a few, they look like a lot of fun. I was inpired by this story: golf


Thus, this challenge: <b>can a total RTS noob make it to the Platinum league in less than 100 hours of video-watching, reading forums and deliberate, concentrated practice?</b>

I am going to log all the hours I spend playing/reading/watching the game as well as discussing my overall strategy. Stay tuned!