Exclusive Interview: The Voice behind the Lichess Countdowns

PRESENTER: Good evening, and thank you for joining us.

VOICE: Thank you, I just love this podcast

PRESENTER: Great to hear that. I guess the first thing I have to ask is what your name is.

VOICE: Hey hey, this is Lichess. I go by an anonymous handle that has no relation to my identity or personality. I’m Nigel3576e891.

PRESENTER: Okay Nigel35-

NIGEL3576e891: You can call me Nige.

PRESENTER: Okay Nige. I'll start by asking how you came to be the countdown voice at Lichess.

NIGE: Yeah, it’s a bit of a long story. You see, I started out as a student supplementing my income doing voiceovers on a local radio station. That got me noticed by an advertising agency and I became flavour of the month voicing radio ads. But it wasn’t the most stable work and I couldn’t have been more delighted to be headhunted by FIDE and taken on as official voiceover artist for sponsors of global chess. I became really good at making some incredibly dodgy and unethical people sound like angels.

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And back to the interview. You were working for FIDE- sounds great! What happened next?

NIGE: I was in [REDACTED] when they hosted a major international tournament. I was just about to introduce the President of the country at the Opening Ceremony- remember that guy who did the [REDACTED] thing on his opponents? Yeah, well I was on my way to the stage when I got called into a darkened room and was told that I’d been saved by the evangelical anti-advertising wing of Lichess.

PRESENTER: Who?

NIGE: That’s what I said. They explained that Lichess isn’t just a charity that supports chess, it also works to save people from the trappings of advertising. One of the ways they do that is to take people out of harmful roles in the industry and give them a way to use their skills in Lichess itself. So now I count down to the start of tournaments hundreds of times each day, and I love it.

PRESENTER: Hundreds of times each day?

NIGE: Yes, I sit in my comfy office curled up with a good chess book and a cup of coffee, and every now and again a bell goes to say that there’s a tournament about to start in 20 seconds time. I take the microphone and start the countdown. Then back to my book.

PRESENTER: But there are tournaments starting all the time, like 24 hours, 7 days a week.

NIGE: Isn’t it brilliant? It’s so much fun.

PRESENTER: How do you stay awake?

NIGE: That’s what the coffee and chess books are for. I’m on My System at the moment. Reading it for the 17th time. So stimulating!

PRESENTER: I see. Have you ever thought of recording it so that Lichess can just play it when a tournament starts?

NIGE: NO! DELETE THAT! DO NOT BROADCAST THAT! Lichess must never replace me with a recording or a robot or anything. I don’t wanna go back to FIDE!

PRESENTER: I was just thinking it would save some effort-

NIGE[hysterically]: Not going back to FIDE. I love Lichess too much!

PRESENTER: and let you sleep a bit-

[BELL RINGS]

NIGE: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3......

PRESENTER: Hello?

[SILENCE]

PRESENTER: And that was our interview with this week’s hero, the woman behind Lichess countdown voice, Nigel3576e891. Join us again next week when I’ll be talking to the hero who writes Ben Finegold’s jokes for him.