Lichess4545 League Interview: Meet the Player who Delivers

This week, we are interviewing a league rookie who is a dependable board eight in the team league and also participates in LoneWolf. Can you guess who this player is?

If you guessed @Marco_Chess13, I suppose I must give you a pass. After all, @Marco_Chess13 does fit all of the descriptions that I gave above. However, the player being interviewed is @baberle!

Tell us a bit about yourself and/or your chess play.

I am a 38 year old man. I’ve been happily married for 17 years, have three daughters, a Sheltie dog and Siamese cat. They are my whole world and I work as a UPS driver to take care of them. Big Brown works me excessively but with my precious remaining free time I play chess.

I learned the game as a boy from my titled cousin, played socially in college and now take it seriously as a hobby. After watching the Queens Gambit I began playing correspondence games on chess.com but migrated to live games on Lichess because I think it is much better. Online chess allows me to efficiently play the game I love and connect with other people from around the world.

Counterattacking comes more naturally to me than attacking. Perhaps that is why I prefer to play as black. As a contrarian in spirit I really like to play openings that annoy or bore other people but leave me with an edge. The French Defense seems to fit that mold and has given me my greatest triumphs. However, I find opening prep easy so I’m not beyond learning a new opening to surprise an opponent.

Improvement and general chess command is my main goal. 1800 Lichess ELO would be nice but I dont think I’ll rise much above that. I’ve reached 1600 faster than I anticipated so who knows what the future holds.

Which of your games this season is your favorite?

This game is the best that I have ever played. My opponent also played very well. Typically I have an accuracy of about 85% and ACPL around 50 but this one I scored 97% and 19. I was worried that my opponent would suspect me of cheating because of the outlying performance but they were a good sport. Normally I play the French as black but I came in well prepared and really enjoyed the challenge with white.

Which league player do you most respect?

I respect all the people who have a behind-the-scenes influence on the league. On a personal level though I would probably choose @Flipiflapi. One of my first league games was broadcast on his stream and he was gracious with his comments about my opponent and I (both lower rated players). It was my first experience hearing another person talk about my chess moves and nudged me toward buying into the whole community aspect of the league.

Which league player would you most like to see interviewed in a future edition of the ledger?

May I have a scouting report on each of my Lonewolf rivals?

I think that @tone_fresh would be a good choice. They were kind enough to play a training game with me and go over the results afterwards. I think that they would have some interesting things to say about the human element of chess.

Other good choices would be my teammates @Omertil, @Ivory12, @Nestor3690. We’re not a real chatty bunch but we show up to watch each other‘s games, to celebrate victory and to console each other after defeat.

Please give us a nugget of wisdom.

In life, like chess, I’ve learned it is best to proceed with confidence in myself, in my abilities, in my plans. There will be loss and failure but you will become a much better person, and player, by learning from it. It is important to listen primarily to the voice within you instead of what the crowd is saying. I think it was Tal who said that he began playing poorly when he tried to make the correct moves but when following his intuition he was able to achieve greatness.

Is there anything else that you would like to tell us?

I’m an American who finds the actions of my government abhorrent. So it is refreshing to be able to escape my political environment and meet new people from all over the world. We meet on the neutral battleground of the chessboard where social divisions cease to exist. All that matters is your own character. Your own moves.

How would you react if your opponent suddenly turned into a pumpkin mid-game?

I would report them for stalling then block them. Then I might watch Cinderella with my girls.

Lichess4545 is an online chess league for people who like playing long time control games online. Players are assigned to teams and play one game per week with a 45+45 time control. For more information visit our league home page.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA).
Interview condcuted by @fork2020