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About me, @LibreChessChicken!

LibreChessChicken

6 Jul 20251,030 viewsEnglish (US)

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The extended "bio page".

About me:

I'm a free software enthusiast, privacy advocate, Linux supporter, animal lover, chess geek/nerd and Zen mode user. My friends call me by "friendly wise chicken" or "cool coding chicken" :D

I will not reveal personal information, like my name or age on Lichess. Just know that I am over 15, as I am a blog creator who follows Lichess rules.

I have been on Lichess for quite a long time without an account, and even after creating this one (which is the only one I have at the moment) I didn't start playing (standard) chess seriously before quite some time. My favorite player is Bobby Fischer, although Atomic chess is my favorite variant. I also play on PyChess from time to time.

For my username, I wanted something generic with the text "Lichess". I found that impossible, so spelt "Lichess" as "LibreChess" instead, as the "Li" in "Lichess" stands for "Libre" (or "Light/Lite"). Then I chose another word that would finish my username, and I found "Chicken" to be an interesting nickname. I love animals, and since I had pet chickens ever since a kid, I loved chickens, so that's how I ended up becoming "LibreChessChicken".

For anyone curious, I love chickens so much because they helped me recognize how much animals are suffering, and gave me the dream to fight for a better world, not just for humans, but for all living beings, to end torture and exploitative animal labors everywhere. I'm not entirely vegan yet, as although I desire to become one, acknowledging the health benefits associated with vegan diets, the reduction of pollution, but I'm also not entirely certain that veganism will be a solution to ending animal torture and factory farming.

Following the recent death of Windows 10, I have been trying to help people regain control over their devices with Linux, while extending their lifespans at the same time. If you are interested in switching to Linux, or just curious, please drop a message!

For those wanting a more private method of communication, connect via SimpleX Chat, which is the first messenger without any user IDs, even random identifiers. It's free (as in both freedom and cost), open-source, and available for most major platforms, both desktop and mobile. Connect to me directly with this link, or join my (currently empty) group.

This blog post was last updated on Nov 19, 2025.

My favorite chess pieces, best to worst:

For Standard chess:

The Knight: The most flexible and unique piece on the board. Always on the lookout for a smothered mate.
The Pawn: The most weakest, but most important pieces! No wonder somebody created a variant where you capture all your opponent's pawns to win! Also, pawns are the most strangest pieces, as they promote to a queen (the only feminine piece on the board).
The Bishop: It's extremely powerful, and in some cases vastly superior to the knight. It can pin stuff, there are cool sacrifices, you can create discovery attacks with it, and it's amazing in the endgames. I consider it the cold, yet cool guy that sees the world (or board) his own way.
The King: The biggest coward, that only moves his fat butt when his wife is gone, and the endgame starts. He's not fast at any rate, trust me.
The Rook: An invaluable piece in the endgames!! This should be way up in the list, not here at #2.. from the bottom. :(
The Queen: A piece that lives up to it's name of the most powerful piece on the board, but at times it can be a sword you'll never use, especially if it's babysitting other pieces. It's good at defending the d-pawn anyway, lol!

For Atomic chess:

The Queen: You cannot ignore that you can easily checkmate your opponent with just your queen.
The Knight: Stronger than ever in this crazy variant, leaping around with death in their eyes! Knights rule, if they ever didn't.
The Pawn: A piece with a will to live, a desire to survive, yet as deadly as the queen when used as a weapon. These are the backbones of the game, the walls that provide protection, yet the first to break through the enemies ramparts.
The Rook: It is a strong piece that provides shelter for the king, and also a great threat for the opponent.
The Bishop: It's strong on the diagonals, if anyone doubted that. Also useful for killing off horseys... sorry.
The King: Well, kings can touch each other, almost as if they have never been fighting. Actually, they're scared as shit that they will blow up along with the enemy king.

My favorite chess variants, best to worst:

Variants available on Lichess:

Standard: I've decided to stop playing Atomic and playing Rapid games instead, which was a great decision. See my favorite openings, patterns, or games below.
Atomic: You can blow things up, man! What more can you wish for? This was my favorite game until I started to play more standard games, and when I learned that I can stop sucking at chess, and that I still suck in Atomic, like getting my king blown up in three or four moves.
Three-check: This variant is for those insane persons who like to give checks for no other reason than giving a check. Insanely fun, but complex. All my family members likes this variant, and I used to have easy wins with this, but now, I see how tricky it is, especially with the knights.
Antichess: Go on, take my pieces, one by one, and no exceptions. It's fun to plan ahead doom for the opponent, but it sucks when you are stuck following their orders.
Horde: Why isn't this a FIDE approved game? The challenges of this variant seem as much as, or even, in some cases, more special than those of Chess960, and this should definitely be a favorite of those who wants to improve their chess skills using different positions and armies. Come on FIDE bro, I'm waiting.
King of the Hill: This is just normal chess, or is it? There is this one huge twist to the game. You can just let your king waddle out towards the middle of the board and, uh... win. That new rule makes the old game very exciting, as it isn't often you get to checkmate your opponent's king in the center, or you get to just do that, waddle your king out.
Racing Kings: It's hard to decide between keeping your pieces, or advancing your king.
Crazyhouse: Shogi took away some of it's luster, but I still like this variant. But I lose a lot because I play standard games, lol.
Chess960: Sorry Bobby Fischer, but my brain will explode if I play that, as I have a low IQ!

Classical games:

Shogi: A great favorite! Crazyhouse? Nah, that's no fun.
Chaturaji: My favorite on ~Chess.com~ once! It's surprisingly... fun when the board is so crowded? I guess.
Janggi: Feels a bit old, but makes a bit more sense than the "original" Chinese XiangQi. Good and balanced game, from what I think.
XiangQi: Ok, this feels very creative, and I really enjoy this.
Chaturanga: Meh.
Makruk: The last time I tried this, this was boring as hell. But that was before I could play "good" chess, so my say doesn't counts.

Other games:

Flang!

My favorite time control systems, best to worst:

Rapid: Best for everyone, at anytime! I used to regularly play in the rapid 8+0 Team Battles by @kombinator02, but I play 10+5 games now.
Blitz: Quicker games than Rapid, but still playable with increments. I enjoy playing games with time controls like 5+3 or 7+1.
Correspondence: It's great to be able to play multiple games at once, without any pressure! I lost my first correspondence game because I was actually playing a blitz game in my mind. Nowadays, I just use it to practice chess, without having to stare at the board while the opponent thinks, or most likely, get checkmated because I was afraid to lose on time, but I could checkmate the opponent in like 2 moves. And this actually happened once or twice.
Classical: More time to think, but a bit boring at times, and annoying if the opponent decides to wait and not resign. One time I even lost on time, for a 30+0 game... Wait, what?!
Bullet: It's more challenging, and restricts you from thinking. I don't really like it much.
Unlimited: My advice: don't play it. Do you really want to play games where the opponent can just leave the game forever, in position where they are lost, and never come back, ever again?
UltraBullet: This isn't chess. There is no more to be said, period. Don't ever play this. This is just a game to play any legal moves, and forcing your opponents to make specific moves, like getting out of checks. It will not help your chess, at all.

My favorite openings:

Openings I love:

King's Gambit: The best white oppening ever, and my favorite opening of all time. That is a fact.
King's Indian Defense: The best black openings ever. I don't care for which setup the opponent goes to, I just need one defense to rule them all, and on the board, bind them. I also love the slightly more balanced, agressive Grünfeld Defense as it it full of tactics and strategies, and the Pirc Defense as we get to play the King's Indian Defense, but with e4. One strange point of the Pirc is that you can sometimes get to trade queens, and forcing white away from castling.
Scandanavian defense: I love that it feels so nonchalant playing this, and also how solid this is. On Oct 5 of 2025, I was playing the Scandanavian, and won the first, second, third, lost one game, the fourth, and won the fifth. The next day was still a happy day, with wins like this.
Pegasus Opening: d2 is the correct square for the queen's knight.
Ruy Lopez: My main go-to until the discovery of the King's Gambit in 2025.
The Caro Kann Defense as Black: Solid and strong opening. I never actually studied it, but is able to get good positions, so I really like it.

Openings I like:

The French Defense as Black: Similar to the Caro Kann, but games turn out very differently.
The Queen's Gambit as White: Well, the King's Gambit made me stop playing this.
Alekhine's Defense as Black: Um, all I can say is that I had a few absurd wins with it!
The Alien Gambit and the Martian Gambit for White (Caro-Kann Variation): This seems fun and exciting! Giving up piece for better positions is just what I'm here for!

My thoughts on openings, A - Z

Alekhine's Defense: It feels so good to play this opening, as it has style and uniqueness. 4/5
Bongcloud Opening: Woah. I'm not sure what to think. 1000/5 if played perfectly.
Caro-Kann Defense: A solid yet strong opening for black. 4.5/5
Scandinavian Defense: I found from experience that opponents tend to be overly aggresive as they tend to undermine you for messing with queen moves at an early stage. As a result, I found quite a few hanging pieces that I could pick up, and also had decent games with normal developing moves. Just play developing moves or sensible moves might be a good tip, and personally I found blunder rates are relatively low for Scandanavian games. With an open d-file, it iss a really exciting opening that leads to games of variety of colors, whether you castle king-side or queen-side, nothing can go very wrong! 4.5/5
Colle System: Solid opening that guarranties blunder prevention. 4/5
Four Knights Opening: Nothing bad to be said, it's a well-balanced position for both sides. 3/5
French Defense: Exciting opening. 3.5/5
Giuoco Piano, or the Italian Game: Best opening for beginners, solid yet strong, with gambits along the way. 3.5/5
Grob Opening: An absolute must-play for the dare-devil White players. 5/5 for style points.
King's Gambit: A very old and popular opening. Boby Fischer and Boris Spassky have played this. The only problem: e5 is not guaranteed, and sometimes you get totally different games. 4.5/5
King's Indian Defense: Black might have trouble at fighting back, but it's a solid opening that anyone can play. 4/5
Larsen's Opening: Stronger than it looks! 3.5/5
Orangutan: Never actually played it, but I've always remembered it after learning about it. 4/5
Pegasus System, which puts the Knight on d2 after the d4 push. Solid opening to play with the CCTO (Checks Captures Threats Optimise) mindset. Maybe it's just the Colle System? 4/5
Petroff Defense: Can lead to pretty interesting games. 3.5/5
Pirc Defense: King's Indian Defense for e4. Can lead to familiar games, or even more tasteful ones. 4.5/5
Queen's Gambit: It's a recommended opening to study tactical and strategical ideas.4.5/5
Ruy Lopez: It's a bit firey than the Italian Game, while we can always return to the familiar positions by a bishop move. 4.5/5
Scotch Opening: Knight in the center? It has style! 4/5
Sicilian Defense: Balanced forces on the center squares, this is one of the strongest ways black can respond to white's e4. 4.5/5
Two Knights Defense: It's similar to the Italian Game, but I prefer this, as I don't want to have the opponent play the Evans Gambit on me. 3.5/5

My tips playing chess:

Moved to a seperate blog post.

My friends on Lichess:

My respects to:

@Lichess, thanks for existing, and being the best chess website. We love you!!
@thibault, thanks for developing Lichess, and huge respects for keeping it free forever!! I hope we can meet someday... it would be a great honor.
Every awesome person who helped make Lichess and everything else possible, devs, mods, players alike!
@TotalNoob69, or @Siderite for the Lichess Tools browser extension/add-on to turbocharge lichess, and especially since Prettier Lichess works alongside it.
@FiveKnights, team leader of Vegan Players. Thank you for graciously offering me moderating permissions and public leadership!
@WatcherKing, @GrandChickenKing's dad.

I miss you:

~~@BatatasFritas~~, "nacionel master, fries lover". I miss you! Please return to Lichess and to our friendship! The actual first member in the LibreChessChickens team.
@gismo444
@TickTockGod
@Alpha_2013

Best friends:

@GrandChickenKing, leader of a the Chess Chickens Club. Organizes awesome tournaments for the chickens on lichess!
@borademir2014, one of the earliest member in my team that got many members, and a long-time friend.
@A0Coolboycolombo, we have fun with random chats.
@chesspanda6, who is interested in Linux and often chats with me on SimpleX. Thanks for mentioning me in your blog as a "cool coding chicken"!
@JustChess140, we have nice chat often.
@Army_Girl_2010. Thanks for mentioning me in your blog as a "friendly wise chicken"!
@AhnJinGoo, my favorite opponent.
@Borntowin12, a strong opponent.
@MutedTactics, check out his awesome blog!

Special thanks to:

The 100+ member of the LibreChessChickens team!
The 100+ people who are following me.
Everyone who I've randomly met and who have shown me a bit of kindness, been friends with me, or those with now-deleted accounts.
And lastly, you, who are reading this right now. If you feel that you deserve a place on this list, let me know!

My favorite teams:

My team, the LibreChessChickens. Feel free to join!
Chess Chickens Club, the partner team to the LibreChessChickens. Or should I say the OG team?
Vegan Players. A team with a purpose, unlike the others.
L1Chess Tools Users Team. Yeah, I use Lichess Tools.
Linux. I love Linux, with, or without GNU.
Study Resource Team
Study Creators & Friends: It's a good way to know what's happening in the chess world. Keep up the good work, study creators!

My favorite chess resources:

I'm not sponsored by anyone. I just personally think these are great, or fun. Please let me know what I've missed.
@Siderite has left some good recommendations in the comments as well. Check them out.

YouTube channels by titled or high-rated players:

Invidious redirect links were used instead of YouTube links. Sorry, YouTubers.

GM Igor's Remote Chess Academy.
IM Levy's GothamChess.
IM Eric Rosen's channel.
NM Nelson's Chess Vibes.
NM Robert Ramirez's channel.
GMHikaru's channel.
ChesswithAkeem.
Pegasus Chess.

Books or e-books:

The Complete Book of Chess Strategy, Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z, by IM Jeremy Silman.

Some random videos:

2 Chess RULES To Think Like A Grandmaster by Remote Chess Academy.
8 RULES To Think & Calculate Like A Grandmaster by Remote Chess Academy.
Playlist King's Indian Defense: Step by Step by NM Robert Ramirez. This dives deep into various setups in the King's Indian Defense.
Chess Feels Easy Once You Use This Thinking System by Journey to Grandmaster.
I wasted years losing at chess, until I learned this, I wasted years playing chess the wrong way, until I learned this and other videos by Pegasus Chess.
This Opening Will SKYROCKET Your Chess Elo by GothamChess. King's Indian Defense just got a 10x upgrade!
CRUSH People with the Scandinavian Defense! by GothamChess. Playing as black is easy now. E4? Scandanavian. D4? Grünfeld. Always d5, easy!

Gallery:

Images of the original fairy-chess piece, the Chicken.

Ending this blog post:

Your support means a lot to me, even if it's just a like, or a share! Comment your thoughts and mention "@LibreChessChicken" so that I'll get notified. Follow me for future posts, or subscribe to my blog's RSS feed. Thank you so much for reading this until the end! Cheers.

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