Behind the Avatar - Champion
Hello! Welcome back to Behind the Avatar (credit to @Witch31415 for the name)! I'm your host, @TheAuthorOfChickens. In this series, we get to know more about some of the people on social!
Today we're interviewing @Champion.
Me: Welcome to the third interview of Behind the Avatar. How are you doing today?
Champion: Great!
Me: Awesome! Let's get started. What's your name?
Champion: Ask @Jared (Disclosed Information)
Me: Hello Ask @Jared! I'm Author- (jk I'll be serious). What are some of your hobbies?
Champion: Playing chess...
Champion: And I love blundering my queen when my mouse slips away...jk
Me: lol. Makes sense as we're on a chess site. So, Champion, why did you choose the username you did?
Champion: My old one or my current one? I choose 'Champion' because I was bored and asked in cvc what I should change my username to and guess who answered. @carlsen who said @Champion and I agreed.
Me: Yes, your current one. And I think I missed that vote. You should've changed to @TheAuthorOfChampion fr. Staying on the topic of usernames, what is the history of your username? Has it been changed? Has it been the same this whole time?
Champion: You did miss the vote indeed. So it used to be @pl122 which I believe is yet to be taken and I choose that username because pl stands for Poland and some random number 123 fr
Me: That's an interesting reason to choose your username. Now, are you the type of person who changes their pfp a lot or do you like to stick with the same one? Also, why did you choose your current pfp?
Champion: I stick to my pfp and basically never change maybe I'll forget to change it or Ia m to lazy to press 2 buttons... Well I choose this pfp as I just searched online chess and I found this nice picture and boom I had it forever and carlsen stole my pfp basically making a trend, the guy who also stole the changing usernames to inactive ones trend...
Me: Seems like something Carlsen would do. Well, now everyone knows who really started the trend so I guess this is revenge lol (guys we're talking about @carlsen not the grandmaster) Moving on, do you own any clubs? If so, tell me a bit about them.
Champion: I used to own a club called The REAL Winners, but quickly abandoned it and you can no longer find it. In this club I met a friend (who's username is controversial) and I basically joined his club as admin if he helped my club, then I joined other clubs like CVC, Ge-Winners and Brilliant Bishops or something like that. Currently I am SA in the club iCHESS which is a nice club, both active and chess related, which was created in 2007 by @youare9 who never came back (atleast did not delete it altogether). It is now a club with over 6500 members with more than 50% of members coming by natural growth.
Me: Interesting club history. I was going to ask you if you have a staff position in any clubs, but I think you already answered that with iCHESS. Feel free to add to the list, but otherwise I'd like to know what the first big club you joined is and how you found it.
Champion: I have staff position in the following clubs: Super Admin: iCHESS, Youssef's Official Fan Club; Admin: Road 2 GM, Team United Kingdom; Coord: The United Chess Nations, Chess.com vs. ChessKid
Me: Nice.
Champion: The 1st big club was I think either Road 2 GM, CVC or Ge-Winners
Champion: I joined CVC in October 20th 2023 if I remember correctly
Champion: MY bad November 21st
Champion: And I joined Road 2 GM in December 2nd 2023, so it's either CVC which I think was a 500 member club at the time or Ge-Winners which I left and I recall another club which I don't remember clearly, something like Brilliant/Bishops
Me: I'm too lazy to check so I'll just assume you're right lol. Let's start wrapping this up. What would you say is your greatest achievement on Chess.com?
Champion: MY greatest achievement on chess.com. That's hard to say. Maybe reaching 1800 bullet, or 1700 rapid and 1500 blitz, or just joining clubs and now almost having 200 daily games ongoing. Or having more achievements than in this speedrun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRn605dmj-s. I don't know you decide...
Me: All of those are great candidates. Out of these options, for me, your ratings are the greatest achievement. We're almost done. Are there any blogs/clubs/people you would like to shoutout, and if so what/who are they?
Champion: @Jared being my 1st online friend, @lukemaspace for inviting me to chess.com and all the 20s of other people who helped me to get to where I am.
Champion: Oh and my blog https://www.chess.com/blog/championgrenade
Champion: Final question is:
Me: Do you have anything else to say before we wrap it up?
Champion: I am in an elo race against @carlsen in rapid to reach 2000 elo. Anyone wanna help me get 2000 before him? See ya and peace... *closes account for good*
Champion: Someday...
Me: I'll be sad if you ever leave, but I won't try to stop you. Thank you for your time, and that wraps us up! Remember to eat food, breathe, and watch Top Gun! Cya!
Champion: Wait before you post, NEVER WATCH TOP GUN...Jk
Champion: Farewell @Jared
