LOVE STORY CHAPTER 1

People often say that true love finds you when you least expect it.

For most of my life, I never believed that saying.

Not because I hated romance, but because I considered myself a realist. Love wasn't something you stumbled upon by accident. It wasn't waiting around

the corner for the right moment. It certainly wasn't hiding behind a chessboard.

If someone had told me years ago,

"You'll meet the love of your life on Lichess."

I probably would have laughed.

Not because Lichess isn't an incredible place..

It is the place..

I've met talented players there, passionate communities, and people who dedicate countless hours to mastering one of the oldest games in history.

But finding true love?

That sounded crazy impossible

Think about it

Every day, roughly one hundred forty thousand people play on Lichess. At first glance, that seems like a huge number.

Until you compare it with the world's population.

Then it becomes almost nothing

Narrow it down even further?

Though I play standard chess as former Regional Chess Champion

I got bored and decided to play Horde

On most days, only around six hundred people play Horde, Some only play one game before leaving. Some use Zen Mode and never interact with anyone.

Some can't chat.. Others simply enjoy their games and disappear

The pool becomes smaller and smaller

Then remember that Lichess is overwhelmingly male

The odds shrink again

If statistics alone decided our lives, finding the person you would eventually spend years loving through a niche chess variant would be considered nearly

hecky impossible

And if that person didn't even regularly play your own variant?

The numbers become so absurd that they're almost meaningless

And Ironically, that's exactly where I was

I wasn't searching for a relationship for real

Wasn't hoping to meet someone either

Outside of chess, I had work that demanded most of my time. Horde was simply my quiet escape, a place where, for an hour or two, ratings mattered more
than these dramatic deadlines..

My routine rarely changed at all for years my readers

I'd log in around the same time each morning

Play a game and then maybe two

Then close the browser and continue with life

Just living comfortable but also not that easy ..

If someone had asked me then whether I believed in soulmates, I would have answered no without hesitation

I thought "the right person" was just another romantic idea people liked to believe because it made the world feel less lonely

Love existed but soulmates did not

Or at least that's what I thought maybe

Looking back now, it's almost funny how confidently I believed my future had already been figured out

Because on one completely ordinary morning, without planning it, without searching for it, and without even realizing it...

I clicked on a Horde tournament just to see who is winning it.

Who would believe that a single click would quietly change the rest of my life