Mar 25, 2026
Author's Commentary #1:
It's time to discuss the first chapter of Volume 4, Chapter 1: A tale of salt and crackers.
Originally the intro for Side Story 2, I felt like this would serve as a nice intro to the volume. I will confess, I was originally going to have all of Side Story 2 appear in the volume, but felt it would work better as the intro for the next one. Now onto the bios for on Bruno and Ignatz.
ブルーノ・ルマカ (Bruno Lumaca) is how Bruno's name is spelled in katakana. His last name is actually Italian for "slug" which explains why he hates salt so much. Though the bigger reason he hates salt is because his character is a homage to Chess.com's Eugene bot who plays like a top level player, unless you open with Knight a3, the Sodium attack. Then he plays horribly. As such, I decided to pay homage to Eugene, by creating Bruno. And speaking of homages, his rating of 2832 was actually Magnus Carlsen's current classical rating at the time of the upload for the original equivalent of this chapter.
His birthday is August 1st, which was the 1st day the Eugene bot was playable.
His favorite piece is the rook, mainly because he believes it's the piece that has the least connections to salt, which is a tad ironic given its shape.
One other noteworthy thing about him is that he's Swiss, and hails from Lugano, which is located in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. Ignatz is also Swiss, but hails from the capitol city of Bern, which is 30 minutes away from Biel, a city know for hosting the prestigious Biel chess festival.
イグナーツ・ヴァルザー (Ignatz Walser) is how Ignatz's name is spelled in katakana.
His birthday is March 12th, which is actually two days before the birthday of Ignatz Victor from Fire Emblem Three Houses, the character who Ignatz's name was inspired by.
His favorite piece is the knight, which is a bit ironic considering the character he's named after, Ignatz Victor, is pressured to become a knight even though he'd rather be a painter.
As for the game, I was originally going to have the game be between Ignatz and Bruno with Daria watching, but decided it worked better to have Daria be the one to play Bruno. Bruno's weakness is actually knowledge only a few people know, and since Ignatz likely wouldn't open with the Sodium Attack, nor know of Bruno's weakness on the spot, I decided Daria would be the better fit to play him.
The game was actually played against Chess.com's Eugene bot, though with assisted mode on in order to replicate Daria's skill level. I actually have played some games against the Eugene bot with him at full strength in order to play crazy openings. Naturally, I use assisted mode, but I liked Eugene's concept so much, I decided to pay homage to him with Bruno.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
