Lourens

Lourens was born in a tiny village high in the Austrian Alps, in a crooked wooden house belonging to his grandfather — a mysterious old man who had once run a secret academy for strategists. Kings, generals and chess champions were rumoured to have trained there.

At four years old he was made to play. Chess before breakfast. Go before lunch. Puzzle boxes that had to be solved before dinner could be eaten. His grandfather even locked the biscuit tin inside a puzzle. Lourens hated every second of it.

Then one day he solved the tin in under a minute, and something clicked. He started to like it. Then he started to love it. Then he started winning. By twelve he had beaten his grandfather. By fifteen he was undefeated across the Alps and people were travelling up the mountain purely to lose to him.

Then he lost. At the Tournament of Impossible Games he was crushed in the final, and lost his title and his confidence together. The fire went out.

His grandfather wouldn't let him quit. He raised him all over again, this time on games with real stakes: predicting avalanches, planning supply routes through winter storms, winning when losing actually cost something. And Lourens learned the lesson that mattered most — a loss is just data.

He came back stronger than he had ever been. Then he found Google Ads: the biggest strategy game on Earth, millions of players moving live, every second. A board finally worthy of him. He still plays every night, but these days it's only to stay sharp.