After coming up with a suggestive and rather bizarre logo for the World Chess Championships, the organisers of the event have launched a dating app for chess players.
In association with popular dating service app, Pure, World Chess have unveiled Mate, a mobile dating platform to help find “a chess playing partner near you.”
Users, by uploading their photo, can create a profile that will remain online precisely for an hour. If there’s a “match,” they can agree on a location to play chess. The profiles and conversations will disappear after an hour - a feature that Mates believes would motivate people to act quickly in order to meet for a chess date.
According to Ilya Merenzon, the CEO of World Chess, the “goal was to find a way to connect millions of fans and make chess social again.”
“We want everyone to spend less time on their phones and more in front of their chessboards”.
But Roman Sidorenko, founder of the Pure app, emphasized more on the app’s hook-up aspect than chess.
“Good sex has a lot in common with a good game of chess: it’s as passionate, tense, uncertain and exciting,” Sidorenko was quoted by chess.com.
“And just like in sex, no one wants to wait for another person to make a move. Together with World Chess we wanted to create an app that lets people be spontaneous in their desires. That’s why Mates limits your conversation to an hour, so you spend less time talking and more time playing.”
The World Chess Championships is slated to take place at The College in Holborn, London, between the 9th and 28th of November
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