Off the map until you check in
A place to play goes here
+
Games
Games near you
Sorted by walking distance. Venue-anchored — never a live position, and never a name until you're at the same table.
ACCEPTED
GAME
ON.
When
Now — head over
Where
Control
You play
White
Last message
Places to play
Most are in Dublin; the rest of the country is filling in.
Upcoming events
From the public ICU calendar. Check details before travelling.
What kind of place is it?
Somewhere anyone can walk in and play.
Type
Name
What's the story?
How'd it go?
Thirty seconds. Log the whole session at once. It stays on this phone, as your own record.
How many games did you play?
1
How did they go?
You had white in game 1
Colours alternate after that, the way they do at a real board.
Time format
Opponent
Where
Venue as a chess spot
Anything worth remembering?
There's no rating for the other player, on purpose — a score out of three about a human being invites bookkeeping about people and tells nobody anything useful. If someone was a problem, block them; if it was worse than that, Report is on their card.
CHESS CLUB
When
Where
Contact
Members
The story
YOU
Your account
Prototype build · your data stays on this device.
YOUR GAMES
No games logged yet
Logged by you, on this phone. Nobody else can see them.
From this phone
Counted from this phone: the games you logged, the places you marked, and the people you logged a game with.
0
Games logged
0
Places marked
0
People met
Settings
Who you play with, and when the app tells you about a game.
Who you play with
Notifications
Tournaments
Kept on this phone until you delete them. Nobody else can see them.
New tournament
Name
Format
Everyone plays everyone once.
Players · 0
First names are enough. Names stay on this phone.
Add at least 3 players.
TWENTY SECONDS, NO PASSWORD
Who's playing?
Just a name and a level so players know who they're sitting down with.
Your name
How's your chess?
Advanced covers the regular club player and anyone with a rating. Nobody is hidden because of it. It tells the person sitting down what sort of game to expect.
No email, no password, no location stored.
THE WHOLE POINT
Hear when there's a game near you
When somebody a few streets away checks in for a game, your phone tells you, even when it's in your pocket and the app is closed.
Two permissions, one job. Your phone works out what's near you on the phone — the only thing that ever leaves it is a rough square about a kilometre across, so the nudge can be sent to the right neighbourhood. Never a street, never a name, never where you are right now.
NO APP STORE, NO DOWNLOAD
Put it on your home screen
Two taps. It opens full screen, keeps working when the signal's poor, and it's how you get a nudge when a game starts near you.
    What you get
    Full screen — no address bar eating the map.
    The map and your spots still open with no signal.
    Notifications when a game starts near you.
    It's the same website. Nothing is downloaded, nothing runs in the background.
    YOUR ACCOUNT
    Get it back on a new phone
    Your account lives in this browser only. Add an email and a sign-in link brings it back on a new phone — or if you ever clear your history.
    The address is used for the link and nothing else. It is never shown to another player, and it goes when you delete the account.
    ACCOUNT
    Your account
    Set a name and you have one.
    Your name
    Shown only to the people at your table — somebody checked in at the same place as you, or somebody you've played. Everyone else sees a venue, a time control and a level. "Cathal O." is the house style — a first name and an initial.
    FEEDBACK
    Tell me
    It's early days and one person is building it. Each of these opens an email to me.
    No mail app on this device? The address is —
    CHECK IT
    UPCOMING GAMES
    What's coming up
    Your standing sessions and dated games. Group nights you said you'd go to are on the map, not here.
    ABOUT
    Chess+Coffee
    Over-the-board chess, made by one person.

    What this is

    Chess out in the real world — cafés, pubs, parks, club listings and the ICU fixture calendar on one map. Check in when you're heading somewhere for a game, and anyone nearby can see there's one on. What they see is the place, the time control and your level — not your name. Names are swapped at the table: only somebody checked in at the same place as you, or somebody you've played before, sees who you are. No app store and no password: it's a web page that sits on your home screen. A game that is on right now is shown in amber, and nothing else on the map ever is. A place is coloured by its kind — club, café, pub or park — and a game set for later is shown on its place.

    Where it works so far. Most of the cafés and clubs on the map are in Dublin, and tournaments are shown for all of Ireland. If your café or club should be on it, add it from the Places tab or tell me at the address below.

    Who's behind it

    Cathal, in Dublin. I built it because getting a game over a real board is harder than it ought to be — there are clubs, and there's the internet, and not much in between. It isn't a company. The address at the bottom of this screen comes to me.

    Where you are

    Your location is never sent to the server. The only thing it knows is which spot you checked into, and you chose that off the map yourself. Distances are worked out on your own phone and shown as "under 1 km" — never as coordinates, to anyone.

    One exception, and it's off unless you turn it on: alerts for games nearby need a rough idea of where "nearby" is, so your phone rounds your position to about a kilometre square. No other player can see it, and switching the alerts off deletes it.

    Juniors

    Accounts are for adults, 18 and over. Under-18s don't get an account and are never on the map by themselves — they play through a family session, where a parent holds the account and checks in with a junior along. A family check-in shows on the map like any other, flagged as a family session.

    There are no separate accounts for sixteen and seventeen year olds, and none are planned: in Ireland an adult is eighteen, some of the venues are pubs, and a family session already covers a junior playing alongside an adult. Nothing here will offer a junior a one-to-one game with an adult.

    Your data

    Who holds it: Cathal, the person above, on a Supabase database in the EU. Ask anything about it at the address at the bottom of this screen.

    What is kept: your display name, level and settings; which venue you are checked into, deleted an hour after it expires; your standing sessions, until you cancel them (a one-off goes a week after its date); who you have blocked; reports you make; and, only if you switch alerts on, a location square about a kilometre across, deleted the moment you switch them off. Visit counts for the Regular are kept 100 days and only if you opt in. Games you log stay on your phone and never leave it.

    Not kept, ever: your GPS position, an email unless you add one, or anything sold or shared with anyone.

    Deleting it: Me → Delete my account removes everything above from the server and clears this phone. A report you made stays on file with your id blanked, so a record that something was reported cannot be erased by the person it was about. The map tiles come from CARTO and the fonts are served from here, so no third party sees your address on a page load.

    What it costs

    Nothing so far — it runs on free hosting. There are no ads and nothing about you is sold: there's no ad space in it and, as above, no location history to sell. If it ever costs real money to run, you'll see that here.

    Something wrong?

    It's early days and it's one person building it. Tell me and I'll fix it.

    No mail app on this device? The address is —

    Club and tournament listings come from the public Irish Chess Union directory and calendar. Check details before travelling.

    Over the board

    CHESS,
    OUT IN THE
    REAL WORLD.

    Find a game near you. Get a nudge when someone close by wants a game. Mark the parks and cafés where people play.

    No app store, no password — it's this page, on your home screen
    Public venues only · you're never shown at your actual location
    Accounts are 18+ · under-18s play through a parent's family session