MANIFESTO
The paradoxes of a game in search of solutions
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Chess is dying even as its popularity explodes.
It shines on screens, gathers millions of players, fascinates crowds — and yet, its essence withers under the weight of preparation and repetition.
Chess has endured through the ages because evolution is inherent to the game, but the current trend leans more towards the status quo, out of fear of damaging it.
Chess variants have earned a notorious reputation over time due to the liberties they take with the original game. Yet, it is through such iterations that the modern queen and castling emerged in the 15th century, opening new strategic horizons. For the past one hundred and fifty years, the game has remained stable — a reassuring foundation, but also a boundary that questions its future.
Humans continue to play, even as artificial intelligences have long surpassed them.
Deep Blue, AlphaZero, Stockfish: the machine reigns. But humans persist in competing against each other, for the beauty of chess lies in the story they write together, not in mathematical perfection.
A mirror of human evolution
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Metamate® does not destroy chess, nor does it replace it: it overlays the game and enhances its essence by presenting it from a new angle.
More than just an evolution of the game through the game, Metamate® is a witness to the transformations of Humanity.
Through the ages, technologies have shaped the rules.
The increased range of the bishop and rook seems to historically coincide with the advent of long-range firearms on the battlefield.
Religious prohibitions imposed on the Crusaders would have transformed an elephant into a bishop, and another interpretation of the piece would have associated it with the king's fool.
Under the influence of Isabella of Castile, the vizier gave way to the modern queen, a symbol of the rise of courts and centralized sovereignties of the Renaissance.
At the Crossroads of Realities
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Today, we live at the intersection of intertwined worlds: an analog, tangible world, digital worlds, metaverses — layers of overlapping realities.
Metamate® is born in this composite context. It is the variant that, through a unique piece, facilitates dialogue between these layers: a reflection of the past and the future, anchored in the present moment, where uncertainty, creativity, and metamorphosis become central.
Metamate® is not just an evolution of chess: it is, like the previous mutations of the game, a mirror of its time.
In the 1970s, world champion Bobby Fischer criticized chess for being dominated by an excessive opening theory that favored preparation, rendered games sterile and repetitive, and left too little room for creativity and pure talent. The variant he popularized in 1996, Fischerandom — based on a random positioning of pieces at the start — aimed to address these issues.
Thirty years later, Metamate® has set out to take the baton and respond to the current concerns of players and the industry that supports them.
Metamate® is not an emergency response to a game at the end of its course: it is an invitation to broaden the field of possibilities, in a fundamental research approach that benefits both beginners and elites. An invitation to play differently, to surprise and be surprised — a new and natural breath.
A commitment to the future of chess
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