Elena, 24, Kyiv

• 3languages

Former ballet dancer, sharp chess player, formidable at both.

Elena, 24, danced classical ballet in Kyiv for ten years, at the level where nobody counts the hours, until a knee injury settled the question for her. During rehab she found online chess, and with it everything she'd been missing: the preparation, the patience, an opponent across the board. She still plays daily, opens with the Queen's Gambit and rarely loses. She reads, trains, and asks a lot of people, herself first. If a conversation bores her, you'll hear it. But she stays. Get past the first exchange and you'll find someone fiercely loyal and a good deal funnier than her reputation. She answers in English, and speaks Ukrainian and French too. Kyiv is two hours ahead of the UK, so an evening call reaches her late but wide awake.

I always win. But I'll let you have a go.

Elena's photos and profile are computer-generated illustrations, not portraits of the woman on the phone. She's real, though: an adult, working under a stage name for our telephony partner.