Chess Sets of All Shapes and Sizes

Chess sets – or chessmen – come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and materials. Their function in the game all stays the same, but their appearances can be radically different. All chess sets include 32 pieces – 16 Pawns, 4 Rooks, 4 Knights, 4 Bishops, 2 Queens, and last, but not least, 2 Kings. An array of materials and techniques are used in order to make chess sets unique pieces of art.

• Material 

Chessmen can be made from wood, marble, stone, bone, glass, plastic, or even carbon fiber. These are among some of the more popular materials used today. Chess sets can be either hand-made or machine manufactured out of raw materials.

Wood is one of the more popular materials used in making quality chess sets. Ebony and Rosewood are types of wood that are used in many high-end, handmade chess sets. These types of wood are very dense so they take more times to construct the pieces. Maple, palm, and cedar are some of the other wood used to make chess sets as well. They are not as difficult to work with as Ebony or Rosewood, but they still make for great chess sets. Wood offers versatility in style, which is why it is a common material.

• Style 

Chess sets vary in style as well. The most common of the styles is the Staunton chess set. Staunton chess sets are the style recognized and exclusively used for competitions. Nathaniel Cook made the first Staunton chess sets in 1849. He then asked Howard Staunton – a prominent chess player and chess columnist – to promote the style of chessmen in his column. After that, they become known as the Staunton chess set.

By design, Staunton chessmen have wide molded bases. The knights always have the shaped head and neck of a horse, but they can stylistically vary in appearance. The king, queen, bishop, and pawn all have “collars” separating the head of the piece from the body. Most importantly, kings are the biggest pieces and pawns are the smallest – which represents the hierarchy within the game.

Staunton chessmen are among the most common style of pieces, but they are most definitely not the only pieces. There are classes of chess sets from thematic, artistic, contemporary, etc. There are also chess set design differences – Lessing, Broadbent, Anderssen, and Morphy – to name a few. Each set has specific nuances and functions.

 

• Technique 

There are different techniques to making chess sets as well. The two most common are handcrafted and machine manufactured sets. Hand crafted sets are mostly made of wood, bone, and stone. Wood pieces have hand carved tops and the rest of the piece is normally done on a lathe. Bone and stone chessmen are all hand carved by skilled craftsmen. These types of chess sets are weighted at the bottom and then covered with felt to help the pieces glide across the board.

Manufactured chess sets are mostly made of plastic and metal. Molds are created and the molten metal or plastic is poured into a mold. The pieces are then cleaned up and ready for use.

 

 There is a lot of hard work, thought, and craftsmanship that goes into any chess set you may come across. The sets are almost as intricate as the game of chess is – and for good reason. Chess got its start as a game of nobility and it has kept the look to go with it. Next time you sit down to play chess, take some time to admire all the hard work that goes into making each piece.

Chess Changes When You Choose a Strategy

In general terms, the differences between tactics and strategy amounts to a difference of perspective. Tactics, ultimately, are the immediate decisions made to accomplish short-term goals. Strategy, on the other hand, is concerned with the long-term – your broader strategy over the course of the entire game, from beginning to end. By game, of course, we mean chess – is there really any other game? Understanding the differences between chess tactics and chess strategies will help you to become a better, more competitive player.

Brass Tacks 

When choosing or even developing your own strategy, you must first define what the purpose of the strategy is. Identify the broad goals that will advance your board-state toward victory, as well as what resources you will need to get there; some pieces are more important in certain strategies than others, for example, while it is sometimes more important to eliminate certain pieces belonging to your opponent depending on the strategy you are executing.

Tactics then help you accomplish those goals from move to move. Deciding which resources to use to move from point A to point B, from B to C, from C to D, and so on, is an important part of advancing your strategy. While a strategy can offer a way to win, tactics are ultimately the way your strategy adapts to your opponent’s own attempts to win. Seeing the combination of moves you need to make to obtain an advantage on the board is an essential part of any strategy, and can’t be specifically made part of the strategy (for the most part) because you can’t always foresee what your opponent will do. (Although you can make a very educated guess, of course)

The Beginnings of a Chess Strategy 

Every chess strategy begins with its opening. The opening consists of the initial moves of the game using sequences of moves that are collectively referred to as “openings”. They are typically given names like “the Sicilian Defense,” and you can read all about them in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. Generally speaking, your openings will be, in part, reactions to what your opponent is doing; it is best to fall open standard openings, rather than try to invent a new variation, as these openings provide consistent defenses against your opponent’s strategy.

There are four different elements of opening moves to consider. First, there is the development of the overall game; by placing your pieces on useful squares, they can impact the game for some time to come. Then, there is the goal of controlling the center: control of the center of the board allows you to easily move pieces across the board, while also making it difficult for your opponent to move their pieces. Then there is the goal of ensuring your king’s safety (timely castling can help), and finally, structuring your pawns correctly to avoid weaknesses.

The Middlegame of a Chess 

Strategy The middlegame of chess strategy comes when most of the game pieces have been developed – as in, they are in useful places and tactics can begin to come into play. At this point, you will assess the board and the pieces on it, and form plans based on those positions. At this point, you need to begin to anticipate what your opponent is going to do.

The ultimate goal of the middlegame is to simplify the board to the point that you can enter the endgame. This typically happens when the board is so wrecked that many pieces will have a hard time interacting with each other, allowing some pieces to pass across the board and toward the king.

The Endgame of a Chess Strategy

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A chess strategy’s endgame comes when there are few pieces remaining on the board. Generally speaking, there are three differences between the rest of the game and this final stage: pawns are more important, the king becomes a stronger piece, and the disadvantage of being forced to make a move – as a rule of the game – all comes into play at this point.

Many different endgame board-states exist, and at this point, a new strategy must be formulated: are you going for basic checkmate? What pieces do you have to work with, and what pieces do they have to work with? If your strategies have been successful up to this point, you will be in an advantageous position here. That is why strategy is so important – because without it, you aren’t looking ahead far enough to have any real control over what the endgame looks like. Then it’s just all move and countermove, and if your opponent is deftly executing their own strategy, you won’t like what the endgame looks like!

Unfinished Chess Sets

Is anyone out there looking for unfinished wood chess sets?

Unfinished Chess Sets

Since our beginning we’ve always received a lot of calls from people asking if we carry unfinished chess sets so they could finish the sets themselves. Up until now, the answer has always been no… but maybe some day. It’s taken a while, but after 13 years we finally have unfinished chess sets, so let the orders come in!

We’re starting small to see just how much interest there is now that we actually have them. We’re starting with our most popular and best selling chess set of all time – the good old German Knight Staunton, and in the same 3 sizes we offer our finished chess sets.

The best wood for staining or painting is boxwood because it has a light, consistent color and a nice tight grain. Boxwood is the wood that we use for the white pieces on all of our wood chess sets. The downside to boxwood is that it’s more expensive than a wood such as golden rosewood. But to get the right look and consistent texture, we believe using all boxwood pieces is important.

One thing you’ll notice right off is that unfinished chess sets aren’t a whole lot less expensive than the finished ones. The reason being that nearly all of the work and cost of making the chess set is already done, even though the pieces aren’t finished (weighted and polished). When you think about it, thirty-two pieces of wood had to be cut to the right size from a big log, the wood pieces were then individually chucked up on a lathe and carefully turned to rather precise specifications, and then sanded nice and smooth. Plus, the 4 knights were hand carved one at a time. The pieces were then packaged, crated, and shipped. All in all, making an unfinished chess set is still a heck of a lot of hard, time consuming work.

But the main reason people are looking for an unfinished chess set isn’t to save money anyway. The real reason is that they want to finish the chess set in their own unique and creative way and have fun doing it. There’s definitely satisfaction in taking a plain unfinished chess set and making a beautiful piece of art out of it.

For the purpose of providing some samples to share with people of what can be done we bought a few cans of metallic spray paint at the local hardware store and went to town on some pieces. We found it amazingly easy and fun to create some pretty darn cool looking chess sets. It’s hard to tell the painted wood pieces from real copper, silver, gold, brass, and nickel. We also stained a few sets several bright colors and created some pretty nifty looking chess sets where you can see the grain of the wood. We finished these sets with semi-gloss polyurethane and they turned out amazingly beautiful.

Jerri Koos, our director of marketing who is also a pretty talented craft lady, just for fun took some paints and a brush and created a truly elegant and colorful chess set. In fact, here in the next day or two we’ll get some pictures taken of all of the other ones and get them posted to this blog and Pinterest. The colors, patterns, designs that you can create are endless.

If you decide to stain, here’s something you’ll want to keep in mind.  Because boxwood is so hard and has such a tight grain it does not accept some stains very well. We recommend water based dye such as J.E. Moser’s Aniline Dye. These dyes are cheap, easy to mix, and come in just about any color you might want. This dye easily penetrates the wood and with the different grain direction you find on the pieces, the dye creates some unique looking patterns and different intensity of colors.

A couple of more things worth mentioning, these chess sets are not weighted but can be weighted with a little extra work. For the handyman, all you need is a drill press and some lead or steel plugs you can use as weight. It’s a little bit of work but if weight is important, it can be done. The last item is the pads on the bottom. It’s as simple as running down to your local fabric store for some felt. Then it’s just a matter of cutting out some round pieces and gluing them on. FYI, we’ll soon have full sets of cutout felt pads with PSA on one side. Just peel and stick.

We hope that both chess players and crafts people alike will find these unfinished chess sets a lot of fun and a rewarding project. We would love to have you send us pictures of your chess set if you buy one and finish it and we hope to make a page on our web site for posting everyone’s work of art. Paint away!

Chess Pieces, Chessmen or Chess Set.

 That is the question.

From time to time we’ll receive a call from a customer that purchased a chess set and to their surprise and disappointment they did not receive a chess board with it. While we try our best to make it perfectly clear, whether it is just a chess set or if it also includes a chess board, there is that rare occasion when what our customer really wanted simply got lost in translation.

What it really boils down to is what "chess pieces" or "chessmen" might be to one person will be a "chess set" to another. Here at The Chess Store we define “chess set” as a set of 32 or 34 (when 2 spare queens are included) individual chessmen. However, some people define a chess set as a set of chess pieces or chessmen with a chess board. Not an unreasonable use or meaning of the two words and it can go either way but we have chosen the "chess set" road.

From our perspective, a chess set is a chess set and a chess board is a chess board. One does not necessarily imply the inclusion of the other. When we purchase chess sets from our suppliers, our purchase orders state “chess sets” and the items on the invoices we receive are described as “chess sets”. We purchase complete chess sets, not chess pieces.

The term “chess pieces” could be used to describe 2 chess pieces or a million chess pieces, regardless of whether they make a complete and cohesive chess set or not. When you say chess piece you are referring to a single chess piece and the plural form of the word only implies more than one and not necessarily 32. When you use the phrase "chess set", it’s exclusively is in reference to a set of 32 or 34 chess pieces.

It seems to be evenly divided between the stores that use the phrase “chess set” and “chess pieces” to describe a complete set of pieces. For the time being, we’re going to stick with the more traditional use of the word “chess set”. But, someday we might find that we need to convert for consistency sake and use the terms most shoppers have in mind when they think of a chess set.

Wood Chess Boards – Inlaid or Solid?

Over the years we have had a lot of customers that are completely confused about wood chess boards and what they are buying, and it’s understandable. What is an inlaid chess board anyway – what does that mean? And when people look at the chess boards on the website, they certainly look like they are solid wood. Who would know? So let me give a brief dissertation on wood chess boards.

There are really only two types of wood chess boards, a solid wood chess board that is made from nothing but solid pieces of wood glued together and inlaid chess boards that are made from a substrate of some sort, like a particle board (a wood material) and are covered with wood veneer. They are both "real" wood chess boards but they are made differently by using different types of wood material.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of chess board. The first thing one will notice is the price difference between the two. A good quality inlaid chess board with 2.25” squares can be purchased for about a hundred bucks. A good quality solid wood chess board of the same size will cost about 4 to 5 times that much or even more. There are two things in play here; one is that all of that solid wood is pretty darn expensive and two, it’s simply a lot more work and takes a lot more labor (skilled labor at that) to make a chess board from a set of seventy or more solid wood pieces that all have to be perfectly glued together.

There are obviously other differences beyond cost. A solid wood chess board can have a lot more problems than an inlaid board simply because of the solid wood. Solid wood is sensitive to moisture and needs to have been properly cured before being made into a chess board. Solid wood is more apt to warp over time and can develop cracks. The joints of a solid wood chess board can over time start to separate if the wood was not properly cured or if the gluing job was sub par. Having said this, the real craftsmen making wood chess boards for a living know all of these things and are careful about the chess board construction. So you shouldn’t have to worry too much about this if you buy a chess board from a reputable company.

 An inlaid chess board can look every bit as beautiful as a solid wood chess board. You will generally have a lot more options with the type of wood you can get with an inlaid chess board. For example, we offer inlaid chess boards in walnut, mahogany, tiger ebony, elm root, teak, rosewood, African padauk and in a range of different color stained veneers as well. It’s a huge choice, whereas solid wood chess boards are more limited due to the availability of solid wood and the cost of it. But you can get a lot more creative with the design of a solid wood chess board simply because you are working with a 3 dimensional pieces of wood rather than a 2 dimensional piece of veneer. 

For the money you cannot beat the value of a high quality inlaid chess board. You can get just about any size and any type of wood or color for less than $200. We have our inlaid chess boards made by Rechapados Ferrer in Spain and the quality of their workmanship is remarkable. We also have a nice collection of inlaid chess boards from Italfama in Italy . The quality of these chess boards is excellent as well. We also carry a line of inlaid chess boards made in China . These are decent inlaid chess boards and are an excellent value for the price (less than $70) but the quality is not as good as the Rechapados Ferrer or Italama chess boards and for the price you wouldn’t expect it.

We currently carry two solid wood chess boards made by a company here in the United States . We carry American black walnut and maple and African Padauk and maple. These chess boards are absolutely beautiful and very well made. You would not go wrong with these boards.

We hope this makes it a little easier to choose what type of wood chess board is right for you!

Inlaid African Padauk and Birds Eye Maple Chess Board 

Inlaid Color Stained Veneer Chess Board 

Solid American Black Walnut and Maple Chess Board 

What Makes a Good Chess Set?

There’s a lot more to making a good chess set than you would imagine. It starts with a raw piece of wood or maybe even an entire log and culminates in 32 finished chess pieces that have weights inside and pads on the bottom. A tremendous amount of work is required to make even the simplest chess set and times that by ten for the fancier chess sets. Pieces are individually turned on a lathe one at a time and the knights are hand carved with grinding tools, so it's not automatic that a good chess set pops out at the end of the process. Without going into the minutia from our quality documents, we would like to share with you the general characteristics you should find, or not find, on a good chess set.

A good or even great chess set is not dependent on how complex or intricate the design is. Our German Knight chess set is terrific for what it is – a good quality, affordable wood chess set for playing the everyday game of chess at home. It’s probably not the chess set you would want to display on an expensive chess board to dress up the décor in your living room but it’s a great chess set for playing. So keep in mind a good chess set is one that fits your needs and one that you just simply like.

Starting from the wood up, a good chess set must be made from a very hard and dense wood such as sheesham (golden rosewood), boxwood, rosewood, ebony, red sandalwood, or padauk. These woods make up nearly all of the good quality wood chess sets in the world, all of which come from India. Soft wood such as pine or wood with an open grain such as oak are not suitable for making chess sets.

The color of the wood should be consistent within the set. For example, a rosewood chess set should not have a mix of dark brown pieces with the more typical orange-burgundy colored pieces.  Mixing two different colors looks odd and can appear as though the pieces are made from totally different types of wood, even though they are not. The only wood that is almost never a problem is ebony – black is black.

A good chess set will be in good condition. You will not find pieces that are cracked, broken, dented, scratched, or chipped. Pieces should be sanded smooth so there are no visible lines from being turned on the lathe or at the very least, the lines should be very faint and hard to see. Pieces should be polished to a fine luster to bring out the grain and color of the wood while ebony should look almost like black glass.  Beautiful to touch.

A good chess set will be weighted and most chess sets are. The higher priced chess sets are usually weighted more than the less expensive sets.  The weights are important to give the chess piece stability on the chess board so that it won't easily tip over or get knocked over during the course of a game. It’s important the weights do not protrude beyond the base because this will cause the piece to lean and wobble on the board. A good quality baize or billiard cloth pad should cushion the bottom and also serves to cover the weight. Cheap felt paper is the sign of a cheap set. Some sets have leather pads; however, we believe that baize is far superior. Leather does not provide a good cushion and it can grab on a chess board instead of smoothly sliding.

Pieces need to be visually straight up and down while sitting on the chess board. They should not be tilted or leaning to one side or the other and they should not be warped (rarely seen).  The profile of the piece should be symmetrical and the height of the pieces should be the same (i.e., all rooks the same height) as should be the diameter of the base. The knights should look alike and the features should look the same from piece to piece. For example, the size of the eye should be the same on all 4 knights and located in the same place on the head. Some variation will be seen from knight to knight because they are individually carved by hand but the variation should be minimal and barely noticeable without careful studying.

Even though we tout all of our chess sets as being high quality (and they are), more time and attention is spent on the higher priced chess sets than on the simpler and less expensive ones. And, if you’re spending several hundred to over a thousand dollars on a chess set, you should expect that more attention and emphasis was given to the fine detail - you're paying for it!  Think of it like a sliding scale in terms of how much time is spent on a chess set. The less expensive it is, the less time that is spent on it. The more expensive it is, the more time that is spent on it. However, the fundamentals that make a good chess set remain largely the same.

The last thing we want to point out is that no chess set is perfect. We look at thousands of chess sets every year and we will find tiny imperfections on even the most perfect set. It’s just a matter of how big a magnifying glass you use.  Each chess set has its own unique character, from the wood chosen to the skill of the craftsman making the pieces.

Just to summarize, here are the 8 most important things that make a good chess set:

1.   Good quality hard wood

2.   Consistent color from piece to piece

3.   Good condition - no cracks, broke pieces, dents, scratches, or chips

4.   Pieces should be sanded smooth and polished to a fine luster

5.   Pieces should be weighted and the weights should not protrude beyond the base

6.   Baize pads

7.   Pieces should be visually straight, symmetrical, be the same height and have the same base diameter

8.   Knights should look the same

These are the basics of a good wood chess set. Get your chess set out and see how it stands up to this check list.

Chess Wood on the Block

The New Wood on the Block

If you’ve spent much time looking at chess sets online you’ve probably seen those beautiful red-orange color blood rosewood chess sets. And, you may have wondered why The Chess Store doesn’t carry blood rosewood chess sets. Well, we would like to set the record straight and share with you why that is. There is a blood wood and there are several species of rosewood, but the truth be known, there’s no such thing as blood rosewood. What is mistakenly being calling blood rosewood is in reality – padauk or African padauk (aka Pterocarpus soyauxii).

African padauk is one of the most colorful of all the exotic woods and the term “blood rosewood” is definitely a good description. We just recently started carrying African padauk chess sets and we decided to refrain from the blood rosewood name, we’re sticking with African Padauk. Our padauk chess sets come from India where nearly all of the world’s decent wood chess sets come from. African Padauk is easily sourced in India and is about the same cost as ebony – rather expensive.

The use of African Padauk for chess sets is actually pretty new. The old standard for reddish color chess sets was red sandalwood. But India banned the export of red sandalwood and existing inventories have slowly been depleting to where there are very few red sandalwood sets left. We have a very small quantity left and the selection is getting smaller every day.

While red sandalwood is a pretty wood, African padauk is a lot more colorful and polishes to beautiful luster on the buffing wheel. Another nice characteristic of African padauk is that it does not darken nearly as bad as red sandalwood. What many people don’t know is that red sandalwood can look nice and red at the beginning  (brand new chess set) but it will darken to a deep burgundy, almost black, in just a couple of years. The oil in red sandalwood reacts with UV light accelerating the patina process. There’s no way around this except for keeping your chess set in the dark.

While red sandalwood chess sets will become rarer and perhaps even more valuable, if you want a chess set that just simply looks gorgeous, consider African padauk. There’s not another wood out there that makes a more beautiful chess set or chess board for that matter. We have padauk chess boards and they’re just as beautiful. When you get a chance we invite you to check out our new padauk sets, boards, and complete packages. You’ll enjoy the color!