Public service announcement: if you want to give a gift to a semi-serious or serious chess player don't give them a reproduction of an historical set such as those in the article and don't give them a modern themed set such as an Alice in Wonderland set or a Civil War set or a Sherlock Holmes set or a Lord of the Rings set no matter how much they are fans of the subject of the set's theme unless you have very good reason to believe they actually will want the specific set you want to give them.
To a majority of semi-serious or serious players those sets are only interesting as art objects. They will almost never actually use them to play chess. When they actually want to play a game they usually want a set that meets FIDE or their local federation's tournament standards, and is sturdy enough that it won't be damaged in a mad rush to beat the clock in an endgame.
Even if they personally are OK with playing on an historical or themed set they might have trouble finding people to play with. If I come to their house and they want me to play chess with them I am not going to play on their Sherlock Holmes themed set [1] where I'll spend half my time trying to remember if Inspector Lestrade is a rook or a bishop.
Agree. I have strong negative emotional reactions to poor lighting and non-standard pieces; it feels like being forced to look at a spreadsheet with a background of a trash heap—a continual assault on my senses when I'm focusing on data.
(I played in the U.S. Open, World Open, and New York Open in the '80's, when time controls were longer in general than today. Lots of hours staring at sets.)
This is very nice. The full list however would be much too large, however, e.g.
- Louis Vuitton is included and Super Mario was not, even though it has been very popular.
- Wartime travel set pieces are included which are arguably tokens representing chess pieces and not formal chess pieces, and that is well and good, but even more cheap stone sets were sold to tourists in Mexico that had a distinctive look which are not mentioned here.
- No mention of other variations of chess and how those pieces evolved.
- Many online stores sell chess pieces in variations unmentioned.
Equally, I would argue the Louis Vuitton set is not worth mentioning. One of the benefits of living in modern society is not having to look to the rich for signals of taste.
The iconography used on the wartime tokens seem like they merit their own article even - are piece glyphs always ‘just’ a 2D translation of the 3D piece, or is there more you can do with a 2D printed or illustrated mark, that would be prohibitive to sculpt/mold/turn/3D print?
Yeah, I always think of the old beat up plastic set at the park near my house. Some of the pieces were scratched up, a few were kinda melted probably left in the sun too long. But that’s what I learned on, so it still feels like “real” chess to me.
It’s weird how no matter how fancy the sets get, that scruffy one is still the one I picture first.
I think that's the beauty of chess as well. You can play in the street with a molten plastic set and a missing pawn replaced with a coin or in a mansion with ivory-carved pieces.
And it's still the same game, nobody can buy an advantage or get a lucky win.
What do I picture? 2D pieces, to be honest. Computer chess is just so prevalent. I picture what I'd call "USCF style" [1] because that's what they'd use in the Chess Life magazine to annotate games. I also picture the "old style" pieces [2], used in other periodicals & some books (especially puzzles).
I bet a lot of people picture the default set on Chess dot com. I find it very hard to adjust to new sets, for whatever reason.
As far as real pieces, I picture plastic pieces & vinyl board. Either what I'd call the "triple-weighted set" [3] (my favorite), the plastic "Dreuke set" [4], or the "basic USCF set" [5].
I had no idea there were so many variations, especially in the last 100 years. Most I've never seen before. I still dislike the real abstract/bauhaus style but there's a lot of artistry in the sets.
A spinoff piece on the visual evolution of illustrated and digital chess pieces would be interesting. How they relate to specific physical designs, and the limitations of the format they're bound to.
My mother told me the gnawing-the-shield image is said to be how the norsemen were said to psych themselves up before battle. She said the hemp rope around the shield was meant to be impregnated by drugs, or be psychoactive otherwise. This was said back in the 70s mind you..
The description of the bishops as other roles is very confusing given the crozier. The article surely must mean that taking the norse chessmen as holotypes, the variants found in russia, baltic states.. &c made similar changes?
The set is split between The BM in London, and the Royal Scottish Museum, and sometimes a piece or two is on display elsewhere. the Museum shop sells really exceptionally well made casts, we also had the resin kit with rubber moulds which made significantly less well made, bubble ridden, smelly versions.
They are said to be the property of a trader in Walrus Ivory, being mixed parts of more than one set when found.
My ex-wife (long ago) made me a set of chess pieces in resin as a birthday present, in a kind of Norse style, which were quite nice. And my dad had a set of plastic ones in a sort of Gothic style. Bothe were good, but I still think Staunton is the best.
An amazing page with a lot of chess designs, definitely did not expect that many, and was surprised that the beloved Staunton chess set was designed by someone else.
> As shatranj, new rules are introduced that cause the game to begin to resemble modern chess, including the rule that the King cannot be captured but must be rendered helpless: shah mat, the King is helpless, gives us the word checkmate.
Checkmate is by far the weirdest rule in chess, as capturing the king would lead to an essentially identical strategy and game, but without all the extra rule complexity of checks and checkmates.
(The exceptions are castling details and the stalemate rule. If kings could be captured, stalemates would not exist. But I argue that’s a feature not a bug. Stalemates do little to enhance fundamental strategy, their primarily use being hail mary gotchas for low level plays. In any case, kings-cannot-captured exists to make stalemates possible.)
> Stalemates do little to enhance fundamental strategy
This is questionable, especially at high level. Without stalemate, the “King + pawn vs King” endgame would always be won for the strongest part, which would considerably change the treatment of endgames.
Public service announcement: if you want to give a gift to a semi-serious or serious chess player don't give them a reproduction of an historical set such as those in the article and don't give them a modern themed set such as an Alice in Wonderland set or a Civil War set or a Sherlock Holmes set or a Lord of the Rings set no matter how much they are fans of the subject of the set's theme unless you have very good reason to believe they actually will want the specific set you want to give them.
To a majority of semi-serious or serious players those sets are only interesting as art objects. They will almost never actually use them to play chess. When they actually want to play a game they usually want a set that meets FIDE or their local federation's tournament standards, and is sturdy enough that it won't be damaged in a mad rush to beat the clock in an endgame.
Even if they personally are OK with playing on an historical or themed set they might have trouble finding people to play with. If I come to their house and they want me to play chess with them I am not going to play on their Sherlock Holmes themed set [1] where I'll spend half my time trying to remember if Inspector Lestrade is a rook or a bishop.
[1] https://www.houseofstaunton.com/catalog/product/view/id/3658...
Agree. I have strong negative emotional reactions to poor lighting and non-standard pieces; it feels like being forced to look at a spreadsheet with a background of a trash heap—a continual assault on my senses when I'm focusing on data.
(I played in the U.S. Open, World Open, and New York Open in the '80's, when time controls were longer in general than today. Lots of hours staring at sets.)
Neat. This would be fun to model for 3D printing. I once did a chess set in OpenSCAD. https://github.com/iamwilhelm/kings_gambit
This is very nice. The full list however would be much too large, however, e.g.
- Louis Vuitton is included and Super Mario was not, even though it has been very popular.
- Wartime travel set pieces are included which are arguably tokens representing chess pieces and not formal chess pieces, and that is well and good, but even more cheap stone sets were sold to tourists in Mexico that had a distinctive look which are not mentioned here.
- No mention of other variations of chess and how those pieces evolved.
- Many online stores sell chess pieces in variations unmentioned.
Equally, I would argue the Louis Vuitton set is not worth mentioning. One of the benefits of living in modern society is not having to look to the rich for signals of taste.
The iconography used on the wartime tokens seem like they merit their own article even - are piece glyphs always ‘just’ a 2D translation of the 3D piece, or is there more you can do with a 2D printed or illustrated mark, that would be prohibitive to sculpt/mold/turn/3D print?
Very impressive work. It must have taken ages to get this page together and be so factually full. Love the evolution of the pieces design over time.
Yeah, I always think of the old beat up plastic set at the park near my house. Some of the pieces were scratched up, a few were kinda melted probably left in the sun too long. But that’s what I learned on, so it still feels like “real” chess to me.
It’s weird how no matter how fancy the sets get, that scruffy one is still the one I picture first.
I think that's the beauty of chess as well. You can play in the street with a molten plastic set and a missing pawn replaced with a coin or in a mansion with ivory-carved pieces.
And it's still the same game, nobody can buy an advantage or get a lucky win.
What do I picture? 2D pieces, to be honest. Computer chess is just so prevalent. I picture what I'd call "USCF style" [1] because that's what they'd use in the Chess Life magazine to annotate games. I also picture the "old style" pieces [2], used in other periodicals & some books (especially puzzles).
I bet a lot of people picture the default set on Chess dot com. I find it very hard to adjust to new sets, for whatever reason.
As far as real pieces, I picture plastic pieces & vinyl board. Either what I'd call the "triple-weighted set" [3] (my favorite), the plastic "Dreuke set" [4], or the "basic USCF set" [5].
I had no idea there were so many variations, especially in the last 100 years. Most I've never seen before. I still dislike the real abstract/bauhaus style but there's a lot of artistry in the sets.
[1] on lichess, it's called "companion"
[2] on lichess, it's called "leipzig"
[3] https://www.chessset.com/collections/weighted-chess-pieces-h...
[4] Player's Choice, like https://www.wholesalechess.com/reproduction-of-the-drueke-pl...
[5] https://www.uscfsales.com/single-weighted-regulation-plastic...
A spinoff piece on the visual evolution of illustrated and digital chess pieces would be interesting. How they relate to specific physical designs, and the limitations of the format they're bound to.
Re: the Norse Chessmen,
My mother told me the gnawing-the-shield image is said to be how the norsemen were said to psych themselves up before battle. She said the hemp rope around the shield was meant to be impregnated by drugs, or be psychoactive otherwise. This was said back in the 70s mind you..
The description of the bishops as other roles is very confusing given the crozier. The article surely must mean that taking the norse chessmen as holotypes, the variants found in russia, baltic states.. &c made similar changes?
The set is split between The BM in London, and the Royal Scottish Museum, and sometimes a piece or two is on display elsewhere. the Museum shop sells really exceptionally well made casts, we also had the resin kit with rubber moulds which made significantly less well made, bubble ridden, smelly versions.
They are said to be the property of a trader in Walrus Ivory, being mixed parts of more than one set when found.
My ex-wife (long ago) made me a set of chess pieces in resin as a birthday present, in a kind of Norse style, which were quite nice. And my dad had a set of plastic ones in a sort of Gothic style. Bothe were good, but I still think Staunton is the best.
[dead]
An amazing page with a lot of chess designs, definitely did not expect that many, and was surprised that the beloved Staunton chess set was designed by someone else.
Lanier Graham is my pick of the bunch. Finally a set that doesn't require a lathe or a chisel!
Yeah that was the one I was delighted by too! I’m not always into the more cubist takes on pieces, but this one feels right.
relevant? GenChess - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42248630 - Nov, 2024 (238 comments)
> As shatranj, new rules are introduced that cause the game to begin to resemble modern chess, including the rule that the King cannot be captured but must be rendered helpless: shah mat, the King is helpless, gives us the word checkmate.
Checkmate is by far the weirdest rule in chess, as capturing the king would lead to an essentially identical strategy and game, but without all the extra rule complexity of checks and checkmates.
(The exceptions are castling details and the stalemate rule. If kings could be captured, stalemates would not exist. But I argue that’s a feature not a bug. Stalemates do little to enhance fundamental strategy, their primarily use being hail mary gotchas for low level plays. In any case, kings-cannot-captured exists to make stalemates possible.)
> Stalemates do little to enhance fundamental strategy
This is questionable, especially at high level. Without stalemate, the “King + pawn vs King” endgame would always be won for the strongest part, which would considerably change the treatment of endgames.
True. Wouldn’t mind it, but true.
Thanks for sharing!