Chess Sets: Coping with the COVID-19 mandatory Stay-At-Home order.

Dear friends...first and foremost, I hope everyone is okay and is staying safe during these uncertain times. I hope everyone is finding ways to cope with the various quarantine or mandatory shelter in place ordinances, regardless of where you are in the world. In the hopes of keeping our mutual spirits up, please remember that "This Too Shall Pass".

In the meantime, I suspect we're all finding our own individual ways to occupy ourselves while stuck at home during the pandemic, which is where I'm kinda going with this post. I hope no one minds me posting something that isn't pen-related, and that I'm not the only person here who likes table-top games. Classic board games, card games, or other table-top, "analog" style games on a family game night or a poker-night with your pals seem increasingly under-appreciated in this debased age of video game consoles and smartphones. :-) "Game night" is something I try to do once a month or so with friends or family. In the interest of being shamelessly pretentious (uh, I mean, to show you one of my favorite ways to pass the time while stuck indoors) I'm going to show off my own chess sets. I promise, this will be a short post. If you're bored easily by this, I won't take it personally. :-)

I don't get to play chess very often, and I'm a beginner at it, at best. Thus, you might ask, "then why do you have FOUR chess sets, dude?" That's a perfectly fair question! In my defense, I was drawn to them all because I thought they were all attractive (a frequent downfall of men, ha ha), and three of them are portable... and they even vaguely make you think of food. Bear with me here, and read on.

First, my nice heavy solid wood one: my "Meat and Potatoes" set. This is the really pretty one that stays at home. They're made by a Polish company called Wegiel (available on Amazon.com) that hand makes these boads from mahogany and sycamore, and the chess men out of hornbeam and boxwood, if I'm not mistaken. Have a look. Clicking on any of the photos will provide a bigger image.

The wooden box is where the pieces are stored (The size is 3.5"/8.9 cm tall King), and the board is a tournament size with the "algebraic chess notation" along the edges. That means the board is large and satisfyingly heavy, to the tune of nearly 6 pounds (2.5 kg) with squares of 50 mm x 50 mm (that's approximately 2" per side) squares for tournament style play. I admit that this might actually matter if I were in a proper chess club, but it also makes it a nice, big, easy-to-see game. When I bought this set last year, I treated myself to an inexpensive chess clock as well, which I've sadly not had occasion to use yet.

Interestingly, the paperboard box that the board came in (which is purchased separately from the box of chess men) reassures you that "no child labor was used" in it's manufacture.

Ever seen one of those old movies where some well-to-do fellow is playing chess, while dressed in his finest smoking jacket and smoking a pipe, and he's seated with a friend or colleague in the library or drawing room of a wealthy manor, carefully calculating his chess moves as though his every move on the board would gravely affect the fate of nations, or some such? He grimly exhales his pipe smoke while putting down his chess-man with weighty concern, as if there were deep intellectual repercussions for it, and you are meant to think him to be some deeply mature chess savant. Phooey, I say! Chess should be fun; it shouldn't create a stereotype of "I'm not smart enough to play this game made for kings and emperors", discouraging people from giving it a try. You've seen the Meat and Potatoes set I have for home games; here's my whimsical, non-intimidating "Ketchup and Mustard" set:

How can you see a colorful red & yellow ("ketchup & mustard"? Get it?) chess set like this, and not want to play? The "board" is large, tournament-sized like the other one. It is 22" x 22" (about 56 cm x 56 cm) in size, so it's nicely large, with 2.25"/5.7 cm squares. The pieces are weighted plastic with felt-lined bottoms: they have a 4" (10.1 cm) tall king. By way of explanation, chess pieces are "sized" by using the height of the tallest piece, which is generally the king. A set of chess men with a 4" tall king is a typical size for tournament play. As if I'd know...I've never played in a tournament; I'm barely an amateur player. :-) But I digress.

The board is actually made of a single piece of soft vinyl which can be rolled up and carried around in a nylon zipped-up chess bag, which are available affordably exactly for that purpose. The pieces were available by mail order from lots of different online chess set dealerships in a BUNCH of different colors, as are the boards. I was browsing these online and thought "Gee, the red and yellow pieces (technically, it's red and 'goldenrod') look colorful, I'll buy those." No further logic went into this decision than that. :-) These inexpensive pieces come with an extra queen, so if you get one of your pawns on the opponent's back row to "promote" it, you'll have a spare. The reason they're weighted slightly is to make it harder to accidentally knock them over during play, and they "plunk" down onto the chess squares with a certain satisfying authority.

Need more condiments for your chess night? Can do!

This is my Pickles and Onions set. Aside from the colors, it's completely identical to the red & yellow one. Who could possibly be intimidated by a chess set that is colored like pickles and onions? I mean, there's nothing intimidating about pickles, or onions! Or ketchup & mustard, or meat & potatoes! Clearly, I'm getting too aggravated at people who won't give chess a try because "it's complicated and hard". Chess has an enjoyable "ambiance", whether you're a skilled player or not. :-)

That red tube-shaped bag on the table there is for rolling up & storing the flat vinyl chess boards. It has a carrying strap. Then you can just dump your chess pieces inside the bag as well, putting them in a drawstring bag(s) first, if you prefer. You can even cram an average sized chess clock in there if you want.

Finally, I also have one of those ubiquitous smaller folding sets that everyone gets, sized so that you can fit in a bookcase or desk drawer. It's too small to be a "food", but you're welcome to help me find a "snack" name for it in the comments. :-) I got this one at an after-Christmas clearance sale at Walmart for $10.00 USD a few years ago; Walmart now sells them for something like $25-$30 bucks now, so I lucked out.

Same set, folded up with the chess pieces stored inside.

If you're cooped up indoors for several days with your spouse or your kids, and don't mind to humor me a bit, then please...by all means...haul out that chess set or that old deck of cards, and bond with them over the kitchen table. :-) You don't have to buy 4 different chess sets like I did; I'm just an OCD weirdo with more time than sense, ha ha. Then, feel free to brag about your old fashioned table-top gaming exploits in the comments. I'd love to hear them!

When I took the outdoor photos of my "Pickle & Onions set", I had Second Assistant Editor Molly with me. She helpfully guarded the picnic table I was using for a chess table. Thankfully, she works cheap.

Be safe!