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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Thinking of Buying a Chess Set

     I don't own a chess set and am not really sure I want one. I lost a lot of chess books when our house flooded a couple of years ago. I also lost my nice Zagreb set. After being under water for a few days and then being set aside until it could get cleaned up all the finish was off and it was moldy. It wasn't worth the effort to salvage it, so it got thrown out with a tree lawn full of other stuff. I was left with a very nice 45-year old walnut and mahogany chess table though which survived without damage. After remodeling there was no use for it, so it got donated to a relative's barber shop...customers play a lot of chess there. 
     I haven't actually played an over the board game for a few years and for a long time have been playing over games only on the computer. It took a long time for me to be comfortable doing that though because it felt more like playing a video game than anything, but now I'm comfortable playing using the Fritz 12 GUI Still… I've been looking at the set shown.  
     It's available from the USCF for $130, but is on sale for $90 (there's probably also a fondling charge) and it includes the board. The King is the right height...4 inches. What I like is that though it's design is based on the Staunton pattern the K, Q and B have crowns made of the opposite wood type and the set sort of reminds me of those old Soviet style sets like this: 



   I think the set would go well with my vintage Soviet (1950 era) chess clock ....

 
...which I never use either. The thing is, do I really need a chess set? And if so, do I need a $100 one? Have I become one of those people I never used to consider real chess players...the ones that only play on the Internet and read electronic chess books?

1 comment:

  1. Go buy it! Remember what Confucius said: 'The best Christmas present is the one you give yourself'.

    Alastair (Owner of a triple-weighted set - albeit plastic)

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