Everything You Need to Know About Buying A Chess Set for Your Child Who Is Not Good at Sports

Thanks to The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, chess is all the rage these days! Time will tell if this centuries-old leisure activity will stick around for good or be another passing fad like the lava lamp, ska music, or pet rocks. But in the meantime, chess is as cool as anything since Miles Davis came along — and the inclusion of drugs and alcohol in The Queen’s Gambit just makes chess that much more hip and appealing to younger people.

Chess is a pastime where the mightiest of kings and knights can be reduced to peasants, peons, and pawns. It is a game that takes neither strength nor brawn, and has driven countless folks to insanity. Few things are less fun than a stressful game of chess that takes an entire afternoon to complete. In fact, the scientists who write for Wired tell us it playing lots of chess can even shrink your brain. Despite these obvious dangers to your psyche and your social life, you may still be thinking about buying and owning a chess board. 

But are you truly prepared to begin the process of shopping for a brand-new chessboard? Are you confident you have all the information to make the best decision? Do you even know how to play chess? There’s lots you need to know before undertaking such a responsibility. 

Why Should I Buy a Chess Set?

I want to look smart. Whether you’re looking for an elegant piece to put in the corner of your living room and never touch or looking for a game with pieces small enough for a child to choke on, keeping a chess set in your house is a great way to give your visitors the impression that you’re slightly smarter than you think they think you are. 

My child is not good at sports. Sports and other physical activities take size and coordination. If your son, daughter, or genderqueer child is not agile enough for ballet or obese enough for football, consider projecting your insecurities onto them through a medium like chess. The scholarships to Division I schools they’ll earn will offset any damage to your relationship.

I enjoy playing chess. Believe it or not, there are people who actually like to play chess, sometimes even more than just once in awhile. If you’re one of those people, there’s no reason why you should spend thousands of dollars on a chess board without doing your homework first. 

What to Look for When Shopping for a New Chess Set.

Tournament notations. If you plan on getting serious about playing chess, you’ll want a board that has all the letters and numbers along the sides. These figures like D4 and E1 make up its own language in chess and maybe someday when someone tells you that the knight to G5 is checkmate, you’ll know what that means. 

More than one queen. Did you know that there’s a rule that if you can get your pawn all the way to the other side, you can get your queen back? And if you already have your queen, you can get a second one? Since you’re probably terrible at chess, this will likely never happen to you but if it does, you’ll want to be prepared. Make sure your board comes with extra queens.

The correct number of squares. A complete, functional chessboard has 64 squares. Make sure all squares are intact; if you find that you board has only 63 squares or even less, do not hesitate to return the chess set to your local chess dealer for an exchange. The neighborhood chess store is part of a dying industry that wants to keep its customers happy.  

Proximity to a drug dealer or unscrupulous doctor and pharmacist. Like Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit, you don’t want to be caught short on tranquilizers right before a big chess match. Those nerves of yours need to be steady as you accumulate points on your way up to being a Grandmaster! Make sure you have access to someone who can give you access to the best drugs you need to enhance your performance.

What are the best Chess Boards to buy? 

The fanciest and most expensive. If you have lots of money but no intention of ever actually playing chess and just want to show off, you’ll want the most expensive chess set money can buy. The folks at Bello Games New York know how to make gorgeous-looking chess sets, and one of them is this beautiful table of Italian alabaster. The pieces are hand-painted doohickeys that reimagines the soldiers of the American Civil War as a chess match, which just makes those two things that much more obviously analogous. At 85 pounds, it is heavy as it is handsome, and would look great in the corner of your library next to the window on a sunny day, where you can see the dust floating lightly in the sunbeams. 

Click on the old men to buy the fanciest chess board ever! 

Best quality chess board for your buck. If you’re looking for a good solid, high-quality chess board that will look pretty on your shelf but won’t break the bank, consider this foldable gem with felt-lined storage. Though the pieces are lighter than most chess sets and it does not pack extra queens, the understated class gives this set an aesthetic most people are looking for in their chess set, as if it’s been passed along for generations. You could give this to a young child in the family and tell them their great-grandfather mated Boris Spassky on this very set in 1963 and they’d be none the wiser. 

Click on the big-ass chess pieces to buy a quality chess set!

A chess board you can use outside. Playing chess is an excellent way to spend a day in the park without doing any strenuous physical activity like biking or walking, especially if you have someone with you. If you like playing chess and being outside and doing both at the same time, you’ll want a board that can withstand minor elements like small insects, raindrops, and bird shit. This sturdy, vinyl rollable chess mat is made of sturdy vinyl and you can roll it up. It’s kinda big – nearly 20” by 20” – but that just means you don’t have to worry about knocking the pieces over with your awkward hand movements, and it’s great for play on picnic tables, tree stumps, sidewalks, and other flat surfaces you’ll find outdoors.

A cheap-ass shitty one. If you needed to buy 100 chess boards and only had $1,000 to spend, this Pressman brand set is what you’d probably buy. Likewise, if you’re trying to get a shitload of board games for your kid’s playroom on a budget, this basic chess set is perfectly cromulent. Chess snobs prefer black and white squares to black and red, but if you’re cheaping out this much, appeasing the intellectual elite is probably of little importance to you. 

Click on the small-ass chess board to buy a cheap chess set!

 A magnetic chess board ideal for traveling. There are people who are so serious about chess that they often play games against themselves and carrying a little chess board wherever they go. Some of these portable chess boards feature magnets that prevent the pieces from sliding around. This is perfect for those who like to play when they’re traveling, but keep in mind that playing chess while driving was responsible for the third-most highway accidents in some countries last year. Use magnetic chess boards responsibly. 

Click on the traveling couple to buy your own portable chess board!

Other Chess Products You Can Buy!

The book The Queen’s Gambit was based on. Originally published in 1983, The Queen’s Gambit covers a wide range of themes, from feminism to substance abuse, through the eyes of an orphan chess prodigy. It was written by Walter Tevis, an accomplished novelist who also wrote the books that the films The Hustler, The Color of Money, and The Man Who Fell to Earth were based on, and he received consultation from chess bigwig Bruce Pandolfini, whose name you may know from Ben Kinsley’s portrayal in Searching for Bobby Fischer. Even if you’ve already binged on the popular Netflix show, the book is still worth picking up for additional insights in the chess world, as well as for Tevis’s underrated mastery of his writing craft.

Click on the bad chess player to buy The Queen’s Gambit: A Novel by Walter Trevis!

Chess time clocks. More experienced chess players sometimes like to give themselves time restraints, challenging opponents to win by a certain number of minutes. While you’re deciding your next move, the clock runs and when you make your move, you give it a satisfying smack to switch the timer back to your opponent. This is also ideal if you’re invited to play a game of chess and want to be polite and say yes, but don’t want to be stuck on one game for hours. This requires a special clock and if you have any taste at all, you’ll go for a classic tournament-sanctioned analog with a wind-up timer.

Click on the clock to buy a chess clock!

 

Books on the best chess strategies. There are people who have written books about the greatest opening moves in a chess game. There are people who buy these books. Some of these people read those books, and learn about opening moves with names like Bogo-Indian, Dutch Defense, and English Opening. The great chess player Carsten Hansen has written many such chess books that people have bought and presumably even read. Hansen’s most popular works include Catastrophes & Tactics in the Chess Opening – Volume 3: Flank Openings: Winning in 15 Moves or Less: Chess Tactics, Brilliancies & Blunders in the Chess Opening, which is considered the OK Computer of the chess-writing genre. 

Click to buy a book on chess tactics and openings!

 

A platform where you can play chess against others. Are you new to chess and looking to take crash courses in openings and strategy? Do you love to play chess but don’t have any friends who are bored enough to play with you? The thorough and comprehensive online resource chess.com has an excellent website and app where you can test your chess skills at all levels. It’s free, but hardcore chess players may find its extra features worth paying for. 

Replacement chess pieces. Whether we’re targets of conglomerates and politicians or controlled by banks and bosses, we’re all pawns in life and as such, we’re disposable. The pawns of a chess board are similarly cheap and replaceable. If you should lose a piece or two, you’ll have little problem finding an equally good replacement for next to nothing.

Click on the pawn to buy more pawns!

 

How can I get good at Chess?

The basics of playing chess. If you have no idea what you’re doing or how any of the pieces move and your opponent snorts his nose derisively because you thought the bishop was called a horse, then the Hobby Lark folks have an excellent guide for you.

Don’t let the name and the Lion King pictures fool you. The Chess Kid kids know their chess shit. They offer lots of practical advice on improving your chess game, like learning endgame tactics and memorizing opening moves, as well as concepts like trading pieces and spotting draws 30 moves ahead and other advanced stuff kids wouldn’t know if they went outside once in awhile. 

Things We Bet You Didn’t Know About Chess

Chess players are revered. Elite chess players are some of the most popular, highest-paid, and well-respected people in the world. These players study for years to earn the title of “Grandmaster,” and are held in the same regard as doctors. They make millions per year in tournament earnings and product endorsements.

The world chess champion is a 33-year-old kid. Magnus Carlsen is currently the #1-ranked chess player in the world. The Norwegian point guard has led the Golden State Warriors to three straight NBA Finals appearances with peak a FIDE rating of over 2800. 

Bobby Fischer was very weird. All chess playing ceased for three days in 1979, when the reclusive Bobby Fischer came out of hiding to appear in a tournament, and then took all of the chess boards in the world and went home after playing to a draw in the second round. 

The Elo rating is bullshit. Ranking the best chess players in the world based on a hypothetical performance rating that weighs tournament wins and losses on an arbitrarily-assigned value system is an oversimplification at best, to say nothing of the politics and corruption that the FIDE and USCF are subjected to. It’s all a big goddam racket, and the pressure to conform to these standards are a huge reason why the most talented young chess players in the game are switching to sports.  

Final Thoughts and Conclusions About Chess.

Now that you know everything there is to know about chess, you’ll be empowered to make informed decisions on shopping for the best chess products of the highest quality that fit your lifestyle and budget. But whatever chess set you choose for your home, we’re sure you’ll get many minutes of enjoyment from your purchase. Want to read more chess content on Content Bash? Check out our lists on the Best Women Chess Players and Great Chess Players Throughout History. 

Image Credit: Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

 

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