
Exquisite Chess Sets Once Captured the Game’s Global Heritage - never-the-bride
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/exquisite-chess-sets/
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tzs
Some of those old sets, and also some modern collector sets, can be very nice
looking. They can make wonderful decorations for a living room.

However, quite a lot of serious chess players (I'd go so far as to say most)
dislike actually _playing_ on such sets. Serious players almost always want a
normal Staunton design, in a size and material and color that meets FIDE or
USCF tournament equipment standards. Same for the board.

If you have chess playing friends, do them a favor and do NOT buy them a fancy
chess set for Christmas or their birthday or graduation or other gift-giving
occasion, unless you buy them a set you KNOW that they want.

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pavel_lishin
Even as a casual player, if I'm playing something that doesn't resemble
Staunton's pieces, I typically spend half my time trying to figure out which
piece is which.

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aj7
"Exquisite" chess sets are among the worst kind of kitsch. Why? Because they
are non-functional. No one would play a serious or even a friendly game of
chess with them.

So what is their function, other than to convey clutter, confusion, and
ugliness? Perhaps "to capture the game's global heritage."

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setr
I don't know much about the topic, but going off the article, and assuming a
non-ornamental set;

There's really no reason to claim its non-functional; its just not useful for
games against arbitrary players.

But its hardly a complex adaptation, requiring but a few games to achieve
proficiency (this I know from my own experience with an ornamental set,
against my brother)

Anyone you play with repeatedly can be played with on a variant set; and since
I imagine most don't _only_ play against randoms in a park/tournament, there's
quite a bit of use to find.

And as the article notes, knowing an additional set doesnt detract from
knowledge of the first (bilingual)

Tbh, the only reason I can think of to explicitly deny owning or using non-
standard set, ignoring random pick-up games and tournaments, is either
pretentiousness or genuine love for the Staunton set

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nullbyte
You have a terrible style of writing.

~~~
setr
Expand

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gmiller123456
I "made" a set using different sized shot glasses for each piece, and
different colors of alcohol for each side. No doubt I wasn't the first, nor
the last to do so. Never managed to have everything line up in having a
willing opponent, clean glasses, and an environment appropriate for getting
drunk enough, so it remains unplayed.

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wtbob
Great article (honestly: it's worth a read), but it doesn't display properly
on a half-widescreen window (at least not mine, at least not in Firefox).

Remember when the Web was supposed to be device-independent? That was really
awesome.

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douche
Half the fun of computer chess games like Chessmaster was the cool variant
piece sets that were included.

