Cheap VS Expensive Chess Set

A Chess set can make a significant difference in playing experience. It is important for the pieces to be easy to recognize and for them to be stable on the board and not shift around or fall over easily. If you enjoy the set you may also be willing to play more.

If my choices were limited, I would use whatever is available to play a game. But if I can choose, then I'd choose a nice set, not necessarily an expensive one, but one that I find to be nice.

Does anyone remember an old (1971) movie starring Max von Sydow? It's called "The Night Visitor". In it, he plays a person that is locked in an insane asylum and has sculpted his own chess set to play with a guard. I'd like to find a copy of that chess set.

A hard truth, hermanjohnell. A number of sets I’ve ‘collected’ are unlikely ever to be played. I enjoy them as visual touchstones to history and to a spirit. Curious discovery for me is that the sets I use most aren’t the expensive ones.

Quite the improbable 'chess in cinema' addition, thank you very much, Laurentiu-Cristofor!

I hope it is fair use to show a capture from the movie The Night Visitor (1971), if not please let me know.

A painted figurative set handmade of clay, I guess. It could have been created just for the movie- do you know if it was?

It's a great chess scene, and (whenever I dare to watch the movie and) if the movie is good, I would take it for all that if ever I come across it. What do you like best about it?

It's role in the plot is that it's kind of hard to like. That's easy, but it's a movie with a story beyond vengeful, so I just watched a few minutes here and there. And the whole chess scene, of course. (Was there more than the main one)?

But one thing I got to mention about this movie- it is very cinematographic, and that is great- but what you gotta love about this movie is the depiction of the asylum's workshop when the police visits the prison, and it is full of ordinary, dear all-Swedish people sitting at their benches handling the pieces of art and craft they are working on silently. Invaluable and beyond

Great stuff!

Please, can you reveal the source of the opening three verses? Is it American Indian? I do not get the second verse, though, one and three seem to say it all for me.

Your genius continuation out of this opening, "chess is played in ones head, not on a board and a chess set is only a prop necessary only for those of us who cannot keep track of the moves and positions with our minds" is a bit like saying "the world is lived in one's head, not in the world, and the real world is only a prop for those of us who cannot keep track of the moves and positions". The cheapest world, therefore, should do just fine?

We can keep track of the world in our minds as little as we can of games of chess because it is lived and played outside, with minds that can only so much jump around inside. Events, like sowing seeds or harvesting or communication of moves are only ever possible via going outside, sharing the same places or the same symbols.

Now we're getting to the point: what makes the quality of the places, and what makes the quality of the symbols? Quality symbols need not be expensive, because what counts is are they perfectly suitable for speaking the language. Are these pieces suitable for playing chess?

Cheapest would not make chess pieces, because creating material symbols is work and work is not cheap. Cheapest chess pieces would be the ones that work, made with the least amount of work..

"Once a game is afoot, no chess player worth his salt occupies his mind with what material the board or pieces are made of or what monetary value.." All chess sets for which this holds true are good chess sets, and the rest are gradual and local refinements? Which make sense because they show that the crafting of the symbols leaves us freedom of expression in form while using them for the same language.

The common language of chess is the one free given, there are practical and impractical sets, there are simpler sets and sets using higher skills, and there are prices for everything.

We just want something of beauty- chess- be for everybody, and wish everybody the most beautiful pieces there are to use for their games.

As I keep seeing, chess, by its rules dancing and fighting, demanding and enabling, is all about friendship, about sharing and creating for community, against poverty.

Expensive keeps the aesthetic

The lines are the gunslinger´s creed from Stephen King´s magnum opus.

My point, in this discussion, is that the game doesn´t need a physical chess set (even if we do). I´ve always been fascinated by the great masters ability to play blindfolded, sometimes against several opponents simultaneously. This is reflected in The Queens Gambit both when Beth visualises the lines in the ceiling and when she and I don´t remember who play a game simply by saying out their respective moves.

Me, I can barely keep track of the action with a board and pieces...

Yes but Beth was an addict & it's a tv show ?

Oh, I thought it was a novel.

The miniseries was based on the 1983 Walter Tevis novel.

So was gone with the wind a novel ?

If you like chess you can spend some on a nice expensive chess set.

I read the book years ago - about 1990 I think - I loved it. In the book, Beth wasn't "hot".

There were probably other differences too but I never finished watching the mini-series.

I dunno. Yes the game is played in the mind blah blah etc but the sets the poster was referring to would make my eyes bleed.

In the end you buy a chess set because you like It , As a kid growing up in the 70's learning to play chess , It was them cheap french chess sets + Bobby Fischer .

As the years when by, The vintage chess sets on Portobello Rd stuck a note in me + the high asking prices making it beyond my reach as a young man . But the spark was lit & maybe one day . Then came ebay , Picked up some real Gems, in today market now would not be able to afford , Still if I had that kind of money why not . AS life is so short .

When it comes to physical pieces and actual play how the pieces look is of no importance as long as they ae clearly distinguishable. More important is how they feel and that they don´t fall over.

Many (most) of my sets are secondhand, and the value (for me) is in the relationships and the experience I have made in buying the sets. For example, I remember a long drive to a regional location to pick up an inlaid board and pieces (perhaps of polish origin) … the gentleman I purchased it from purchased it many years ago and then he moved to Asia for work and the set remained in storage in Australia until he fished it out of a shipping container full of bricabrac for me. He was a really interesting fellow and the set is interesting too. I won’t sell it… I have no idea of the true historical provenance … but I will always remember to experience. It’s a playable, affordable set. Further, what is affordable to me - may be cheap or expensive to others - it’s all very subjective and relative to our own situations. I can’t afford an antique Jaques but I am happy for those that can and I enjoy seeing pictures on this forum. I have often thought … if I didn’t buy all these set that I have… or sold them … I could save to buy just one great Jaques… but that’s not my way because then I miss the experience and relationships of buying sets within my price range… and in some strange way that all contributes to my sense of value … so back to the story of the Polish set … it’s affordable (and perhaps, by many aspects noted above - cheap) - but it has high value to me.

Even if you bought is for $1 AUS, going by the knights alone I wouldn't consider that set "cheap"

I liked the mystery set around how the main suspect had a rock-solid alibi in being locked in an asylum at the time of each murder. It's a well-crafted movie and not that well known and I like finding gems like this.

I have to say I forgot how the chess set looked. I looked for an image, but I didn't think to look for the movie on youtube and screenshot a frame. The set made an impression on me since I first saw the movie, but I last saw it over a decade ago and the image from my memory did no longer match the look of the pieces. The only thing that still matched was that there was something uneasy about their look.

The set is only shown in that one scene (around minute 55). I don't remember seeing it elsewhere, though the character may be shown working on a piece sometime earlier. I always thought he was working in wood and the set was painted, but I'll have to watch the movie again, to see if he was also working with clay. I remember that the key he used to open his cell door was made of wood, so that's why I assumed all his figurines were made from wood (in the chess scene, you can see him glancing at another figurine hanging in front of a window and balancing in the wind - that's also a meaningful piece of the puzzle).

And there lay the complexity … I agree … but in a monetary sense it was cheap and also… it is not weighted, the knights are basic, the bases are not wide … and yet, it espouses character and it is very functional .. the pieces are easy to distinguish, the board is not large and has a draw to house the pieces… it’s a pub-playable set made by someone who knows and loves chess … a bit of historical magic but with no provenance … so I am left to imagine its history and enjoy the pieces to play with friends. Fortunate, I am.