A System for Sizing Chess Pieces and Boards (long)

Miramelle, glad to be of help. Please post pictures of your ceation when completed. We'd love to see it. BTW, what's your son's majoy?

Thanks for the reply. He's a dual major in entomology and evolutionary biology. I will post pics when done, but you'll have to be patient- he graduates in 2017!

Great post and discussions! Thanks Ioubalch.

To quote Jonas Znidarsic, "Hello Chess Lovers"(heavy accent)

First time here and started playing chess again 2 years ago with my older 2" sq board and inexpensive pieces. I bought a very nice 2.375" sq board a year ago but still have not bought chess pieces due in part tthe sizing questions. Also, I wanted to learn for myself the history of the pieces; various designs; different chess vendors and all. It's been a very enjoyable trip and educational but I am ready to buy.

One thing I learned is except for Chess Bazaar( could be others) in most cases only the King's height; base of King and weight of the set is a constant. Chess Bazaar also lists the heights and base dimensions of all the pieces .  This makes eliminating pieces so much easier!!Their scaling is a little odd at times but will not cover that here.  *** for the record I have never purchased from them and do not know if I will

So hats off to Lou Balch and others who makes the points that it's not Just the base size in relation to the square size but all aspects( fatness of pieces; pawn base size, etc. ) 

Here is MY perspective from my self education the last year and What I WANT; so if you disagree ok but I would appreciate any suggestions for chess pieces for my 2.375" sq board in the $250 or less range. Here goes:

As I said, I agree with Lou and others and with Daniel Weil of Pentagram who designed the 2013 WCC pieces. He went back and look at Nathaniel Cooks designs and the Parthenon and he rescaled the pieces for the better I believe. He also scaled the base sizes better too ;in fact the King's base is .765(.77) of the square size and the Pawn is .77 of the King's base.**based on what I ascertained.    Now; the end result of the pieces from the "wow" factor is not there for me but the other aspects is what I want as near possible in a set.

Suggestions for a set with a kings base of 1.75-1.83" and Pawns with bases of  1.3-1.4" and proper scaling? Thanks in advance

richard

You have to realize the sizing has changed with the times. If you showed this sizing to some in 1904 they would have laughed as most sets were over crowded by today's standards. But my point is that was the Norm, that was the Standard back then.  One can not say this is absolutely right and back 110 years ago it was all wrong. I would in a heartbeat take a Cambridge Springs over crowded table and set before I would take the most expensive table and set made today.  You can't buy chess history and this is what I love about the hobby. I play crappy but love the history and collected chess books, which is a dying hobby in itself.

I am not sure of your point. I think the .77 % is not over crowded and is basically what Fide  and others recommend for relation between Kings base and square sizes. Maybe you like the 4 pawns in a square sizing and not the .77% for sizing  As I said in my post, it's what I am aiming for ; not saying it is RIGHT for OTHERS. Real downer is that there are not any retail stores anymore with a range of sets. Wish there was a Chess Show like they do with cars; speakers etc.  No further discussion necessary

My point is sizing varies with the times.  What was  "standard" 100 years ago is not acceptable today. It's chess history and like I said I would rather have an overcrowded set and table ie: Cambridge Springs 1904 than have a brand new expensive set up. 

I am not you  And who is to say what is acceptable in my Own house. BTW 2.375" sq X.77%=1.8" so it is in proportion.  You enjoy your sets and I will enjoy mine. I will not read any more of your comments

The primary sizing criteria is that of square size vs King base diameter...

A good rule of thumb is...

King base diameter = 0.75 * square size

or equivalently....

Square size  = 1.33 * King base diameter

The size of all other pieces is essentially a matter of personal preference...

Tennisteacher, I find this method properly scales the king and pawns to each other. Hopefully, the designers properly scale the remaining back row pieces proportionally to the king.  Once the pieces and pawns are properly scaled to fit the matching board, you end up with two options: 1) going with the board that most closely matches the 76.5% scaling factor for the king, or 2) moving up or down one board size (+/- 1/8") if your preference is for a roomier or cozier fit. But if the pawns are undersized (4 pawns to a square), moving up to a larger board will leave you with, sadly, teeny-tiny pawnettes!

As a carpenter, woodworker and chess enthusiast I have wanted to build my own set for quite some time now. This article has been super helpful. I have been wanting to find out though, How do we scale for height with the other pieces Queen, Knight, Rook?

I wrote a script to generate a table based loubalch's formula.

   sq   |  king  | pawn
1.500 | 1.147 | 0.877
1.625 | 1.243 | 0.951
1.750 | 1.339 | 1.024
1.875 | 1.434 | 1.097
2.000 | 1.530 | 1.170
2.125 | 1.626 | 1.243
2.250 | 1.721 | 1.316
2.375 | 1.817 | 1.389
2.500 | 1.913 | 1.462
2.625 | 2.008 | 1.536
2.750 | 2.104 | 1.609
2.875 | 2.199 | 1.682

 So based on the formula used to scale king and pawn to the square size, once those heights are determined,  I've seen where all other pieces are scaled to fit in a line that is drawn from the top of the king to the top of the pawn. Is that correct?

I agree. Thanks for the advice.  

Paco_dela_Huerta: Ideally, that's correct. But, nobody is stopping the manufacturer to not adhere to this. They can make the bishop and knight to be the same height, for example. 

@LIML *Shakes fist at manufacturers* Thanks! I like to make sure I'm designing to what other chess lovers like and consider to be aesthetically pleasing for sight, hand and play! Is there spacing consideration when coming up with the height? Do I set my 6 inches from my king and draw the line. Then if I decide my queen will have a base of 1.25" diameter, find the center(.75") then move it along the line until I arrive at the height? Am I overthinking this or not thinking it through enough?

I think which ever set looks "perfect" is the set you play the most with.

For example, after playing exclusively with a 7.5" travel set for even just a week (small travel sets have high base-to-square area ratio), the standard USCF plastic tournament set looks too spares, and vise versa.

Today, most are used to that plastic set and the common 2.25"squares, for better or worse, so anything too far out would feel strange..maybe even ugly.

I feel the same WRT chessmen designs too.  It is just what we are used to.  And for those married players, wife/husband too, right?

This might help. Here's a set design I worked up based on my scaling formulas (Kd=76.5%; Pd=58.6%). I call it my 4" Linear Slope Design or LSD (a gentle nod to the hippy days of the late '60s), where the height of each piece, starting with the 4" king, is 0.4" shorter. Thus, the queen is 3.6" tall, the bishop is 3.2" tall, and so on, which would produce a graceful, and I hope, an aesthetically pleasing design. It's designed to fit perfectly on a 2.25" chess board. I've also worked up specs for a 3.75" and 4.4" linear slope designs.

Well done