Try a cucumber at each edge of the board and let us know if it works. Cats apparently hate cucumbers as they interfere with their communications with the mothership. 
Cats on Chessboards & Talking Pieces
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5 days ago
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#2
Love the comment - although I would never scare my furry friends like that. 
Greetings All,
I posted a while back a question regarding on how to keep your cats off of the chessboard (electronic) and keeping your pieces safe from collection. Well, I had searched high and low for something to protect my Chessnut Go, while leaving pieces set up on the board mid-game. I had finally found what I thought was the perfect clear plastic tote bin approximately three inches deep (used to store a ream of paper and so forth). I chatted with my sister to see if she wanted anything from Amazon since that was where I found the item (and from where I was ordering), she said to wait... and gave me the exact tote I was going to order. I had no idea she had one, let alone it was sitting unused in a closet in our home.
Well, this was not earth-shattering or anything, but still, thought it was a nice example of coincidence.
Cheers