Four CB sets arrived - Dominator and 3 sets of entry level 3 inch ebony

one 4" dominator

http://www.chessbazaar.com/the-dominator-weighted-staunton-chess-pieces-in-ebony-box-wood-4-0-king.html

and three sets of 3" staunton, of which two are normal knights and one is fierce knight

http://www.chessbazaar.com/the-staunton-series-weighted-wooden-chess-pieces-in-ebony-box-wood-3-0-king.html

http://www.chessbazaar.com/fierce-knight-staunton-series-wooden-chess-pieces-in-ebony-box-wood-3-0-king.html

I just clean out one firece knight set and the dominator set. I have nothing to say about dominator set yet, everything is perfect for me.

But I do have some gripes about the fierce knight 3" ebony set:

1. base size abnormalities. Queen is the largest one. King's base is much smaller (around 2mm and more smaller!)

2. weight abnormalities. Again king is much lighter than Queen. And Khight is surprisingly heavy.

3. White king is wobbling, black king's woble is less, but still there.

4. the felt is kind of fake leather, much worse feeling and silencing effect than the billiard felt used by HOS Zagreb and CB Dominator

Then I unwrapped part of other 2 sets of 3" normal staunton finding their queen base much smaller than that of fierce knight set and quite in line with the king's size. I still need to check out more detials tonight.

Despite of these odds, I have to say I am quite happy with the wood quality and carve and finish of all sets. And most importantly, the delivery is free of charge and no extra fee from such as DHL customs clearance agentcy!!! The longer delivery time is very tolerable taking the cost into consideration.

So I guess the mid range models from CB are quite uniformed than the economy models.

Nice set...

I like the very large base from King and Queen.

some official pictures and datas:

fierce knight 3.0" ebony 

normal knight 3.0" ebony

First I would like to highlight the differences between what I received and those shown in the official pictures:

1. fiece knight set differences:

 a. rook: the received rook looks much better than in the picutre, the cuts in the rampart is much shallow, not through, like the middle-end and above models. This is a pleasant surprise. The low cut rooks just look weak and dismantled on the board

 b. bishop: the received bishop is more elegant, smaller in the mitre part. But cut is sadly thin and not in the better position.

2. normal knight set differences:

 a. bishop: the mitre cut is just from the top bead, not like in the official picture a litter away from it, at a position similar to those high end models, again a pleasant surprise

And the major differences between these two 3" ebony entry model:

1. weight. As you can see from the official data, fierce set is 740g, normal set is 630g. Sounds not a big differences. But the weights of knigh, bishop, rook, queen are quite different in the hand. You can clearly tell that fierce set pieces are much more heavy and I am happy with the heft. Pawns are almost the same.

2. base size. The official data also show that fierce set is bigger. That's true. I like bigger base

3. felt. Even both use fake leather, which I dislike since the silence effect is not good as billiard felt, the one on the firce set is much smoother. You can slide the fierce set pieces on the board, but the felt of normal set are so sticky that you cannot slide them at all. And this feel quite bad when you are playing, especiall when you are eating some pieces, you can feel the pieces not easy moving.

So it seems that the fierce knigh set is a clear win, right? But NO! There is a big problem with the fierce set I got. The KING! The king comes with fierce set is much smaller and ligher than the set's queen! Actually the fierce king also feature the same sticky felt as normal set. So the fierce set king is actually the same as normal set king only except the shape of crown (that small slope). I don't know if this problem comes from the delivery quality control or the desing of the set.

So I have to swap the queen in the fierce set with a queen from the normal set, then the base sizes look harmonized on the board.

bishop comparison: left normal, right fierce

knight comparison: left normal, right fierce

rook comparison: left fierce, right normal

felt comparison: left normal (very sticky), right fierce (except two KINGs and two black Queens!)

So my feeling regarding the two entry models of CB 3" ebony are quite mixed. 

What I like:

1. low price, zero shippment fee and customs fee

2. wood and carve and finish are good

What I dislike:

1. felt. material, I prefer billiard cloth used by CB Dominator and HOS Zagreb. felt cut, always not so clean and not perfectly round and poorly glued, and not even since the fake leather is thin you can easily tell the holes behind it. HOS every piece's felt is perfect, the cut, the shape, the glue, the material. Why the hell CB is using this kind of felt? Especially those on the normal knight set are horribly sticky.

2. uniformity. what hell is the problem with the king in the fierce knight set? All other pieces look so much better than the normal knight pieces (especially the rook, knight, and the felts used), but suddenly a king from the normal knight set mixs in and destroy everything.

So what I am doing with my three 3" sets now?

I swap the fierce knight set's king (small and wobling) and queen with the normal knight queen and king and use the very heavy fierce set queen (and very large with the base size) as the extra queen seperately for two sets.

I just wrote to Sapna to check if CB can find the proper fierce knight set king for me.

And one issue I forgot to mention:

The heavier and bigger fierce knight queen only refers to the two white queens.

The black queens in the firece kinght set are the same as the normal knight set, smaller in base size (but still bigger than minor pieces) and lighter (but still heavier than minor pieces)

Again another uniformity issue.

Thank you for the detailed and balanced review.

thanks for the review, I'd love to see some more pics of the dominator set when you have some time.

sure, after figuring out the three 3" entry sets, let's talk about the Dominator set. 

Firstly, what I like:

1. the shapes of each piece. I like them all. The rounded corner on the king's crown, the very slim and elegant shank of King and queen, the shape of bishop's mitre and the cut, the rook's rampart cut depth, the round head of pawns (the Sinquefield set's pawn head does not look round to me)

2. the base size and weight are all well harmonized and as specified, no oddities like that in the entry sets.

3. the ebony used looks better than that of entry set, darker, less grains, and more shiny and better polised.

What I don't like?

Again the first is the felt. Check the differences between dominator and HOS Zagreb. 

The billiard cloth used by HOS is tigher, thiner, less mushy, color more beautiful, all in all, better than that used by CB in every way.

Check the picture of that rook in my last post, you can easily see those felt. Does not that look like a gentleman sitting there in suit but with his underpant showing out?

And the mushy felt is keeping attracing many small litters attached on them. I just cannot undertand why CB cannot make it out with the felts when their wood craft is so good.

Talking about wood carving, CB is still not so good as HOS. Check this tiny detail in the middle of pawn's head. HOS is perfect, without any visible marks and is perfectly round. But CB, many pawns you can still manage to observe some tiny flat surface in the middle of top and some small marks or dints. 

Pay attention, HOS Zagreb 2.875 starts with 99USD! And Dominator is 175USD.

Even I like the mitre's cut generally, I still wish that sharp corner can be rounded. 

And finally, after very careful check with a flashlight, I found this small crack in one rook. It seems to me that the crack has been applied with some glue already. 

Shall I ask for one replacement?

All in all, I love this Dominator set, I just wish the pawn heads can be a little better polished like that of HOS Zagreb, and maybe that two inside corners of each bishop can be rounded.

In my very limited experience with both HOS and CB, I have to say HOS does seem to have better quality to me generally. What a pity their shippment and other extra fees (customs) are so high when delivering to Europe.

I would.

I am having a long and many emails discussion with Sapna today. And she actually agrees to every request I made. Really fast and perfect service so far.

She agreed to replace the black Rook with crack.

And she agreed to replace the dispropotioned Kings (black and white) and Queens (only two black) from the Fierce Knight set I received.

Now let's wait for the deliveries. Another 3~4 weeks to go.

Does anyone know what the product code of CB mean?

I found that they have MXXXX, DXXXX, SXXXX, VJXXX. Does that mean they have four outsourced manufacturers which are coded as M, D, S and VJ?

It seems that VJ has most high end models, S/D most middle range and M/D most entry.

Happy to know that all your issues are going to be solved; for my part I decided to write another mail about the problems with the bishop, hope they will do something about it.

cool! i want that one too 

After several weeks of use and comparison, I am now a little happier with M0010 than M0009 (Fierce Knight) due to:

1. the weight of M0010 peices are more harmonized. M0009's minor pieces are a little bit too heavy compared with pawns IMHO.

2. M0009 white Queens have too sharp corona teeth, and the corona is also much smaller than M0010's, not friendly for holding.

3. M0009 Bishop is more elegant in the mitre's shape, but the mitre is a little bit too small so as not friendly for holding.

4. the flossy felt is better for sliding the piece, but it is thinner so that the noise when hitting the board is bigger. The sticky felt on M0010 is thicker so that the cushioning and silencing effect is better. 

5. I am OK with M0010 Rook's tapering down cuts in the turrets now. Reykjavik set and many others are using this design.

6. M0010 knight is classical staunton design. Even it is not so cool as M0009's fierce knight.

So if someone is going to pull a trigger on the entry 3" ebony set from CB, I think I will recommend M0010 the normal knight set.