Thank you all.
I was just talking with my wife and realized that this is the first thing of any value that I have ever won in my life.
Also, Tuesday is my 60th birthday so this is a very nice birthday present.
Thanks again to all.
Best wishes on the anniversary of your natal day.
Congrats Eye, I found your post really interesting, Happy Birthday.
As a follow up I received my stuff today. I found out about winning on Sunday and it arrived on Wednesday from London to Peoria, Illinois, USA! That's fast.
All I can say is that Carl is excellent.
I did not and do not want Ebony pieces as our environment in Illinois has high humidity at one extreme and extreme dryness at the other. I had decided back in the 1990's with Frank Camaratta's agreement to simply stay away from Ebony.
I also play rated Chess with all of my sets so I wanted a set that would go well in tournament play. I didn't want another big set with 4.4" Kings or anything because I want to limit carrying about big and heavy boards.
All of the more expensive sets that Carl carries are Ebony and they're big. So I looked at the sets he had and decided on the Broadbent Series set which is Ebonized and has a 1.75" King base
I just wanted a nice set and the price didn't matter. If I got an expensive set that I didn't want, that would do me no good.
So, I messaged Carl saying that all I wanted was the Broadbent set and I would be happy and satisfied.
Well, Carl agreed but said he wanted to send me their FIscher Board to bring the value of what he sent me up closer to what he said he would give me as a prize. Now, I didn't even consider him sending me anything other than the set, but as I have a couple of the Fischer-Spassky sets, I was very happy to accept it.
Here's one of their stock pictures of the Broadbent set:
And here's a picture of the board which he had made to be a reproduction of the board used by Fischer and Spassky in Game 3 of their match in 1972:
As I said, this all arrived today. I unpacked it and it all looks wonderful, just like the pictures.
Now, Carl didn't need to send me the board. I just won the set by writing what I looked for in a Chess set and then my paper was pulled from the bunch. I didn't have to pay him any money or anything. And I told him that I would be perfectly happy with the Broadbent set, with no mention from me at all about any board. It was Carl that brought up the board idea, which matches the set very nicely by the way.
Yes, Carl has certainly won me as a big fan of his.
While looking at his site for a set that I would want, I also noticed that his sets really are less expensive than other places with similar quality sets, boards and boxes. His most expensive sets were at that 500 GBP mark. And you had to get well under 300 GBP before you were out of the Ebony range for pretty much all his set designs. Not to name names, but The House of Staunton has a lot of sets that cost a lot more than 500 GBP that aren't much better looking at all than Carl's.
So, as the lucky winner of this prize, I am very happy. And I gladly will refer others to Carl and his sites to buy Chess equipment.
Incredible deal and good will by Carl.
Congrats Eyechess, you won a really beautiful pieces and board 
Thank you all.
I was just talking with my wife and realized that this is the first thing of any value that I have ever won in my life.
Also, Tuesday is my 60th birthday so this is a very nice birthday present.
Thanks again to all.