What’s wrong with these pictures?
In both pictures they're using a computerized DGT chess board with 55mm (2.17") squares.
The first picture is a screen shot from the Sinquefield Cup Tournament ongoing in St. Louis. They're using a special set House of Staunton makes up for this event. The king is 3.75" tall with a 1.85" diameter. I'd say the king looks a bit cramped here. ...
So my question to FIDE and the USCF is this – why even bother to publish equipment guidelines if you’re not going to follow them yourselves?
Because it is cramped!
Hos will sell those sets (non-dgt versions) to people with 2.25" boards.
They do not have 55mm boards available for sale on their website.
I agree that HoS should design a set with 1.625 base that actually looks proportionally correct for a 55mm board.
But they won't, because their primary market (the USA) is 2.25" board country. Period, full stop.
Also, Because nobody else cares.
"OMGChess14
The trouble is that the most common (by far) pairing is a 2.25" square board plus a 1.5" king base. This is the default size for the very common vinyl roll-up boards and the standard plastic tournament and club set sold by nearly everyone. "
The reason for that is these chess sets used to be sold like this:
The 'tournament' chess sets: 3.75"x1.5" King used to be sold like this from the early 70's into the 80's.
All the folding boards for these sets are 2.10"
For various reasons, these boxed sets stopped being made, but the pieces for them continued to be sold.
Having worked in various production businesses, I can make a fairly educated guess how the boards went from 2.10" to 2.25".
They stopped making the boxed sets - most likely the molds for the pieces changed hands to someone that wanted to continue selling them. But they did not want to invest in doing the folding boards. Vinyl was cheaper and more durable.
So when asked what size the squares should be, I guarantee that they did not bother to find out what the folding board square size was. They asked someone they knew with a chess set what the board size should be and were told them 2.25". And that's all she wrote.
The difference is obvious:
And no one has bothered to correct this mistake since. For Decades...
"Eyechess: ...A number of months ago, I asked Shelby about producing 2.0" and even 2.125" boards. He told me it wasn't going to happen because there was no guaranteed demand. ..."
LOL. No demand from who? The only thing the 2.25" Vinyl boards are good for is the high end HoS plastic sets. Easy enough to do runs that match the run rate of the nicer plastic sets you sell with Kings bases of 1.6"+.
The standard 3.75"x1.5" King 'tournament ' chess sets are sold in bulk and cheaply. I guarantee that they sell orders of magnitude more of these than the plastic sets that cost $19.00+. All Shelby would have to do is just start making 2.10" Vinyl boards, and sell them the same way.
I guarantee that nobody that buys these cheap tournament chess sets for their kid, or in bulk for schools, would even notice that the squares are now 2.10" instead of 2.25".
I also guarantee that nobody will do this because it is easier to just keep cranking out the Vinyl 2.25" - because nobody knows the difference, and they are used to the disproportionate look now.
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