2021 Official FIDE World Chess Set.

Agreed, and this chart is actually correct. The packaging was perfect also, bulletproof is an understatement.

And your photos are very good!  It's a clear win when they're oriented correctly  but yours are even clear and detailed!  

Beautiful photos, @dobtom, thanks for taking the time to share!

@pawnerai Are you sure you want to buy it? I hope you will be posting your review after you acquire it.

I've been back and forth with the thought of adding the Official World Chess set to my collection. Coming from the Creative field, I do admire the courage it took to rock the established look and feel of Staunton chess pieces and the Pentagram advertising campaign on the highest level, World Championship stage. I feel it's the epitome of modern chess in the Stockfish era. And it looks pretty darn cool to boot. I have a few things simmering on the backburner at the moment. Hah! 

Congrats @dobtom!

@dobtom - fantastic that you purchased this set. This is a great forum because many good natured and well-intended thoughts and opinions are posted - we each have access to so many ‘inputs’ to better inform our decision making but then … it’s up to each of us to decide on what we want - not to appease others. This set divides opinion but I love it from afar and it is a bold take on some classic designs - it pushes the boundaries and pushes buttons - it makes people ‘feel’ something and what’s even better - it seems supremely functional too. Great stuff! I also like your comment: “it’s not perfect but it’s good enough for me.” It’s interesting - these are hand-made products … sure we don’t want cracks or major faults but the odd evidence of a slip of the carvers tool only (usually only visible on close inspection) reminds us that the piece was not made by a robot, rather a human hand.
Thanks for taking the time to post your pictures and thoughts. 👍👍

For a chess set that costs over $600usd, purchasing from a well known, dependable, consumer retailer with quality customer service is key for many. It's great that @dobtom doesn't sweat the small stuff. If he changes his mind later on, or if a DGT chip starts acting flaky, Niggemann will be there. 

Enjoy the heck out of the set. World Championships start in 40 days. 

Carlsen/Nepo below. Oops, wrong game. Hah!

@Pawnerai That's a great photo!

Pre man-bun!  Soooo much better!

Thank You all for the kind words. I made a couple comparison pics with my other tournament sets to show you the different proportions of this set, although the king height of the wch set is the same or smaller. I hope you do not mind the many pictures. You will see the timeless (have been using it for over 10 years), reykjavik and the so called hungarian-romanian (introduced in the 90's with the Hungarian EU championship) set.

@dobtom Thank you for following up with more comparison photos. Please also consider posting the photos you sent me. They are all extremely interesting and educational to see. 

These side by side comparison photos of the Official World Chess Championship set and other sets with similar King size are rarely (if ever) seen. One can clearly see the mass and presence of the pieces on the 55mm board. It's not all about perfect lighting and artsy angles. So much to admire. Thanks again!

 

**UPDATE**

With @dobtom blessing, below are a few more photos of his Weighted DGT Official World Chess Championship set. I find that in evaluating a chess set, it's important to photograph the set from a seated player perspective. Initial set-up and middlegame. 55mm sq board. DGT branding. FYI: The cool and unique, dark and light felts have been replaced with the typical DGT thin felts and stickers. Probably for functional purposes. Thanks go to @dobtom. ENJOY.

It's also interesting to see the Knights side-by-side with the Hungarian-Romanian Biro Sandor set. I never noticed the passing resemblance in the forehead, eyes, and sloping body. 

Great photos and nice idea to place them together! I have the timeless set, as well, and I'm very surprised by the pawn height differential here. That relative height doesn't come across as much with the scaled down wc studio set. Very cool.

I have received my pieces and walnut board from World Chess this afternoon:

https://shop.worldchess.com/shop/world-chess-championship-set-walnut-board

My first impression is that this is a big, thick, heavy, *chunky* workhorse of a set meant to be used and tossed around. Despite the fact that I own (and adore) the studio version of this set, my perception of the championship pieces from photos was always that it may have tended toward a more delicate and artistic design and feel, what with the narrow bases, the relatively tall and slender pawns and bishops and, of course, the not-controversial-in-any-way thin neck of the knight. Those perceptions were wrong. Yes, they are tall, but they are not slender and they sit very solidly on the board. The knight is both wider and taller than I expected...these are very big and sinister boys.

The walnut board is, well, nice. To be honest, I didn't really want the board and I only purchased the pieces+board set because World Chess was no longer selling the pieces standalone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's as displayed on the web page with only minor flaws. The site says it's made in Turkey so it's not Rechapados Ferrer, but off the cuff I'd say it's similar enough in quality to theirs. 50mm squares are tight for these pieces IMO but I don't mind a cramped board at all and many times actually prefer it.

Since this thread already contains a number of nice photos, I'll only add a couple of my own. As always, excuse my lighting, the terrible image quality, and the dingy table I use to unbox things on.

My DGT FIDE pieces (long story) should be arriving later this week so I'll be back with a comparison and photos if there is any noteworthy difference between them.

@lotsoblots  Congrats on the receiving the awesome pieces. They look amazing in person. These pieces are forever associated with Magnus Carlsen's reign as World Champion.

It's interesting to compare the pieces on both 55mm and 50mm boards side-by-side. I can see the 55mm as being a little more easy to play on when time is running down and pieces are flying. But for classical, or personal analysis, both should be fine.

Holeysmokes, you're also getting the DGT FIDE pieces as well? That's definitely a first. I think aside from the bottom felts, the weights will be different as well. It'll be interesting to hear about how they both handle. The DGT set being lighter in weight.

If you have the camera out, I'd love to see a comparison of the packaging materials if possible when the DGT set arrives.

Is a DGT board in the future? Or non-Electronic DGT board? For full tournament effect!

Thanks for the comments! Agreed on the Magnus Carlsen association. Though I suppose there's always the possibility that there will be another association made soon.

I'll definitely take some photos comparing the packaging once I receive the DGT pieces and maybe a shot or two on the DGT non-electronic board. I've held out for a while for the USB-C + Bluetooth e-Board but now that they seem to be becoming available I have somewhat lost the itch. I suspect it's in no small part due to having such a good time using the world chess studio set on the little 40mm square Rechapados Ferrer board but now 55mm seems *massive*. Perhaps this 50mm square board will get me back in the regular swing of things.

Very nice set and pictures. These pieces do need the 55mm board in my opinion but the dgt board is massive and heavy I agree. I would love to know the weights of your pieces, if you have a little spare time sometimes.

 

Yep, was planning on weighing them all along with the DGT pieces for comparison...right now it's looking like Thursday they should arrive. 🤞

I am right now in the-between situation. So I want to buy the WCS, but the thing is that since they are not cheap I am thinking about maybe buying the DGT's version of that set, the reason being that maybe I will buy in the future DGT board just to have a much easier online play with people on Chess.com. But at the same time part of me is like: "Nah, you don't need another board or whatsoever, just buy the pieces from WC if you like them (when they will be available again) and the money is not worth this extra thing with not being in need to play and move with the mouse plus click that much". Sometimes I think that maybe, even if, I should just buy Timeless German Knight pieces for DGT in the future instead. They are half the price but the thing is that I already own a normal Timeless German Knight set...

And so now I don't know what to do. Honestly guys, what would You do?

Buy them all!   There's always eBay...