Ultimate Chess Pieces

@ShelbyLohrman You're welcome! And you're right about the test group. There is no better place than here to get feedback on chess products that one makes.

This set was first made in the mid-90's.  It has been copied by a couple of companies in the past, but never with the same construction or weighting system.

It is SO much better now.  the weighting system is something that has not been used ever before (to my knowledge).  It is practically impossible to have the weights loosen or come out now.

thanks

Shelby Lohrman

ACE

MCH818, 

Not just the products I make, but the products that everyone makes.  I get most of my product ideas from hearing about people complain about what is already on the market.  

Add to that about having a HUGE sounding board about products I want to bring to market.  I have been smacked outside the head on many an idea that sounded great in my head, but presented bad to all of you in here.

thanks

Shelby

Shelby, how sad to hear you have been labelled spammer by small jealous people without business acumen.  They are passively aggressive and bitter toward you because of your efforts and successes.  They hide behind keyboards for a pittance, if in some cases, no pay.  Joke not with this ignorant interference; "wrist-slapped" is not what this was; instead it is a legally-proceedable obstruction of your effort to earn.  If you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind.

YouFoundIt,

You have to look at it this way...if your competitors are not worried about what you are doing...You need to work harder.

Those who can...do.  Those who can't either complain or try to ruin those who can.

Don't blame Chess.com.  They have a standard set of rules that people have to follow.

And you have to explain - "If you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind"

I'm a little slow today and do not understand the analogy.  

thanks

Shelby

Shelby

Keep up the good work, Shelby! This is exactly the value that I see in chess.com: a public place for the whole chess community to gather.

Shelby was and is a major contributor to this forum.  He constantly tries to improve chess products and also invents new ones.  Nothing wrong with what he does on here. His new vinyl/thin mouse board combo is an exciting new product. If it stands up to the wear and tear of folding/storage/playing/cleaning it will be a huge hit. He passes along his ideas and also looks for chess players to contribute and review his new innovative products so he can improve them.

The Ultimate Chess Set was in no way spamming either. This is a great plastic set with the most innovative weighting system ever to be invented.   

I hope his prior posts can be restored, they contributed so much to this forum. 

So how much is he paying you to shill?

That is not a nice thing to say. I get no remuneration from Shelby or any other chess vendor who posts here.  For full disclosure, I have done some work for HOS/USCF in the past proofing the catalog descriptions and some other work but that was a paid hourly job. I do not get any extra discount on anybody's site that no one here can't get.  

Let me post on here the Community Conduct Policy. please stick to it.

Community Conduct Policy

• Be kind, helpful, and forgiving
• Do not abuse, attack, threaten, discriminate, or mistreat other members in any way
• Do not hijack threads, troll, or post distracting or meaningless content
• Do not post spam, advertisements, or copy/paste comments and messages
• Do not excessively promote your club
• Do not publicly debate religious or political topics
• Do not post obscene or pornographic content
• Do not discuss illegal activities
• Do not open more than one account

This comes off as threatening and looks pretty bad for you to be honest. I think you need to let a different mod handle this topic, one who doesn't know your buddy and can be a neutral arbiter.

I am not against a company making money. However if the rules state that you can't be spamming ads or ads in general. Then a company should respect those rules. There is so many other forms of social media out there. That there should not be a need to advertise on chess.com. After all chess.com has it's own store that is connected to House of Staunton. It's their house and they make the house rules. 

llama47,

Do you know any particulars on the set?  I would be happy to explain it to you so you would see what has gotten Mike so excited.  

And I have never paid (or sent free stuff to) anyone to shill for me.  That's not my style.  Would like to think my products speak for themselves.

thanks

Shelby Lohrman

He was being (I felt) hyperbolic, so I was being sarcastic towards him. I never believed he was being paid by you.

But sure, it just so happens I need a new set of pieces, so I'd be happy to check something out.

That is not threatening at all. Those policies come from chess.com. I did not make those up myself.  Stick to the topic of the thread, please. 

Llama,

No problems.  The cool thing we did with the set is we re-worked the weighting system.  I went through years of post here on Chess.com and saw one major flaw that everyone talked about with any weighted set.  The weights would ALWAYS loosen up and eventually fall out. 

The way sets are made is they shoot the plastic piece and if they want to weight it, they slather a weight with glue and stick it in the bottom, slap a felt on it and you have a weighted set.  The problem is the glue dries out and becomes brittle.  When this happens the weights with use loosen up and come out.  It is the nature of the beast.

What we did was incorporate the weight into the piece as part of the molding process.  There is no glue.   Add in what we did to the weight itself and you have a set where you will have to destroy the piece to get the weight to loosen up at all.

Hopefully this will keep the consumers happy.  Yes, they are more expensive than the standard weighted sets, but I would like to think people do not mind paying for quality.

If you like this, just wait till you see what I am doing to the travelling tournament board market in a month or so.  People are either going to call me a genius or a patzer.  I would like to think it would be the first thing, but only time will tell!

Have a great one!

Shelby Lohrman

American Chess Equipment

I think I've said it before but you're a brave soul bringing your ideas to us wolves. Haha! However, it produces a nice result like with the Ultimates.

Has anyone tried to expose this new set to the sun to see how the color changes? A lot of plastic sets pleasantly darken from uv exposure. 

I have done it to some of my plastic sets in the past, and if this set would darken as well I’d be tempted to get one…

BattleDuck, 

I will get one and stick it out in the California sun for a couple of weeks and see what happens.  They will go out on the balcony and see what happens with it.

Shelby