OTB Chess Set Advice

I posted this before and didn't get any response.  I'd prefer to assume it had a bad title than to think nobody would reply to my post.  I could be wrong though. I thought I'd try a different title.

That would be an adequate set - triple weighted with 3-3/4" king, board, clock and case.  There are a number of Staunton style sets with minor differences, mostly the knights.  Although many avoid buying from the USCF, the combination price is a pretty good deal and it's (arguably) good to support them.  I prefer the "natural" or camel color for the light pieces, but that's nitpicking.

Pretty much what number 3 said is about accurate.  I do most my buying from shop.chesscafe.com, but this seems to be a decent price.  Don't buy books though from USCF unless you can find a sale.  Most of them are cover price or maybe $1 off.  Other sites take $4 to $10 off.

The following are what you have to look out for when buying tournament sets (Of course, this USCF Combo set meets all of them, but in case you ever buy a set from another retailer):

1 - King size.  Look for something 3 3/4 to 4 inches. 

2 - Weight.  Make sure you get triple weighted, not unweighted.  This one is triple.  Unweighted meets tournament standards, but it's annoying when your arm knocks over your King or Queen all the time as you are reaching to take Black's rook on a8.

3 - Queens.  I always look for 4 Queen sets, not 2.  This has 4 (you can tell by the fact that it indicates 34 pieces, not 32.  That's what the extra 2 are, an extra White and Black Queen.

4 - Board size vs Base of the pieces.  Some sites, like Chess Cafe, help in figuring out the right board size for the pieces you are getting.  When they come as a combo, like this, that of course won't be an issue.  They won't sell you a small board with large pieces as a combo set.  But if you ever buy them individually, look out for that.

5 - Color:  Always make sure they meet tournament standards.  This of course does, but I see many people, especially kids, try to play with Red pieces, or Blue pieces, or any other odd combination.  With the Red, I've seen Red taking the part of both sides (i.e. White vs Red and Red vs Black).  Your opponent, even if you have Black, can make you pack up your set if it's not standard.  Standard is basically White, Off White, or "Natural" for the White pieces (Natural or "Box Wood" for wooden pieces) and Black for the Black pieces (Ebony or Many different dark tones of brown for wooden pieces)

6 - Bishops/Queens/Kings:  Make sure the set you are buying does not have opposite color knobs on the top of the Bishops, Queens, and Kings.  Sets where the Black bishops have White knobs and White Bishops have Black knobs are non-standard, and your opponent, even if he's playing White, can make you pack up your set.  This set of course doesn't have that problem.

Wow, thanks for all the info, I really appreciate it.

This one is the perfect set which even I have. This is the standard one and most portable. 

Go for it. 

I find that silicon boards are better than vinyl as they never wrinkle.  Also chronos clock if you can afford it.  

With Vinyl boards, 2 suggestions:

1 - Always "roll" the vinal board up.  Never "fold" the board.  Rolling it prevents creases in the board.

2 - Always roll the board with the sqaures facing outward.  When you unroll the board, it's easy to flatten a small bubble that might form underneath from the fact that it was rolled up than it is to flatten a board where 2 of the 4 sides curl up because it was rolled up the wrong way.

As for Clocks, the Chronos is a good clock with 1 exception.  Changing the batteries are a pain in the rear.  They use these itsy-bitsy tiny screws that are often next to impossible to open.  With them so small, if you don't put them in tight, they'll fall out.  If they are tight, then with all the heat and cold it goes thru, and micro-expansion/contraction, they become almost impossible to loosen.  This causes stripping in the screws (they are phillips head, which strip easier than flat head).  I play over 100 games a year, so I had to change the batteries once a year.  Others it might be 2 years.  I got so fed up with this that I changed clocks.  The DGT series is the best of them all.  Easy to change the batteries.  Setting it up is easy.  The manual is maybe 20 pages instead of 120 like the Chronos.  If the clock is for just chess, or other games where the clock always counts down with no delay, delay, or increment, DGT is the best one.  If you need the hour-glass setup, where say, each player starts with 3 minutes, and one side's clock goes up while the person on move goes down, where the entire game the 2 clocks add up to 6 minutes (assuming both started with 3 minutes), then you'd have to go with the Chronos.

The Gametime is the worst.  The spring falls out of place in about a year, and suddenly if you hit the button the wrong way, the LEDs go whacko on you, and you then have to shut it off, back on, and reset the clocks manually for however much time you had left.

One last thing about clocks.  Many of them have a beep.  Make sure if the default is set to on that you turn the beep off.  It's majorly distracting to the neighboring boards, and at least in the USCF, it's a rule that it be turned off.  Can't speak for FIDE.

I'd avoid this one: