FINDING THE RIGHT SIZE CHESS BOARD
Many of the beautiful chess sets at www.ChessRight.com come without chess boards. While this gives you the opportunity to select a board that compliments your good taste, it also presents a challenge to get a board that fits your chess pieces. Sure, the boards with the smaller squares cost less. But if you get the board too small, it will be difficult to play as the pieces tend to get knocked over in the heat of battle when they are too close together. So it's always OK to round up a little to give your pieces room to play.
THE NUMBERY WAY:
There is a mathematical formula to compute the proper relationship between the size of your chess pieces and the size of the squares of the playing board that will best fit your needs. First, determine the diameter at the widest part of the chess pieces; usually this means measuring the base of the king.
This measurement should be 78% of the width of the squares of the board.
Or, to express it as an equation: Wk = .78 (Wsq) where Wk is the widest part of the chess king, and Wsq is the ideal width of the squares on the board.
For example, if the base of the king is 1.75 inches, which is a common size, you would enter 1.75 / .78 into your calculator and the resulting answer is 2.243 which rounds off to 2.25 inches.
THE REFERENCE TABLE:
For those of you whose calculator batteries are dead, here are a few of the more common sizes of base diameters and the corresponding square sizes.
| King Base | Board square |
|---|---|
| 1.5 | 2 |
| 1.75 | 2.25 |
| 2.0 | 2.5 |
THE SHORTCUT:
If your eyes start to glaze over at the first sign of mathematical calculations, and you aren’t organized enough to remember where you put this handy table, don’t despair. For most of the common sizes of chess pieces, there is a simple fix that is just for you! Yes, you still have to know the base diameter of the king. Then just add AT LEAST a half-inch and you will come out to the proper size of the squares for your chess board.
A WORD ABOUT LARGER PIECES
This process I have described works just fine on most standard size chess pieces, such as you might see in a tournament. When dealing with larger chess pieces, where the king stands 5 inches or taller, these formulas and short cuts may not yield the best results. The larger pieces usually come with manufacturer’s recommendations and often take the height as well as the width of the piece into account.
So come visit our store at www.ChessRight.com and take a look at the beautiful chess boards we have to offer. Many come in assorted sizes. So if you see something that you like but it’s not in the proper size, just give us a call. We may be able to help you buy the chess board that is just right for your game.
Keep playing chess!
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