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CHESS is having a major moment, spurred on by the success of TV series The Queen's Gambit and our increased time at home.

It's a great life skill - and game - to pick up at any age. We've rounded up the best chess sets for all players below.

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There are lots of different kinds of chess sets to buy, whether you want something traditional, portable or even themed.

Chess sets can be functional and practical - as well as works of art, with some boards and pieces costing into the hundreds (and even thousands).

Newbies can find chess sets at affordable prices - often including checkers pieces, too - for under 20, which also have the advantage of being portable.

If you want your chess set to be a statement piece, look out for colourful boards, interesting materials (Lucite, anyone?) and unusual designs, like Umbra's Wobble Chess Set, which is a visual feast where the game pieces seem to interact as you play.

From wizards to Mario characters to Star Wars favourites, there are chess sets to appeal to everyone. Top tip: novelty sets are a great way to get kids interested in the game.

This article and featured products have been independently chosen by Sun journalists. It contains links which are ads, and if you click a link and buy a product we will earn revenue.

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This plastic chess set includes magnetic pieces which attach to the board to stay standing (bonus: reviewers say you can play this in the car as a result).

The portable design can be folded in half for easy travel and fans are impressed by the durability of this set, especially for the price.

The general consensus is that this makes a great starter set for chess newbies, who are less likely to knock pieces over thanks to the magnets, and who find it easier to learn with black and white pieces (as opposed to wood).

The pieces store away easily in the board-box, too.

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If you're despairing at your child's inability to separate themselves from a screen, then we'd recommend this Super-Mario themed chess game, featuring Mario's Heroes vs. Bowser's Troop.

Recommended for kids 7 and up, reviewers are impressed with the quality and design of the chess pieces (they're hand-painted), and insist kids like to play this version more than traditional chess.

Toy Story, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Fallout versions are also available.

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Yes, looks are absolutely allowed to influence your choice of a chess set.

This twist on the traditional chess set made from colourful Lucite allows for chess on one side, checkers on the other.

Ideal for game night with the family - and for brightening up a display shelf, too.

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Designed in collaboration with number 1 ranked chess player for nearly two decades, Garry Kasparov, this is another budget board - except this one has wooden pieces to appeal to traditionalists.

Fans rave about the quality and design, as well as the affordability of this set, which is sturdily built.

'My daughter wanted a chess set after watching The Queen's Gambit and we have been playing every day since.

'This wooden set is really nice and great value for money', writes one reviewer.

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Anyone worried that chess has a reputation that borders on 'boring' should check out Umbra's walnut and maple chess set, which is anything but.

The eye-catching design consists of a concave wobble board which makes the pieces seem as if they're in motion, interacting with each other as you play.

In addition to helping bring the game to life, the wobble board pieces are beautifully made, with spherical bottoms and plated chrome detailing.

It's a gorgeous statement piece for the home, too.

'I stumbled across this set by accident and knew I had to have one. It looks every bit as good as I hoped.

'Clearly high quality and beautifully designed. Each piece is like mini modern sculpture, as is the board with its wavy structure. Looks like a painstaking product to construct', writes one reviewer.

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This 32-piece chess set features a London skyline of architecture turned chess pieces, including Big Ben, The Shard and the London Eye.

Made from moulded acrylic, the pieces are double-weighted with felted bases, while the wooden board is cleverly designed to look like a London city map.

You'll also find New York (and New York vs London editions) available at John Lewis.

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If you like your chess with a side of history, then you'll enjoy this mini replica set of the 12th century Isle of Lewis chessmen, believed to have been crafted in Norway once upon a time and discovered in a chest on the Isle of Lewis in the 1830s.

This stunning set is made from crushed stone resin with heavy pieces, intricately carved with painstaking attention to detail.

The pieces fold nicely into the board for easy storage when not in use.

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This portable chess set contains a patterned canvas board and 32 silkscreened wooden pieces for chess and checkers fun.

Just zip the pieces in the pouch, roll up the board and take this beautiful chess set with you wherever you go.

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We've designedSun Selectsto help you to find the best products that won't break the bank.

Need some more game ideas? These board games are sure to be a hit.

Enjoyed our roundup of best chess sets? Then you might like our selection of eco-friendly toys for kids, too.

This article and featured products have been independently chosen by Sun journalists. It contains links which are ads, and if you click a link and buy a product we will earn revenue.

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Best chess sets 2021: Improve your memory and sharpen your mind with these chess sets - The Sun

Start playing chess now against the computer at various levels, from easy level one all the way up to master level. To start the game, simply click on the Start button and start playing the chess computer. When you set up your new game, you can also configure the time control, which means thinking time will also be limited.

Game status:During the ongoing game, the status "It's your move" will usually appear because the computer calculates its moves very quickly, and performs these moves on the chessboard immediately after your move. If the computer program beats you, or you put the computer program into checkmate with the white pieces, then you will see the message "Checkmate. White has won" and can then request a return match, or play another chess player (New Player).

Spectators and the chess database:We will also save your game in the chess database and it can be viewed or analyzed at any time by you or by other players. If a player is watching the game you are currently playing, he/she will appear as anonymous or as a user, displayed by the spectator logo.

If you would like to show or recommend your completed chess game to your friends or to interested chess players, simply copy the link provided at the top next to the star.

Continue reading here:
Play chess against the computer from Level 1 to Master

Written by Olya Kaye

Playing chess simultaneously against 15 people was no easy feat. I admit, I was nervous. It was the fall of 2009 and I had not played much chess since 2001. My skills were rusty, but I was 25 and daring.

You only live once and what did I have to lose? I wanted to participate in the United Way Campaign, run annually by the place I worked at. So, I organized a chess simul to raise money for people in need.

Worst-case scenario would be to lose all my games, raise no money, become extremely embarrassed, and submit my resignation. The best-case scenario, on the other hand, would be for me to win all the games and raise lots of money. But, the event turned out to be much more prolific than I could have ever imagined!

After having won the Canadian Girls Chess Championship in 2001, I abandoned competitive chess to focus on my studies and career. Getting back into the game after such a long time was like learning to cross a road again. You look left and right, screening for cars and busses, and then boom! You get hit by an airplane!

In the weeks leading up to the simul, I joined a local chess club to brush off some dust. But to my horror, I was blundering left and right, Whoops, here goes my Queen. Whoops, I just missed a checkmate. Yikes!

Yes, getting back into chess after a long hiatus is no bike ride. It requires, first and foremost, courage to overcome your own ego. Will you be ok with embarrassing blunders? Will you tremble while playing far below the level you left chess at years ago? Will you give up to preserve the dignity of your past accomplishments?The moment I realized that my ego had very little power over my losses and embarrassing games, I had won my first psychological battle. The battle against my own fears and my burning dont-do-it demons. And thus, my chess prowess began to come back to me.

There was only one other problem: playing against 15 people at the same time is far different than playing against one person.

There was only one other problem: playing against 15 people at the same time is far different than playing against one person. It is a real burden on memory, focus, judgement, calculation, and quick thinking. It also hurts your legs after a couple of hoursespecially if you are a woman wearing heels. The simul is also a spectators game. Everyone is watching your every move. And in my case, being a woman, playing against all men doubled up the spectatorship and the pressure. Will she crack? my colleagues were wondering.

As 12 oclock rolled by the following day, I began my chess marathon. The room, where the event was taking place, was crowded with spectators who were my co-workers across the organization. There was lots of chatter and laughter as people were betting on their colleagues to see who would win. With my heart thumping and full of adrenaline, I began to maneuver in a circle across 15 chess boards set up in a U-shape, making one move at a time. My reputation and career were on the line. A few wrong moves and I would be temporarily unemployed, by choice.

As time went by, I started to win some games. The chatter was dying out, the room became emptier and everyone assumed a serious look on their face.

Thats when, for the first time, I really noticed the handsome man sitting at one of the chess boards. Each time I approached his board, John looked me in the eyes with a silent plea of dont be too hard on me, Olya. But his smile was something else. Did he see something in the position that I missed, while I was responding in haste? Was he bluffing? Its a trap!, I told myself, trying to keep my cool.

Normally, professional chess players do not display their emotions during chess games, contrary to what is shown in Netflixs "The Queens Gambit" series. But Johns smile was infectious. I would approach other chess boards wearing my poker face, but by the time I reached Johns board it would change to a smileI could not resist it.

John continued to make his romantic" moves on the chess board. First, he sacrificed his bishop, while getting nothing in return (oops!). Then, one of his knights fell, again without any compensation. But luckily for me, his charms did not distract me much during the game. Shortly after, I was able to break up the pawns that were hiding his king, exposing his Majesty to the deadly attack of my Queen and Bishop pair.

But then something strange happened: for the first (and only) time in my entire life, I did not feel like checkmating my opponent.

For the first (and only) time in my entire life, I did not feel like checkmatingmy opponent.

I didnt want to hurt this smiling mans feelings, or undermine his innocent way of playing chess. I decided to prolong this game just a tad bit longer and to discover what lay behind Johns mysterious smile.

As I approached other chess board to make my move, I took a quick peek at all of my opponents. They were all staring intensely at their chess boards, either scratching their heads, massaging their chins, or pulling on their eyebrows, deep in thought. All, but John who was gazing at me.I caught him! And I had my answer.

Checkmate, I told John, as I reached his board and he gave me the brightest and sincerest smile I have ever seen. I had no idea that while I thought I was conquering John on the chess board, I was apparently conquering his heart. When you smiled back at me, I knew I had to ask you out, he confided later.

The simul took several hours as there were a few fairly persistent players. I won 13 games and drew two. The event raised almost $4,000, and I got to keep my job! And if this wasnt amazing enough, I also met my future husband!

When the simul was over, I got back to my office desk to check my emails. From a hundred new ones, one of them stood out. It was from John: Great game, Olya. Wanna go grab a drink?

By that point, I started to realize what was happening and my heart skipped a beat in excitement. Johns charms started to work their magic on me, at last. And while I always avoided office romances, I decided I could keep a secret with this one, at least for a little while. After all, we worked in different teams and on different floors.

I replied to Johns email with: Yes, Id love to Followed by I do three years later. Weve been happily married ever since and even enjoyed a chess-themed wedding cake.

See original here:
How I Found Love Over The Chess Board - Chess.com

After Netflix released its miniseries The Queens Gambit this fall, a buzz began to grow around chess, exciting people who had never before been interested in the game. But the perception of what a competitive chess player looks like has largely remained the same; perhaps you picture a bunch of old white men in suits sitting around tiny tables, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

According to College fourth-year, former Chess ExCo instructor, and competitive chess player Greg Gillen, this portrait isnt too far off from the real chess world of the 60s and 70s.

I know that a lot of the players in the 70s had this reputation of going down to the tournament, playing their games, and smoking while playing, Gillen said. Then, they would go back to their hotel room and have several drinks.

Since The Queens Gambit was released on Oct. 23, 2020, Chess.com has reported millions of new users to the site, and numerous game companies report massive increases in the sales of chessboards, with Goliath Games claiming a 1000 percent increase in its sales.

The seven-episode series, which is set in the 1950s and 60s, portrays a competitive old guard of chess competitions. What viewers might not realize, though, is that the game has evolved since the time period portrayed in the series.

These days, if youre a serious player, drinking and smoking are no longer a part of the routine; many chess enthusiasts approach the game with the same dedication to physical fitness as elite athletes.

Though the average person would not consider sitting around a chessboard for hours on end to be particularly strenuous, performance experts have proven just how taxing chess competitions can be. According to Stanford professor Dr. Robert Sapolsky, top players in the world can burn up to 560 calories in one 2-hour game. That is the equivalent of Roger Federer playing one hour of tennis.

Head Womens Tennis Coach and Chess Club Advisor Constantine Ananiadis has noticed the strain games can have on his players, attributing it to the exceptional mental focus required for chess compared to other sports.

In a sport like tennis, you can botch the first full hour of a match, lose the first set, and still easily come back to win the second set and the match, Ananiadis said, Youre pretty much always in it until you lose the last point. Inchess, one small lapse in concentration and youre done. You can play 39 great moves, but if you botch the 40th one, you lose the game. Theres no coming back.

This mental strain can have a drastic effect on the health of players. During tournaments, players can burn an astonishing 6,000 calories per day, three times what the average person consumes in a day. With this caloric deficit on top of the elevated stress and fatigue, competitive players can lose anywhere between 10 and 20 pounds in one tournament.

To combat the intense mental and physical stress that high-level chess can put on the body, players are now optimizing their diet, nutrition, and even the way they sit to gain an advantage.

Akshat Phumbhra, College fourth-year and member of Oberlins chess club, has noticed this evolution.

Every athlete is always looking to be in the best shape possible, Phumbhra said. As science advances and we know more about how to keep our bodies healthy, diet [and] exercise invariably become a part of an athletes life. Withchess, one of the things that is more popular is yoga. It really helps players stay calm and be able to sit at a chair for hours on end.

For Gillen, this shift is the result of the competitive nature of chess players.

I think now you see a lot less of that hedonistic lifestyle at the upper echelon of chess, Gillen said. If someone else is trying to get an advantage by exercising discipline in all their habits, then, if you want to be the best chess player, you know youre going to have to do that too.

Players have modernized every detail of their preparations and are more devoted to optimizing performance than ever before. Constant physical activity, nutritional optimization, and forgoing all drugs and alcohol are the minimum requirements to be competitive as a chess grandmaster in the modern age.

In short, chess has modernized whether it be the training and diet of competitive players, or The Queens Gambit popularizing the sport for a whole new generation. As a result of these shifts, this declining sport could be moving into a new and unprecedented golden age.

Read this article:
The Queen's Gambit and The Modern Era of Chess - The Oberlin Review

Chess has captured the imagination of humans for centuries due to its strategic beautyan objective, board-based testament to the power of mortal intuition. Twenty-five years ago Wednesday, though, human superiority on a chessboard was seriously threatened for the first time.

At a nondescript convention center in Philadelphia, a meticulously constructed supercomputer called Deep Blue faced off against Garry Kasparov for the first in a series of six games. Kasparov was world chess champion at the time and widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of chess. He did not expect to lose. It was perhaps understandable; 1996 was an age of fairly primitive computer beings. Personal computers were only just becoming a more affordable commodity (35 percent of U.S. households owned a computer in 1997, compared with 15 percent in 1990), the USB had just been released, and it would be another five years until Windows XP made its way onto the market.

But Deep Blue was no run-of-the-mill computer. It was a behemoth built with the sole intention of being very good at chess. And it fulfilled that mission. On Feb. 10, 1996, the reigning world chess champion lost a game to a computer for the first time in history. Kasparov would win the 1996 match four games to two, but in May 1997, an upgraded Deep Blue would defeat Kasparov 32.

The 96 match nonetheless demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chess world, and the tide was deep, blue, and electronic. It introduced chess computers to the world, sparking conversations about a rise of automation in the famously romantic field.

Some version of computers had been playing chess even before the emergence of artificial intelligence as an official field in the 1950s. Alan Turing, the famous cryptographer, had developed a handwritten chess algorithm in 1950 called Turochamp. In 1957, Alex Bernstein, a researcher and chess enthusiast from the Bronx, created the first complete chess program with the help of a number of his IBM colleagues.

Computer chess changed in the 80s. says Jonathan Schaeffer, president of the International Computer Games Association and professor of computer science at the University of Alberta. That decade, pioneering American computer scientist Ken Thompson released a paper proving something that now seems intuitive: If your computer was faster, your chess program would perform better. Programs could thus analyze more and more moves per second, increasing their chances of finding the best move possible.

Accordingly, computer chess became about getting the fastest technology. When I started in the [computer chess] game, we were using a single computer. Then it became 16, then 210, and so on to chips and supercomputers, says Schaeffer. In 1988, students at Carnegie Mellon University developed a sophisticated chess computer called Deep Thought. In January of that year, Deep Thought became the first computer to beat a grandmaster in a regular tournament game when it triumphed over Bent Larsen, a Danish GM. The next year, IBM hired three of those Carnegie students, Feng-hsiung Hsu, Thomas Anantharaman, and Murray Campbell, with the express aim of building a chess computer to rival the world champion; they would be joined by Chung Jen-Tan, Joseph Hoane Jr., and Jerry Brody later in the project. In October 1989, Kasparov played two games against Deep Thought, winning both of them with ease.

The first match demonstrated that the tide was starting to turn in the chessworld.

The loss to Kasparov in 1989 demonstrated the amount of work that needed to be done, says Schaeffer, so they took it to the extreme. They went off for seven years and built new computer chips that were faster, building a system that was scaled up to not just four computer chips, but 500. They added more knowledge to it as well as a book of openings, and eventually the brain of chess grandmaster Joel Benjamin helped provide expertise. This was a very long project involving many, many people, and significant financial expense, but it paid off for IBM in the form of media clamor.

The 2,800-pound Deep Blue, complete with special-purpose chess computer chips, was the end product. It was capable of processing 200 million moves per second, or 199,999,997 more than Kasparov could manage, according to IBM. This produced a chess machine that was stronger than any of its automated predecessors, and the outside world was stunned at the eventual resulta human had been outdone by a machine in this game of intellect, wit, and judgment. At the 1997 match, Kasparov and Deep Blue would go toe-to-automated-toe in front of numerous television cameras and a large crowd.

But Kasparovs loss was not as devastating as casual observers might have expected. Computers had beaten grandmasters before; it was inevitable that someone of Kasparovs stature would fall too. And though Kasparovs loss certainly came earlier than expected, the competitive chess world continued to go about its business relatively unfettered.

I dont think it affected chess players too much, says Matthew Sadler, chess grandmaster and co-author of Game Changer, a book about modern chess engine AlphaZero, Firstly, Kasparov was probably stronger than Deep Blue at the time, despite the loss. Secondly, it didnt really inspire any chess players with its play.

It helped that Deep Blue, at the time, was the exception rather than the rulemachines of its strength werent widely available. In 2006, though, a chess computer called Deep Fritz beat thenworld champion Vladimir Kramnik. I think thats really when chess players sort of thought, Oh, my goodness, the machines really are getting stronger than us, says Sadler, when they were beating us not on supercomputers, but on relative commodity hardware.

The change here wasnt just that a computer could win, but that a computer could help human players win if incorporated into their training regimes effectively. Computers were adept at judging the quality of moves and positions accurately, particularly during opening sequences. Some found this easier than others. Sadler says: I think a lot of competitive players took a while to adjust to the new reality. For example, if you werent really computer-literate, and all of a sudden you found yourself in a world where having a computer really makes a difference, thats a difficult thing.

Despite initial resistance from certain parts of the community, the advantages that computers afforded chess players eventually made them impossible to ignore. Sam Shankland gained his international master title in 2008, right around when computers started to become a necessity. There was some backlash, but honestly, those people are mostly gone now, Shankland, now a grandmaster and 2018 U.S. chess champion, says. They either got tired of losing and quit chess or they got tired of losing and adapted.

The sheer wealth of knowledge chess players now had access to meant that determination was increasingly rewarded. I think that chess is essentially a subset of talent and hard work, says Shankland, and as training resources like computers become better and more accessible, talent tends to become less important compared to hard workwhich suits a workhorse like myself.

Such accessibility has also led to chess, once reserved for rich families who could afford tutors and other training, to become a markedly more democratized pursuit. Take India, for example, says Shankland. Apart from Vishy [Anand], they werent a particularly strong chess nation historically. Now, theyre clearly the fastest-growing country in the world in terms of rising stars, and I think a lot of that is down to training resources becoming more widely available.

The availability of advanced chess analysis at the flick of a smartphone has caused a bizarre balance of power in the media and a certain trepidation among top-level players, as Peter Heine Nielsen, coach of current world champion Magnus Carlsen, points out:

When I started working with Vishy Anand, at a postgame press conference the players would explain the games, and everybody would look at them with excitement and think, Wow, these guys are clever. Now, the player in the press conference is a bit nervous because they have only calculated themselves, while all the journalists have been using advanced technology. So they are afraid to say, I thought this wasnt a strong move in case theyre wrong.

So sometimes before a press conference I speak to Magnus and tell him the computer said this or that, just so he knows. The spectator-player dynamic has changed a lotsome of the mystery has gone.

However, while certain human aspects of the games have disappeared, recent developments have caused professional players to rethink what they know about their beloved board game. In 2017, a team of scientists at Google-owned DeepMind created AlphaZero, a self-learning neural network program that surpassed the strongest chess program after just four hours of playing against itself.

Before the computer boom, and before the neural network boom, we were thinking quite dogmatically, says Nielsen. After both occurred, we were forced to rewrite our own solutions. It led to the game becoming more exciting. Moreover, the two strongest chess enginesLeela (which is based on AlphaZero) and Stockfishare available online, which signifies a remarkably more distributive and collaborative approach to chess innovation than that which was pioneered by Deep Blue, a closed circuit.

Despite all their progress, there are still some goals to which innovators in the chess world can aspire. The next step is for engines to explain what theyre doing, says Sadler, so that the average player can understand why an engine says, No, trading that piece is a bad idea. The relationship remains one of reciprocity.

One thing is certain: Chess programs will remain the most important piece of a professional players preparatory arsenal. Not using a computer to do chess would be like not using a calculator to do math, says Nielsen, I like itbut it doesnt matter if I like it or not. Its the right way to do it.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

See more here:
25 Years Ago, Chess Changed Forever When Deep Blue Beat Garry Kasparov - Slate