There are a lot of things to love about chess. There is the strategy, the suspense, the feeling of pitting mind against mind in a fierce contest. for me, however, the best thing about chess is the element of transport. I feel as if I am wrapped up in an epic battle. Every piece has its purpose, and what matters is not the individual pieces, but the success or failure of the army as a whole. That is why I love ornate chess sets so much. They help to really set the scene for me, making it more than just a game. With the right chess set, it seems as if the whole world is at stake.
I learned to play on a simple wooden chess set. I highly recommend this for anyone who learns to play chess at a young age. Childrens board games have to be simple in appearance, or else the kids won't get it. Chess is already a very complex game as it is, and if you buy your child a chess set where the pieces are not easy to identify, it becomes just that much more complicated. Anyway, kids have enough imagination as it is. They can make the chess pieces look like whatever they want in their minds.
Once I started to master the game, my father switched to his Civil War chess set. We had been playing each other for a few years, and I had come very close to beating him a couple times. Although he had many chess sets, this was his favorite. It was ornate, exquisite in detail, and even pleasant to the touch. The pieces were made of pewter. They were heavy and substantial. The pawns were rifleman, the rooks were canon, and the kings were Confederate and Union generals. At the time, I didn't really understand the meaning behind that particular chessboard very well, but I didn't care. I was finally playing with a chess set that looked like a real army! I was moving up in the world!
I have owned many chess sets in my life, but my favorite one is the one that I carved by hand. I am not a great carver, and some of the work is clumsy, but it was so much fun to make. I carefully carved out each individual piece. Originally, I had planned to make it out of wood, but ended up using soapstone. It took much longer, but I just can't get enough of the feel of the pieces.
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