How to Standardize Chess Pieces

Video Transcript

"You have probably seen Chess pieces of tremendous beauty; hand-carved pieces, sometimes made of ivory, even marble I've seen, and they're absolutely gorgeous to look at. The thing is they aren't very good to play with. The pieces are not the typical pieces that you would see on this board. They are much more exotic looking. Sometimes they're done with the semblance of human faces, and all sorts of things, and they're great as ornaments to have around the home. But I certainly would not recommend playing with them. All match play these days does take place with these kind of pieces, and these are known as the Staunton Pieces, that's S-t-a-u-n-t-o-n. It is named after a famous British player actually, called Howard Staunton, who recognized that the pieces did need to be standardized, and did bring them out in this format. And right from the beginning of playing Chess, I would strongly recommend that you do stick to these pieces, and keep the other beautiful ones around the house as the ornaments."