About Travel Chess Sets

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Windy Chelley and this is Games of Berkeley. And this is about travel chess sets. Travel chess sets come in many sizes. There are two kinds. The smallest and most compact kind is a flat styled board. I have a small one here. The board is flat and so are the pieces. In general, this kind of set is magnetic. You take the pieces and you pop them off when you move them around the board. But it can be difficult to handle the pieces and it's sometimes hard to really get a picture in your mind of how the chess board is set up when it's flat. Some people, they don't mind. If you don't mind, this is a good inexpensive way to take a very portable chess set with you. But most people like a three dimensional piece. I have here a variety of different chess sets that are three dimensional and portable. There are electronic ones that you can play with a computer that have tiny little three dimensional pieces. You can also play with a partner, although they're quite tiny and they're hard to get your fingers around. Most chess sets that are for compact travel or storage are made in this format, which is a wooden box that has space inside to store your pieces. This happens to be a two in one with backgammon on the inside. And it comes with checker pieces. You store your pieces on the inside. Sometimes they have bands to hold the pieces in place and then you fold it up. It's a nice kind of storage system, especially for your house, and it's a good size for traveling even though it's a little bulky, it makes a nice board and it opens up flat. There are other sorts of folding chess sets. This one here is an Isle of Louis. And even though it's wood, it's been magnetized. There's a sheet of metal underneath the wood veneer so that you can keep your pieces relatively steady if you're playing on an airplane or a train. There are three dimensional piece sets that are pegs, which is another way to keep your pieces from flying off the board during turbulence or moving around. This set also is peg style board. This is a very nice set from Druke, which is an American manufacturer, and it has a nice flat board. It's not convex. It doesn't hold the pieces on the inside. The pieces are in the travel case. And they're a good size and they have a good feel to them. Another option is a tournament style chess set in which you would have a vinyl board that can be rolled up or folded and put away. This is the large variety. You can get them in smaller sizes. And tournament pieces. These are sturdy medium weighted plastic pieces that run about ten dollars and these are very popular with chess tournaments and people who like to roll out their board an take it to the park and play. The board is green by the way because this is tournament rules. It needs to be green instead of black so that when the judges look at your board, they can see from a distance where the black pieces are positioned. They don't just blend into the color of the board. So this is a nice way to have a big full sized chess set, with you, traveling, and it doesn't take up too much room because you can just fold up board and put the pieces in your backpack or something. And that's travel chess sets."