If I really liked a set I would get it even if it came without extra queens.
But given the option I would always opt for extra queens even if I never use them.
It's just nice having them.
Are 4 Queens an important requirement for a chess set?
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The extra set of queens while standard is not "must have" for me.
If I really liked the set I would not care. I believe i have 2 sets that do not have extra Queens.
If they were sold separately I probably would not buy them and if the set has two otpions, one with Q's and one w/o Q's for less I would opt for the less expensive set.
(From the guy that said that by the time you Queen a pawn, the original Queens are off the board anyway. 
)
If you really like the set then it doesn't matter but i get use out of my extra queens more than the rare occasion. I play a lot of casual otb though.
If you intend on playing crazyhouse with it, yes.
hold on guys! most of us should be in the boat that we have more than one chess set. Just use a queen from a different set if you have to! So the answer is no, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.
Why just 4? Why not 18? My old set has now been used to make hundreds of compositions, and at least 10% are retrograde analysis with non-standard material. I would find extra pieces just confusing because I count the captured pieces to determine legality. I don't even use one bishop to represent a promoted one on the other colour square. Promoted units are represented either by pawns with coins under them or by dice, with the corresponding pawns kept in a different pile from the captured pieces so they don't get involved in the arithmetic.
stuzzicadenti hat geschrieben:
When I was 12 years old one of my friend told me that flipping a rook upside down is the same as having a queen, so more than two queens is not necessary. Maybe it does not apply to tournament chess, I don't know.
In a otb blitz tournament one guy has done this. When he moved his rook like a queen his opponent, who had an arbiter licence, claimed illegal move and a won because of that.
You have always the option to stop the clock for getting another queen. In a good tournament there are some extra queens available.
In tournaments there are always enough boards and therefore queens. But at home you maybe have only one set or you don't want to mix sets for esthetic reasons.
Turning upside down the rook is something I also use to do. I have also heard of attaching a small ribbon to the top of the promoted pawn as well. So if you don't want to mess up the calculation of taken pieces or both rooks and the queen are still on the board, this could be very handy.
Anyway, it seems to me that these are things that are done between friends or at home. Some people tend to be very upset if you do something else than taking a second queen, a real one.
To answer the question: in my idea, a chess set consists of 16 pieces per colour. It was only a year or two ago that I looked on the internet for chess sets and it was then I saw the sets with extra queens. It was new to me and very strange. Never saw it before
Die_Schanze wrote:
stuzzicadenti hat geschrieben:
When I was 12 years old one of my friend told me that flipping a rook upside down is the same as having a queen, so more than two queens is not necessary. Maybe it does not apply to tournament chess, I don't know.
In a otb blitz tournament one guy has done this. When he moved his rook like a queen his opponent, who had an arbiter licence, claimed illegal move and a won because of that.
You have always the option to stop the clock for getting another queen. In a good tournament there are some extra queens available.
In tournaments there are always enough boards and therefore queens. But at home you maybe have only one set or you don't want to mix sets for esthetic reasons.
what a punk move. This is why nerds get beaten up in back allies.
fewlio wrote:
Die_Schanze wrote:
stuzzicadenti hat geschrieben:
When I was 12 years old one of my friend told me that flipping a rook upside down is the same as having a queen, so more than two queens is not necessary. Maybe it does not apply to tournament chess, I don't know.
In a otb blitz tournament one guy has done this. When he moved his rook like a queen his opponent, who had an arbiter licence, claimed illegal move and a won because of that.
You have always the option to stop the clock for getting another queen. In a good tournament there are some extra queens available.
In tournaments there are always enough boards and therefore queens. But at home you maybe have only one set or you don't want to mix sets for esthetic reasons.
what a punk move. This is why nerds get beaten up in back allies.
lol...where do you live?
For centuries chess sets only came with two queens. Only recently did they start coming with four queens. I think Fischer and Petrosian played a real game once where there were four queens on the board. The only other time I've seen it was when someone was just promoting more and more pawns because the opponent didn't know he could resign. To answer the question, no, I wouldn't let only two queens stop me from buying a set that I want, like my 3 1/2" Jacques of London I bought 30 years ago.
Mar 24, 2017
0
#14
The practice of including extra queens in a chess set was started by Frank Camarratta who owned The House of Staunton in about 1999 or 2000. I remember because that is when the sets I was buying from him started coming with the extra queens. That is when the industry started doing this.
Today, Noj and a few other manufacturers still only include in the original set no extra pieces. If you want the extra queens you usually have to pay for them.
I recently bought a couple of sets from The Rochester Chess Center, Ultimate Set in Sheesham, and they have no extra queens.
It truly is the exception when the extra queen is needed. I have used them in blitz games, but I cannot actually recall the last time I used an extra queen in a tournament game.
I would buy a better crafted set even though it costs a little bit more & does not include extra queens.
Extra queens?
Meh...
Not important to me. I can almost always win with one queen, or queen+underpromotion (Rook, Etc.).
I'm confident that the number of OTB games I've played this lifetime exceeds 10,000, and I can literally count with two fingers the number of games where my opponent and I ended up in a "Queen Arms Race" where promotions started adding queens to the board. I know for a fact that in at least one of those games, instead of queens, upside down rooks were used... so I know it works! 
I heard that if you use an upside down rook, you're allowed to move it like a knight too. Like a super queen or something....
I looked within my heart, and found that, price being equal, I would prefer an adequate set with 32 pieces to a beautiful one with 34 pieces. Curious 
Mar 25, 2017
0
#20
Eyechess wrote:
The practice of including extra queens in a chess set was started by Frank Camarratta who owned The House of Staunton in about 1999 or 2000. I remember because that is when the sets I was buying from him started coming with the extra queens. That is when the industry started doing this.
Today, Noj and a few other manufacturers still only include in the original set no extra pieces. If you want the extra queens you usually have to pay for them.
I recently bought a couple of sets from The Rochester Chess Center, Ultimate Set in Sheesham, and they have no extra queens.
It truly is the exception when the extra queen is needed. I have used them in blitz games, but I cannot actually recall the last time I used an extra queen in a tournament game.
Eyechess: Did you order extra Queens with your NOJ sets?
I brought this topic up in another thread but thought I might get more interesting responses with its own thread.
If you REALLY like a set but it comes with only 2 Queens, would you still buy it? Do you really need 4 Queens? Or if the manufacturer sold Queens separately would you shell out the extra money? As I said in the previous thread, I needed to use an extra Queen once in about 10 years (and my opponent immediately resigned!). Another guy said that by the time you Queen a pawn, the original Queens are off the board anyway.
So what do you guys think?