I grabbed this from one of his posts long ago and just stumbled upon it again.
Hope this is something along the lines of what you;re looking for.
And I would love to see the response to this that you asked:
Also, what set or sets have you identified as being the best?
I find it interesting that both FIDE and USCF (and probably most other federations) Still have a range of chessboard sizes they sanction for tournaments.
While I don't think that FIDE and other federations will ever change these legacy rulings. The reality on the ground in most tournaments is that 55mm / 2.16" square chess boards is the defacto standard, and has been for a while now.
Largely due to the fact that DGT makes the 55mm square e-board that everyone uses. Everyone.
I'm pretty sure that in Europe the vinyl/paper cheap chessboards that get used in tournaments are generally all 55mm.
I think that only in US tournaments do you see honest 2.25"/57mm vinyl / paper chessboards being used, and that's just because that is the size they make them over here out of historical inertia.
But the top boards still all use the 55mm DGT.
Just one of those odd notes that nobody really cares about...
This is true. What I am interested in is for loubalch to post here his numbers and logic for what he finds to be the correct dimension proportions and percentages of a Chess set.
these proportions and percentages will be the same no matter the square size. Yes the exact measurements will vary by square size but the proportions will be the same.
Sorry if I seem ignorant, but who is loubalch?
I am, but you can call me Lou (it used to be Loud, but I dropped the "d").
Eyechess,
Let's turn the Wayback Machine back to the beginning, to a posting I made almost six years ago in October of 2014 entitled:
Why is it so hard to buy a properly sized chess set and board?
I was just starting to expand my chess set collection and was baffled and confused by all the contradictory information out there about sizing chess sets and boards. I even found two vendors selling the same set yet recommending two different size chessboards?
Here's my original post.
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"If you were having a suit tailor-made and the only measurements they took were your waist and inseam, you could easily end up with a poorly fitted jacket, and a lousy looking suit. The same holds true for chess sets. If you’re buying a set based solely on the dimensions of the king alone, you could easily end up with a poorly fitted chess set.
In another thread in this forum, I proposed a new system for Sizing Chess Pieces and Boards:
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/a-system-for-sizing-chess-pieces-and-boards-long
This system does two things:
1) It properly scales the chess pieces (the front and back ranks) to one another.
2) And it properly scales the chess set to the appropriate chessboard.
If the chess pieces are disproportioned - say a 2” diameter king with 1” diameter pawns - it will be difficult to match the set with the right size chessboard. For whichever way you go, something just doesn’t look right. If the king is nicely fitted, the pawns will look like ants; if the pawns are properly scaled, the king will look like a sardine packed in a can. When this happens, the best you can do is to use a board somewhere in between, but this way, neither the front nor back ranks are scaled properly to the board, or to each other!
Achieving that perfect balance begins with selecting a properly designed chess set. This means taking into consideration the dimensions of both the KING and his PAWNS. Don’t forget, pawns make half of all the pieces on the board. You can’t ignore them and expect things will automatically look “right.”
You may find chess sets that are scaled very nicely. Just as you may find an off-the-rack suit that fits just right. But you’d never buy that off-the-rack suit without first trying it on. And yet, a cursory check of some the major chess vendors found only Chess Bazaar, House of Chess, and Legend Products provided complete specifications on both the kings and pawns. Even so, in many cases, the boards they recommend are not appropriate for the set.
USCF recommends a scaling factor for the king between 73% - 78% the width of the chess square. FIDE’s regulations, however, are a bit more nebulous, as they don’t actually specify a scaling factor, per se. Rather, they recommend a king height of 9.5 cm with a diameter between 40-50% the height of the king. This figures to a king diameter of between 3.8-4.75 cm. Matching this to their regulation 5-6.5 cm chessboard, you arrive at a scaling factor of anywhere between 58-95%, though I’m sure they weren’t intending anyone to move toward the extremes in this range. In fairness, I’m listing their intended scaling factor as somewhere between 70-80%. These are published specifications readily available to all vendors. So why are some of their recommendations so out of whack?
So, two things become clear, 1) most sites don’t provide sufficient information to properly size a chess set and board, and 2) those that do often make the wrong recommendations or none at all! Overall, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs."
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You can review my system for sizing chess pieces and boards by following the link in BOLD above.
This is what I wanted. Thanks Lou. The post you linked was about a month or so before I started coming here. This explains a lot to me.
Now I remember you posted something about the heights of the pieces as they sat on the board in the starting position. There was a line or something. What about that?
Before we start matching chess sets and chessboards, we have to consider the set itself. It's no newsflash that not all chess sets are proportionally balanced. This can manifest in a number of different ways. Sets where the pawns are too small (typically) or too large (rarely). Over or undersized kings, queens that look out of place, and back-row pieces (bishops, rooks, and especially those "biggie" knights) that are mismatched to their monarchs and to each other.
If you want your chess sets and boards to be well balanced and proportional, you must first start with chess sets that are well balanced and proportional. If not, you will always be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You can make it fit, but the results won't be pretty. If the set itself is imbalanced, whatever size board you use, the set will still look imbalanced. Trust me, I've tried. I sold off many a chess set that never looked right no matter how many different sized boards I tried.
I'm not claiming that my sizing scheme is the end-all and be-all, it's simply a system that I found that works for me (YMMV). One that appeals to my personal aesthetic sense of size and proportion. If it works for you too, great! Use it with my blessing. If not, no harm no foul. What I found lacking was a system, some established guidelines that, given a well-balanced chess set, would consistently provide you with positive results, all the time. And a way of measuring how close or how far a chess set deviated from this standard for a given size chessboard.
Yes, so can you name a few sets that you have found to be proportionally balanced?
Eyechess,
Not to evade your original question as to what set or sets have I've identified as being the best. The "best' of anything is always highly subjective. But I can share with you a few of my sets that closely approximate the ideal outlined in my system, where the ideal king diameter is 76,5% and the ideal pawn diameter is 58.6%, which is where two pawns when placed diagonally will fit perfectly inside the square. Again, these figures are highly subjective based on my personal preferences. Here goes, I'll be showing a dimensional table with each of these sets. The closer a set is to a deviation of zero, the better. Typically, I've found that a deviation factor under 5 yields an extremely balanced chess set/board combination.
First up, the Piatigorsky (Steiner) set from Official Staunton on a 2-3/8" board
Mechanics Institute set from House of Staunton on a 2.5" board
The Vienna Coffeehouse set from Chess Bazaar on a 2.25" board
The New American set from The Chess Piece on a 2-3/8" board
The William Hallett set from Chess Bazaar on a 2.25" board
The Soviet Era set from Chess Bazaar on a 2.25" board
The Romanian-Hungarian set from Chess Bazaar on a 2-1/8" board
The Ultimate set in Sheesham on a 2-1/8" board
And last, but certainly not least, my new 1950 Dubrovnik set from Staunton Castle on a 2.25" board
If there's one lesson to learn from the above examples, if you start with a well-proportioned chess set, you'll find the right-sized board to go along with it.
The Offical FIDE 2013 Championship chess set is an example of an extremely well-balanced chess set design (kudos to the architect/designer Daniel Weil). Unfortunately, the set works best on a 50mm chessboard where the deviation factor is 2.9, not the 55mm DGT board that FIDE uses it on, which yields a deviation factor of 9.7!
Here's the set on a 50mm board
And on the 55mm DGT board
It's interesting how close the dimensions are (on the 50mm board) to the Kd=76.5%, Pd=58.6% outlined in the system.
Chessroboto,
His recommendation for a king diameter of 78% is right in line with accepted practices. The only drawback to his system is that it's incomplete. What about the pawns, which represent half all of all the pieces on the chessboard? You can't match pieces to a board without considering the size of the pawns as well as the king. It would be like trying to find your destination using only longitude. Without knowing the latitude of your destination, you'll never arrive!
This is what I wanted. Thanks Lou. The post you linked was about a month or so before I started coming here. This explains a lot to me.
Now I remember you posted something about the heights of the pieces as they sat on the board in the starting position. There was a line or something. What about that?
Eyechess,
Regarding the heights of the chess pieces, it varies depending on the design of the chess set. But if we're focusing on a Staunton style set you can rely upon your sense of balance and proportion. I favor what I call a Balanced Linear Slope design. I've drawn up dimensional designs for 3.75", 4.0" and 4.4" sized chess sets. If I had the funds I would have these custom made as prototypes. What the engineer in me finds interesting is the difference in the heights between the pieces remains constant (linear) as you move from the king down to the pawn, and all sets are quadruple weighted (or less if desired).
Also, the remaining dimensions of the pieces adhere to my sizing recommendations as noted by the extremely low deviation factors (the lower the number to closer the set is to the recommended dimensions).
Would separate threads for perfect dimensions of other major pieces make sense? I think people here would appreciate a quantitative discussion for the Dubrovnik, Zagreb, French Staunton, German Staunton, etc.
Actually, this is a universal design proportion we are talking about. It would or could apply to all types of sets.
Have to ask what happened to the other thread on this topic? It’s not there anymore. Account was deleted?
This is a question for loubalch primarily.
Lou, would you please repeat here your measurement or percentage chart(s) for the perfect dimensioned Chess set?
Also, what set or sets have you identified as being the best?