Review - Official World Chess Board (Maple and Rosewood)

In my opinion, it is always appreciated when those with the means (budget), purchase authentic or "official" products from the creator / designer / copyright holder of said product. I concede that in the real world, this is not always possible or cared about for whatever reason. 

I LITERALLY just noticed this right now. The company that designed the World Chess set is Pentagram. A pentagram is a 5-pointed star. Pentagon is 5-sided shape. But their logo is a hexagon (6 sides). Mind blown. Haha.

Well, my understanding that the mind-bending hexagonal logo is part of the identity that Pentagram has created for World Chess.

https://www.pentagram.com/work/world-chess/story

This website can be an absolute time sink...each link is an interesting story to read (chess-related or not)!

That is correct . But the architect responsible for the design of the chess pieces retired from Pentagram, as I remember, 2 years ago. By the way, the whole stories behind the designs of both are amazing.

New math.

Hang out more - he picks his targets and goes on these kinds of little tirades every once in a while.  I put it down to "off-meds" days...

I am telling and showing others that they don't have to be ripped off from a company who spent pennies on the dollar for this board and jack up the price. There's a $182 difference between the board that Official World Chess is selling and the board chessgamesshop.com is selling. Sorry but a black and white hexagon isn't worth $182 more. So ask yourself what am I really paying for? I am not being negative. Just realize that you got ripped off. I don't sugar coat this kind of BS these companies try to sell. 

Congratulations! You just discovered how the economy works! The companies are producing items and usually, 25-75% of the price is just branding, R&D, and other not-production-related costs! Do not, by any chance, buy any bike, car, food, clothes, house (building materials), glasses, pillows, furniture, (...) because you will pay more than it is worth!

But seriously, do you think that you discovered the only truth that there are cheaper options on the market? I would expect that if you are of the age of 10+, you will realize, that if such product is not for you or you do not want to spend such amount of money on R&D, marketing of the brand, blah, blah, blah, then you will just pass on such things . Stop wasting your time and energy to annoy others by your discovery of how the market works.

I do not need to realize anything, because I carefully planned and agreed to pay more for World Chess branding, R&D from Pentagram side, the customer service, name it. Yes, that was my will - to spend more money and get that chessboard. I exactly calculated how much it will reduce my monthly balance and do I want to spend that extra money on the things I mentioned above. You should not be interested in what (and how) others are spending their money on .

Just leave the forum instead of spreading negative energy . If you would spend at least a fraction of that energy, and that time you spend on writing those weird comments and used them on developing your skills in chess...

Cheers!

Is there any place to get the full-size official pieces?

clothstir, chessbaron is already sold out (again), so at the moment I beleive You can only get it at worldchess together with board, or the dgt version.

OK, well...congratulations, you guys, you finally did it. You broke me. I just ordered the World Championship set with the walnut board. This was the only option I could find for the pieces...chess warehouse is now out of stock for the DGT enabled pieces, too.

PS: For me, the tipping point was the great support experience I had with World Chess for the studio version of the set. I trust that, if anything goes wrong, they'll be there to support it quickly and painlessly.

@lotsoblots, please share images of the board with us as well as write something about it . How is it after two months?

Ahhh, most of my posting and image sharing has gone into that other big thread:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/official-fide-world-chess-set-knights-these-pics-are-of-the-new-thicker-one-correct?page=2

Here are a couple from there:

As I mention somewhere in there, the board is nice but it's never been my focus. I actually didn't even *want* the board (I'm very happy with what I have) but there was no way to get the pieces standalone at the time so I took the plunge! The site lists it as made in Turkey so it's not Rechapados Ferrer, but it seems to me to be of similar quality. There's some minor misalignment and minor bleeding between some squares but nothing I'd exchange it for and nothing I haven't seen in other veneer boards. It is much glossier and it has the nice inlaid white & black hexagon logo on each side. I'm sure in no small part to that glossy layer, it's extremely smooth to the touch and pieces glide beautifully over it.

In order to get a sense of the coloring, here's a side-by-side shot of two walnut and maple boards. The left is Rechapados Ferrer and the right is World Chess:

The World Chess carrying bag is a nice simple touch that was included in the package.

To all the "followers" of this thread - thanks to @lotsoblots and @pawnerai, I bought the Studio Set .

I posted the review in its own thread, here:
Review - World Chess Studio Set