What do you think of club sized chess sets?

Club sized referring to chess sets in the 4.4" to 5.0" size for a King.  The imposter "small club" size of 4.0" need not apply.

I like them.

Some people say they are a little hard to take in at once, but I feel like it's only a matter of a couple of games before anything like that becomes a non-issue. 

They are not very portable, but they are portable enough.  I take my home-made budget board with me in the back seat of my car to my friends house to play on a twice a week basis and carry my chess pieces in a plastic tub. 

I feel like they have an air of theatricality about them, and family members and bystanders tend to become more interested in chess because of it.  If you are short on potential over the board opponents this a good thing.  If you don't like people fussing over your game this is a very bad thing. 

The best size for a club sized board is a 2.5 to 3.0" board.  I use a 2.75" board and a 3.0" board as I fancy on a particular night.  If you use a Jaques reproduction or some other more stout looking set 2.5" would probably be the best.  Nothing smaller! (sorry Alan). 

Nice set Jack. What size board are you using in this picture? And, out of curiosity, what are the diameters of the king and pawn?

I too enjoy club size sets -- where space allows (I have one 4.5" and three 4.25" sets). I play a lot chess in coffee shops where the tables are just too small for anything larger than a 2" board, or a 2-1/8" board without a frame.

At times, where I can accommodate a larger board, I have a 20" board with 2.5" squares (sans frame), that I use with all of the above sets. All the kings have a diameter of approximately 1.9", resulting in scaling factors of between 75% - 76.4%, which looks just about right to my eye.

Looks like a nice set.

I'm a big fan of club sets too.  I've got a 4.4 HOS Sheffield on a custom 2.75" board with a very narrow border set up next to the computer.  I've also got an "Official Staunton" 4.5 set up on a borderless 2.5" board a few feet away. The Sheffield has a full 2.0" king base and modern wide pawns so it looks best on a huge board.  The "Official Staunton" is a skinnier design with a 1.85 " king base and narrower pawns.  

Those are my "analysis" sets, but they don't leave the house.  When I use a smaller set now I miss that solid "clunk" you get when moving the big boys.  Probably psychological but it does seem easier now to "see" on a smaller board.  Yep, once you go "big" you can't go back!

I don't really like the supersize sets.

For me the 3.75 is big.

Ditto for me as well. Its just too big. The set & board are very nice though.!

Nice set Jack , love the pieces in particular but red and black board brings checkers/draughts to mind for me . I also find the jumbo sizes ( more than 4" kings ) a bit too big for me personally .  I am envious of your weekly meetings with friends to play casual games though and think I need such an arrangement myself . 

Nice. With scaling factors between 73% -74%, your sets are will suited to their matching boards. The Sheffield set might also work on a 2-5/8" board, if they made such an animal (76.2%).

The red and black board has precisely 3" squares for an overall size of 24".

The King and Pawn dimensions:

King

4.65" height with finnial

1.81" base diameter

Pawn

2.51" height

1.38" base diameter

So this set is a little taller than a standard club sized set.  Playing on a 3" squared board allows you to see the pieces very well. 

However, I usually don't play on the red and black board.  Instead I play on my home made 2.75" board.  The red and black color combo can strain the eyes after a while, and I feel like the slightly smaller board is the perfect fit for the pieces. 

I also occasionally play on another large folding board I have from Mexico.  It has squares that range from 2.8" to 3"  squares.
The only problem with this board is that it sits quite high up on a table.  But it makes an excellent board for playing in the living room floor. 

Jack, In another post in this forum I proposed a system for 1) sizing a king to a chess board, and 2) sizing the pawns to the king. In a nutshell, I feel the king fits best when it's diameter is 76.5% the size of the square, and the pawns fit best when their diameter is 76.5% the width of the king.

And your set is a perfect match! Taking the king diameter of 1.81" X .765 (76.5%) = 1.38" -- the exact diameter of your pawns. So regardless of what size board you select, you're assured that your set - the front and back ranks - are properly scaled to one another, which makes for a well balanced chess set.

Except that the base width of the king to 39% of its height, which is below the usual recommended range of at least 40%. And, personally, 40% is to my mind too small anyway. I prefer sets where the kings have much wider bases (closer to 50% of height), as with the old Jaques sets. I doubt that my ideal chess set would accord with your ratios, which, after all, were based on your personal preference for the pawns and your choice of using the mean of the highest and lowest figures you found for the king.

Andy, you're right, the formulas are merely a way of expressing mathematically what I find most pleasing aesthetically.

To keep it simple, I'm only using the diameters of the king and pawns in my calculations. The assumption being 1) that in a well designed set the remaining back rank pieces will be properly scaled to the size of the king, and 2) that the king will be within the 40%-50% guidelines you mentioned above. For kings outside of this height range, I would move a step up or down in board size until a pleasing balanced is reached.

If you're intereseted, a more detailed explanation can be found in an earlier posting.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/a-system-for-sizing-chess-pieces-and-boards-long

Personally, I like a slightly shorter and stouter set of chess pieces like the original Jaques Staunton compared to this set I have from Chess Bazaar.  However, this set was sent to me by accident, and Vikram was kind enough to allow me to keep it, so I'm very happy about that!

I also would prefer a slighty wider base on the King.  But the truth is when I go to play the game all this fades. 

For personal annalyzation I prefer a smaller set, because of all the moving around.  I mean, I may set a board up 15-75 different ways in one setting.  I had a 3.75" set with 2-1/4" squares for this.  But I ran into a 3" set on 1.875" squares, and I find this to be my ideal size for personal annalyzation.  Mainly because I can easily grab about 8-12 pieces at once.  Also, it's just the right size for something like 'playing along' with a shorter chess.com game.

The 4.4" with the 2" base is a cool size, but they are WAY to big for any serious studying, Also, you gotta be careful, it doesnt't take much to crack the pieces if you smack them together when you capture a piece(because of how heavy they are).  I've knocked chunks off of pieces before, and I don't consider how I take pieces to be all that aggressive.

Jaques used "club size" to describe sets from (I think) 3.75 inch to 4.4-inch, but these days it's usually taken to mean sets 4-inch and above. Jack's just restricting the definition to 4.4 and above for the purposes of this thread.

There's not THAT much difference in a 4" set and a 4.4" set.  Of course A LOT of what gives a set it's 'feel' is the width of the bases, and how 'tapered' the set is.  (ex.  Most 6" sets are EXTREMELY tapered, and a lot of the cheaper(generic Indian) 4" and 4.4" sets are tapered more than vs a HOS club set) 

For me I see the sizes as

1.Library size-- for me, this is anything below the standard tournament sizes

2.Tournament size--  usually around 3.75" with a 1.7" base(requiring a 2.25" square) and just a touch below and a touch above

3.Club size--Anything above a 1.8 base(which is mosty 4" and up)

Looks great in pictures, I wonder how I'd think it looked in real life. I prefer 3.75/2.25.