If you bought a wooden chessboard after watching “The Queen’s Gambit”, the price you paid was probably dictated by just four pieces.
Knights alone can account for up to 50 percent of the cost of a beautiful wooden set. While the rest of the pieces can be machine-made, knights are hand-sculpted to look like the head of a horse, a tedious process to ensure that all four are exactly the same.
The knights in the set used in World Chess Championship matches ($ 310 for pieces and $ 220 for the board) were inspired by a Parthenon horse sculpture in Athens, said Ilya Merenzon, chief executive of World Chess, the company that licenses the rights to the games. The process of creating the ensemble, when it was redesigned in 2013, required extensive communication back and forth with sculptors in India to discuss details such as the horse’s smile.
About 10 people specialize in sculpting knights for world chess games, said Merenzon. It takes about two weeks to produce 100 sets, with a set of riders requiring about six hours to sculpt, he said.
Chess sales increased 125 percent after the October premiere of “The Queen’s Gambit,” a Netflix show about orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon, who defeats the male-dominated game. Many games sold out before Christmas.
House of Staunton in Alabama, one of the world’s largest chess retailers, offers wooden sets with relatively simple knights, such as the $ 129 boxwood and rosewood tournament set, as well as more detailed sets. They go up to a luxurious set of $ 5,995 in boxwood and “old-fashioned” ebony and featuring intricate horses.
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In the most sophisticated sets, “you can literally see the teeth carved into the horse’s mouth,” said Noelle Kendrick, director of business development at House of Staunton. “They are extremely detailed. You can see the mane, the mane rivets, if it has a flowing mane. “
The ornamentation is not strictly decorative. In tournaments, milliseconds matter, as does how a piece fits in your hand, said Merenzon. This is particularly true in especially fast games that can be used to break ties in tournaments: “blitz” games, which usually last less than 10 minutes, and “fast” games, in which players have 25 minutes to do all your movements. Players tend to move their pieces and press the clock in quick motion.
If you drop a piece and press the clock before putting it back in place – effectively reducing your opponent’s time – you can lose the game under some tournament rules. In a 2016 tournament organized by the League of India for professional players, the great master Abhijeet Gupta missed his chance to advance after taking down his queen in a tiebreaker blitz game.
“That’s why expensive, hand-carved pieces are used in the championship,” said Merenzon. “The pieces are also heavy. They look significant and special. “
If you don’t want to spend $ 150 or more, there are more basic wooden sets, like those from major retailers. Knights are produced by machines and are more Picasso-style than da Vinci-style.
“When you buy chess games,” said Kendrick, “you find yourself almost exclusively focused on the appearance of the horse. It is the only piece that has a really significant difference. “