The problem is with those players’ expectations, not with the equipment. One may as well complain that one’s opponent is using a school bus–yellow Chronos clock instead of the beige or black Chronos that “many players are really expecting.”
Blue and buff is standard equipment, per the rules. Green and buff is not “more” standard – any more than walnut-and-maple is “more standard” than macassar-and-maple – let alone “most” standard. It is only the most common. Don’t like it? Submit an ADM.
Tim Just pointed out that the TD can decide that blue and buff is nonstandard. He could also decide I suppose that green and buff is nonstandard and force players to use blue-and-buff or pink-and-orange, but while I can imagine the former happening, I cannot imagine the latter.
This allows the TD to adapt his rulings to circumstances. If nobody has a good board, he can allow the use of the least-bad one. If a good one is available, he can prohibit the use of a pretty bad one. TDs may or may not use the rule that way, but I think they could.
Don’t like it? Submit an ADM.
If your chessmen are two shades of wood tones, no problem. But truly black plastic pieces and truly black vinyl squares are what I was speaking of.
It seems so obvious to me that standardizing on colors for play under rated conditions would be a good thing, about as important as using Staunton men and an allowed range of piece sizes. My personal preference is green and buff, and I know many players share this preference, but I’d gladly defer to a well-designed study as to what sort of board performs well under normal lighting conditions, etc. Some very nice wooden boards often have a glare problem. That USCF sales might offer alternate colors seems irrelevant – they also sell non-Staunton men.
Nope, I’ve got the cheap plastic pieces to go with my cheap vinyl board. It’s black squares and black pieces, and I’ve only ever heard one complaint at a tournament about my set, and that was from someone who pre-emptively said he’d rather use his, without even trying mine. But I see this complaint on the internet semi-regularly. I just find it odd. The pieces stand out enough from the board, even with my lousy vision, so I’m just surprised that other people could have this problem.
A TD who wants to enforce the use of certain standard equipment over other standard equipment should follow Sevan Muradian’s example and provide that equipment himself.
I’m not saying that you can’t see the black pawns on black squares when you’re looking right at them, but I couldn’t easily pick them up when scanning the whole board. Maybe I tend to sit high and look down at an extreme angle. It’s no big deal, just a slight annoyance.
An excellent idea. At our tournaments we either provide the equipment or have a few green and white boards handy to use.
BTW, I saw a child in a scholastic tournament use a light orange and white board with pink and orange pieces. She wore a blouse with rainbow on it. Her opponent was dressed all in black and wore black fingernail polish to match his spiked hair. Priceless.
As I understand Tim’s earlier comment, standard equipment is what the TD says it is. Not every organizer has the investment to buy and provide all that equipment, but they may still choose to have a standard beyond the minimum.
A TD who wants to enforce the use of certain standard equipment over other standard equipment should follow Sevan Muradian’s example and provide that equipment himself. A TD who cannot provide that equipment himself, or who doesn’t want to, should accept without prejudice whatever standard equipment players bring.
You’re trying to take it as axiomatic that a blue-and-buff (or burgundy-and-buff, or whatever-low-saturation-dark-color-and-buff) board is somehow nonstandard, or “less standard” than green-and-buff. This is a faulty premise, since under the rule as written, they are all plainly standard.
The rules don’t mention blue and buff as being an acceptable combination. The rule says it should be pleasing to the eye, and some people here have said blue and buff is not pleasing to their eyes. So blue and buff is not necessarily standard.
And there is the matter of what people actually do and expect in tournaments. That’s not an axiom, that’s experience.
Given that the office routinely gets queries from players who don’t like their USCF ID because of the numerological significance (too many 6’s, for example, or a number that ends in a 4), I would not be surprised if a player came to me and claimed that he cannot play on a green board for some reason.
I used to play on an orange and buff vinyl board (I set it aside when I started using a set that didn’t quite fit the squares). Some of my chess playing friends weren’t too sure about it at first, fearing that it would burn into their retinas, I suppose, but most of them soon saw that the colors “worked”. The pieces became more vivid against that background.
Don’t we start getting into dangerous territory when we start dictating what is “pleasing to the eye”? What’s next, are we going to issue single-color jumpsuits to all players, so no one can wear clothing we don’t like? (I’m thinking we should go with those silver things they wore in the bad 70s sci-fi movies!). Or perhaps each player should be issued with a USCF approved water bottle so that I’m not distracted by the glass my opponent uses. Oh, and we should insist on standard wall-coverings for all tournament venues, so that we aren’t distracted by the wallpaper or paintings the hotel has chosen.
Perhaps, just PERHAPS, some people should “get over themselves” and just play chess.
It is all too easy to assert extreme examples or make slippery slope arguments to support your own particular bias. The use of green and white squares on chess boards have become standard practice over the years. Green is a cooler color to look at and easier on the eyes, especially if one is playing in an event with long time controls over a two or more day period. Other colors, like blue or red or more hideously orange, can cause perceptual problems. I have talked to a number of players who complain of tired eyes, headaches, and odd color flips in their minds when playing on these other color boards. The color green is perceptually more soothing. Orange?? Yuck. Hardly any contrast. Why not yellow and white or white and white squares?
We usually provide boards and sets at our tournaments. If a player prefers to use a high quality wooden board and set, and his opponent does not object, then we allow it. Not so for a player who wants to use his/her orange, pink, purple, red, or blue board. We prefer to maintain equal conditions for the players and a professional look for the spectators. Having a rainbow of colors would make the tournament look cheesy. You can use whatever color you want in casual games. In a tournament, the players should have a right to expect a standard of excellence be maintained by the organizer.
Moderator Mode: Off
As an optometrist I have a professional interest in this discussion. I also specialize in something called Low Vision where I deal with people that have damaged eyes and reduced vision that is not correctable to a better level. In this specialty I have dealt with specific colors and tints that affect people and their visual comfort as well as performance in visual tasks. The area of Sports Vision also deals with such things.
We are dealing with two factors that are distinct yet both are important.
The first is visual comfort, especially when looking at a “field” of view for extended periods of time, as in a tournament chess game. In this, the green and buff colors are visually softer to the eyes. Liken this to the green grass and such in a large field such as a soccer stadium. Green is also more in the center of the light spectrum giving less extremes of light coloring. At the lower end of that spectrum would be the red color which is more vibrant with a higher wavelength and lower frequency of light. The higher end of the spectrum has the violet going to the ultra-violet. This has a much shorter wavelength and therefore higher frequency of light. The upshot of the above is that Green and Buff are actually closer to each other in the color spectrum than most other colors, having less “disharmony” of color and contrast. A higher contrast between the squares makes the eye kind of work harder to have both colors in the same field in a checked pattern as in the chess board. A minimum contrast is necessary, but too great of one is hard for the eye and consequently brain to cope with simultaneously. The “softer” green and buff, natural dark woods and natural lighter woods, and so on are easier to view for extended periods of time. There are some of the dark blue and white boards running around our club, and it is noticeable the difficulty in viewing that high a contrast compared to other colors. The oxblood that tanstaafl refer to is more of a browned or muted red and its contrast with the lighter buff or beige color resembles a natural wood in color more than the brighter, candy apple type of red on checker boards or the red ones available on the market in vinyl.
The second issue is the board and piece contrast. The pieces must have a minimum contrast with the board color otherwise the piece details are lost to the square color. Black pieces on black squares can be difficult to play chess with because of the lack of contrast between the dark pieces and the black squares. Hence, a black square does better with rosewood or more reddish pieces. Of course having the same wood color for the squares and pieces also reduces the contrast so it is difficult, and this applies to both the light and dark colors respectively.
The above, in my opinion, is why the green and buff board works so well with all types of pieces whether wood or plastic. The green color of the dark squares has good contrast with any of the dark piece colors, while the buff also has good contrast with all the light piece colors whether plastic or wood. Plus the green and buff is indeed easier in viewing for longer periods of time.
I prefer to play with wood, both pieces and boards. I have had to be careful in matching my board and piece colors though. My rosewood sets do very well on mahogany squares. They have a good contrast. I also have acquired a few of the House of Aragon leather boards that tanstaafl refers to. The first two I bought are the green and buff. They work great with all sets. I recently bought an oxblood board that goes with my blood rosewood HoS set and it works very well also.
You know what color I’m surprised I’ve never seen for the dark squares of a chess board? Grey! Look at any diagram in a chess book, and you’ll see white and grey squares, with black and white pieces. This seems like a good, neutral color that would be easy on the eyes. You could even do light grey vs dark grey instead of having the light squares being truly white.
I agree. Gray is neutral in color, and having different enough densities for.the squares would be easy on the eyes.
Perhaps it is because most of the vinyl they use is buff as a base color. The green or other colors are printed onto that.
I’m sure a very light gray stock is available, but when these companies have a lot of these made, I bet they haven’t considered any other base color because of the risk that they wouldn’t sell.
The first vinyl roll up board I ever saw back in my high school days was green, but not any of the shades we see today… it was much more pale. If my memory is anywhere in the right ballpark, seems like it would be a nice choice today.
Would these distinctions also be noticed by a red-green colorblind person? It seems such a person might still, somehow, be able to distinguish between the center of the spectrum and the longer wavelengths and lower frequencies at the end.
Bill Smythe
Most people with red-green deficiencies are not totally color blind. They have problem distinguishing between shades and more subtle differences. For instance they might have a problem telling the difference between brown and blue or black.
In chess, they would still see the darker squares and pieces as being different than the respective light ones. They might see the green squares in a duller color and more muted. They would see the brown pieces and red rosewood as a dark color and might not be able to tell the difference between the two. They would obviously be able to tell the difference between the dark rosewood, blood rosewood, or ebony pieces and the boxwood ones.
The color blind person would actually enjoy the more vibrant red color boards than the non-color blind person would.