Equipment Standards

[Crume]

@tanstaafl

Analog clocks are still useful, BTW, even for the most “modern” players – when one of the players has a vision problem, they are much easier to read than most (all?) digital clocks.

This is a really good point. I played an Expert at this year’s US Open whose eyesight required an analog clock. A TD verified that he could not read a Chronos display (IMO, the easiest digital display to read), so I accepted the analog reality. I see the guy’s POV…the contrast of black analog arms against the white display make it easy to see how much time has elapsed.

If you are friends with a near-blind player…please encourage them to use a peg board, especially if they have difficulty distinguishing white plastic pieces from the white buff squares…this can clear up a LOT of misunderstanding!!!

[tanstaafl]

@jjamesge1

Anybody have or use a Boxwood/Ebonized chess set? I know that when they’re new, its practically impossible to tell the difference between them and an ebony set. Well, not impossible, but at least very very good.

But if its the set you use frequently, how well does the ebonized stand up to time? Real ebony of course is rather brittle and not at all something most would use for tournament play.

Of course, the reason to use ebonized boxwood is two fold: Boxwood stands up fairly well to frequent play and is rather inexpensive compared to Ebony.

BTW, I usually go for Boxwood/Rosewood chess sets, but want to get a new tourny kit, so was curious about ebonized boxwood.

I carry and use a boxwood/ebonized boxwood set (HOS Classic) and feel that it holds up pretty well. I’ve had cheaper sets where I had to “touch up” the ebonized pieces, but not this one – it’s held up pretty well (I don’t think they’re that hard to touch up, if it should ever become an issue). Another nice feature of the HOS sets is that you can replace an individual piece if it ever becomes chipped, broken, lost, etc.

PS I should also point out that I generally prefer long time controls, so this set hasn’t seen much abuse from time scrambles – so YMMV…

[jjamesge1]

I talked to HOS earlier. I decided to purchase the classic rosewood chess set. I do like rosewood very much. I figure if they make billard sticks from rosewood… using it in a chess set should be a walk in the park.

[swbobcat]

History: In the third edition of the rule book, on page 128, under “Form,” the last sentence reads: “The bishop’s top may have an angled groove or a knob of a different color to distinguish it from a pawn.” That changed in the fourth edition; rule 40C on pages 165-166 clearly states: “If the bishop’s top has a knob of a different color, the set is nonstandard.” This sentence was removed in the fifth edition.

This is an example where the USCF differs from FIDE. In Europe very often knobs of different colors are quite common, at least this was the case between 1970-1990. Hopefully that was what prompted them to remove this silly sentence.