My heart sinks when we start a chess club at a school and the teacher in charge of chess comes up to us on the first day and is soooo excited because they’ve just got a box of new chess sets!
Just about every time we see those sets they are the cheap hollow plastic pieces (about 4cm tall) and a cardboard board from some toy shop or department store. They cost the school around $15 -$20 per set and they last about an hour. Pieces get lost, stepped on and broken, chess boards torn apart, boxes broken and pieces mixed up … before long the entire investment in chess sets is worthless.
Our biggest care is for the kids, to make sure they have chess sets to play with all week round, not just on the day that we are at school. For just a fraction more (around $25 per chess set) a school can get a Standard Tournament Chess Set.
That is a solid plastic chess pieces at 9.5cm tall, totally unbreakable. And a 55cm mat (washable of course) to play on. This is the same set used by all chess clubs, at school championships and even in the Nationals! The sets are easy to use, good for little kids (visually as well as handling) and last forever!
That’s really the most important thing – they last forever! The pieces can’t be broken and any that do get lost, well, we replace them free of charge! We’re even happy to extend our payment terms so the school can afford the extra $50… which, let’s face it, isn’t a lot anyway!
To see our February specials please click on the link below and download the PDF.
