Awesome Chess

Maker W&M Levsha already created the tiniest barbecue we’ve seen. Now, he’s taken his miniaturization skills to the next level by building a tiny chess set that fits within a watch face. He had a bit of help from a laser engraver, but there was still plenty of precision craftsmanship required to pull off the feat.

This roll-up electronic chess board connects with a mobile app so you can play with people around the globe and track their moves. It also helps you build your chess skills against the app’s AI. It has embedded LEDs with magnetic sensors to detect the positions of pieces and comes with 34 weighted chess pieces.

This portable chess set has an innovative design that rolls up into a 3″ x 6″ hexagonal tube for travel. Its pieces hold in place securely with powerful magnets so you can pause and resume games, and the roll holds closed magnetically so pieces can’t fall out.

Wood Season shows us how they created a chess board that looks like its playing surface is floating on water. The trick was encasing oak wood blocks in a thick bath of clear resin, then backlighting them with LEDs. A pearlescent resin backing and floating pine cones add to the effect. The set is available for sale on Etsy.

From the Empire State Building to the Flatiron to the Freedom Tower, the New York City skyline is iconic and imposing. Celebrate your love for the Big Apple’s architecture with Ian Flood and Chris Prosser’s skyline chess set, which includes 32 buildings, made from heavyweight acrylic, along with a folding game board.

Creative Workz takes us inside a factory where workers make beautiful chess sets by cutting, milling, and polishing marble. Each piece – from the squares on the boards to the individual game pieces – is made by hand. We’re guessing OSHA wouldn’t approve of the lack of respiratory and eye protection, though.

This custom-made chess set from 3DCubedPrinting comes with pieces that look like ammunition. Its 3D-printed plastic pieces are based on different calibers of ammo, from .45 ACP pawns to a .50 BMG king. The set includes a storage box and all 32 chess pieces. An optional camouflage vinyl chess board is also available.

This mini chess set from Arcane Science Academy has tiny laser-cut chess pieces that stick into holes on a wooden board. The board folds up and has interior cutouts for holding and organizing its pieces. Magnets and steel hex nuts hold the set together for travel.

Learn to defeat chess opponents with this 56-hour bundle of classes taught by chess Grandmaster Damian Lemos. Along the way, you’ll pick up advanced strategies, the secrets of attacking, and tactics for middlegame and endgame positions. Save 75% in The Awesomer Shop.

A fun variant on chess, in which all of the pieces are queens. While you get the versatility of a queen’s moves, the objective here isn’t to capture pieces, but to try and get four queens in a row, while your opponent attempts to block your movements.

The guys over at Gadgetify rounded up some really cool and unusual chess sets, including Rabbit Tanaka’s set, which has a blacklight-illuminated chess board along with UV-reactive pieces. This appears to be a relic of the 1990s, but you can get a glow-in-the-dark chess set from Etsy shop Crafty Canvas, and just BYO black light.

Material Immaterial Studio created this unique chess set that combines elements of ancient Roman architecture with a modern sensibility. The concrete board was inspired by the walls of an arena, where towers representing armies of lightness and dark do battle.

Muntok’s elegant roll-up chess set is handmade from vegetable-tanned leather. Its spaces are stitched in place, while its chess pieces are each made from a leather disc with a hand-embossed rank icon. The included storage tube holds pieces and stays closed with a leather strap.

Urban Outfitters sells this fun and fanciful chess set for opposing fans of felines and canines. The set comes with a folding game board that doubles as a storage box and a full set of handpainted kitties and woofers wearing playful hats to represent their roles in the game.

Matt Pritchard’s trick chess set took home first prize in the 2021 Best Illusion of the Year Contest. Using a mirror and an anamorphic camouflage shield, the moving white queen only appears in the mirrored image. Gizmodo compiled more of the year’s best illusions here.

This compact chess set from Letteroom is perfect for travel, measuring in at just over 4″ across. It’s constructed from rosewood with a brass inlay around its playing surface. A built-in drawer holds its game pieces and has a foam insert to keep them from rolling around.

TITANS of CNC: Academy presents footage of a truly epic creation – a hefty chess board machined from a massive hunk of metal. It’s got a grooved playing surface, and logo art on its sides. We’d love to see how they milled all of those beautiful titanium chess pieces too.

Umbra’s modern board game features a smart design for easy carrying while still offering a solid and stable surface when playing. Its board is made from vegan leather, which is attached to a segmented wooden base. When not in use, roll it up, store the pieces inside its center, and attach the end caps.

Darkboard offers a bold take on board game design. These eye-catching boards are made from laser-cut acrylic which sit on a backlit base. The designs create the illusion of depth and can be swapped out between Chess, Surakarta, Ludo (Parcheesi), and Nine Men’s Morris boards. Each set includes 32 acrylic chess pieces.

Inspired by the hit Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, Matt Round of VOLE.WTF released this retro-style online chess game. What makes it especially impressive is that the game’s logic was written in less than 1 kilobyte of JavaScript code, incorporating code by Oscar Toledo G. and pixel art by Pinot W. Ichwandardi.

This fun chess set lets you enjoy a game without taking up table space. Made by Winding Hills Designs, the wall-mounted chess set features a metal backer under its printed black and white squares, allowing its magnetic pieces to hold in place. They also make versions in white, brown, and one that comes with checkers.

Now that you’ve binged The Queen’s Gambit, are you ready to break out your chess set and get in on the action? This series of online lessons will help you learn everything from the basics to advanced chess-playing tactics from expert players. In all, there are more than 120 hours of instruction in this bundle.

Between the popularity of The Queen’s Gambit and quarantining, there’s no better time to improve your chess game. This chess set from Showcase Plastics has a 12″ x 12″cast acrylic board with LED lighting. It’s available in a choice a variety colors for each side of the board, and includes a set of laser-cut acrylic chess pieces.