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by John » Fri Sep 03, 2021 07:39 pm
Tim and Peggy, I assume you're not much interested in chess, (although I could be wrong) and David, with all you've had to worry about lately, I presume you've temporarily let chess fall by the wayside. I still wrestle with it every day, because it forces me to take my mind off some of the stuff I'm worried about for an hour or so.
I collected chess sets for years, and may still pick one up on rare occasion, if it's unique enough. Some of my sets are really nice but most of them are fairly cheap "Dollar Store" sets. I've set aside some of the cheaper sets, and some of the sets that are so weird they're virtually unplayable, like my "Pirates Of The Caribbean" and my "Lord Of The Rings" set. You can hardly tell what some of the pieces are supposed to be. I plan to try to sell those. Years ago, I lost track of how many sets I'd collected when I went over 100, and I never buy a set if it's too much like one I've already got. I've got several of those glass sets that sold for about $5 each, that people gave me.
I've also got a couple of stone sets. Even the boards are stone and unexpectedly heavy. The pieces in both sets are almost identical, except that the stones used are different colors. All of them are nicely marbled. Both sets have almost white stones for the white pieces, but one set has mostly black stone for the black pieces, and the other has sort of pink and white marbled stone for the black pieces. On both sets, the little stone crosses on top of the Kings have broken off. (They're just glued to the top and never last long.)
Sometimes I play online but I mostly play against the computer. Either way, I always go over my games and replay them with real pieces, just to be used to playing a live opponent. I switch sets every month just for fun, using some of my favorites. This month I started playing with one of my stone sets Cheri found me at a yard sale. It's the pink and white stone. It's not too hard to tell the pieces apart although the Bishops are a little too much like the Pawns. Haven't made up my mind yet whether I like using the stone sets.
Just wondered if you had a favored set, or what it might be like. John