Best Chess Set Ever Portable Chess Set 1X Single Weighted Staunton Pieces with 15 in Foldable Silicone Chess Board, Lite Edition for Kids & Adults, Travel Chess Set for Begginers and Pros

Mighty and impressive. "Best Chess Set Ever" are not mere words of marketing puffery, this set delivers the goods with an excellent price point. The classic Staunton variant is bold and satisfying: The King is large, stately, and stable. The Queen rightly stands tall and elegant next to the King, with a crown of sharp menace. The Bishop's mitre seems to burn with a supernatural flame. The Knight appears wild and fierce with it's flying mane. The Rook is as stout and imposing as it's power would suggest, and is not just slightly taller than the pawn. The soulful pawn is well proportioned and sits as an anchor on their base.The mass of a whole 4x set sits just on the edge of "too large" for practical portability. Depending on your own preference, (and for me) the included 20x20 board might seem just a little too cramped of a battlefield for this set. Luckily, my 22x22 board provides almost the perfect proportion of space to suit my eye.The pieces are noticeably hefty and satisfying to hold. I also enjoy the rich, off-white color of the light pieces. No spoilers, but the little touches of detail were fun to find and appreciate. Effort was seen to the rule booklet and is appreciable, even if you don't need the book.When OTB with this set, even if your opponent crushes you, you might be consoled knowing that you'll at least look great in the process

purchased this chess set, and overall, I’m quite satisfied with it. The size of the board and pieces is perfect, and the details on the figures are well-crafted, giving the set a quality and elegant look.However, there is one aspect that I didn’t like very much: the material of the board. It is made of silicone (or a similar material), which makes it flexible and portable, but it also has some downsides. For instance, it tends to attract lint and dust easily. Additionally, the pieces don’t slide smoothly as they would on a board made of vinyl or wood, which can affect the playing experience, especially for those used to making quick moves.Despite this, the set remains a great option for playing at home or taking it to different places without worrying about damage to the board. If the manufacturer offered a version with a more traditional material, it would be even better.In conclusion, this is a high-quality chess set with an attractive design and a convenient size, but the board’s material could be improved to enhance the overall playing experience.

All Good Here!

I have seen and own more handsome chess sets than this, but as far as one that is basically indestructible, highly functional, and very portable, it's hard to imagine one much better than this one.The board is made of silicone. If you've been around silicone before, you know it has a distinct odor. When you unpackage your BCSE, you will undoubtedly get a nose full of silicone, just as I did. The manufacturer recommends you leave the board out for 24 hours (which I also did), which rendered it odorless for me from playing distance. If I put my face up and smell it, it still smells like silicone, but while sitting at the board like a normal person, it's not an issue.The board is very thin. I grew up playing at tournaments with a vinyl board that rolled up, and if you rolled it up the wrong way, you were going to spend the entire game trying to keep the corners on the table. With the silicone, this isn't going to happen. Out of the box, there were a couple of traces of creases from being folded in the box, but those fell out with just a little time.The manufacturer makes the box a selling point, but I don't get it. I will put this set in a normal chess bag and roll the board up to avoid any future creasing issues. The box is, well, a box. It's a sturdy box, to be sure, but I don't feel that it's so attractive that I want to carry all four pounds of my chess pieces around in it. A cheap canvas bag is much easier to handle.The pieces. They're heavy. They have a great feel. Their felt bottoms combined with the high friction silicone board mean they don't budge a millimeter when you bump them with the force of even a solid glancing blow.There are a couple of things I would want you to know about the pieces, however, that cause me to award the product a 4.5 stars out of 5. Since that wasn't an option, I gave the full 5 that I think they generally deserve, but I do have a couple of nits to pick. They're small things and a couple of them are just personal choices, so I don't consider them defects.First, there are some relics of the manufacturing process left on the pieces. They're minor and most people probably wouldn't notice them except maybe on the bishops. The seam where the two halves of the pieces were conjoined on the bishops stare directly back at the player. I don't know how much more could have been done to smooth that out, but it is noticeable to my eye.Second, the points on the crown of the queen are sharp. Almost - just barely - too sharp. If these pieces found their way into the hands of a toddler or small child, a scratch or small poke from the queen is not hard to imagine. Is it going to kill anyone? No. But it seems preventable.Third - and this is the personal part - I don't love the look of the pieces. They're very chunky, likely by design, facilitating easy grabbing and moving. The king and queen in particular are VERY wide at the base. The king has to be almost carefully placed within his square so as to avoid intruding on a neighboring square. If you were playing a blitz or bullet game, the king and queen are definitely going to have a hard time staying in their squares. It seems to me we could have kept the weight and given the pieces a bit more of a streamlined design with better aspect ratios on some of the pieces, but c'est la vie. In design it is impossible to please everyone, and I'm just being that person.Overall a fantastic set. It seems like it will hold up against almost anything you could reasonably throw at it. At the time of purchase (April 2021), I paid $60 for it, which seems fair, given what you get. I would happily recommend it.