Choose a chess set by size and material: wood for the table, magnets for the road, wide squares for a six-year-old, and...
You assume a chess set is one decision you pay for once and then you are done, and that assumption is exactly why most parents buy the wrong board the first time. The board that suits a six-year-old opening it on the floor is not the board your son carries to a club at thirteen, and the difference between them lies in size, material and how the pieces are stored. This page sorts those differences out before you pay.
Chess is not bought once
Most people who play chess at home own two boards within three years: a cheap one that stays in the sitting room or the car and can afford to lose a piece, and a better one kept in the cupboard and used for the long sessions. If you are starting from nothing, buy the cheap one first and leave the second until you are sure your son has taken to the game. Prices on this page open at twenty-six riyal and reach a hundred and sixty-five, a range that allows exactly that progression.
Wood or magnetic plastic
Wood is heavier, better looking and more patient with the years, and a wooden piece stands on the board and will not shift when the table knocks, which makes it the right choice for home. Magnetic plastic has one advantage only, which is that it plays in the car, on a plane and in a player's lap, because the pieces cling to the board and do not fall at the first bend. So buy wood if the play is at a table and magnets if the play is on the road.
Size: twenty-nine centimetres or larger
Size is what buyers most often overlook. A twenty-nine centimetre board is far too small for a six-year-old's hand, because the pieces crowd together and he loses track of what he is holding. We carry a board at that size on this page at a relatively high price, since it is designed for travel rather than for learning, so read the measurement in the description and do not read the price alone. Your rule is that a single square should be wider than the base of the tallest piece in the set, and that is what prevents the confusion.
Folding boards and what protects the pieces
Most boards on this page fold at the middle and become the box that holds the pieces themselves, which is the best structure for anyone with children, because the pieces do not scatter through the house. Check two things before buying: whether the pieces have a fitted place inside the box or are simply thrown in, and whether the clasp that closes it is metal or thin plastic that snaps in the first month. A board that folds but will not close loses two pieces a year.
Combination sets: draughts and ludo with the board
Four sets on this page gather more than one game into a single box, three of them joining chess and draughts and one adding ludo. Draughts is a real gain for a beginner because its rules are far easier than chess, so your son plays it in the first week, wins at it, and feels he owns the board before he has learned chess itself. If this is the first set in your home, choose the combination rather than the single, since the extra cost is small.
And if you want to try before you buy, start with draughts on its own, which comes in the same combination sets, and after that look through the table games section and group games to learn which kind of session your children enjoy before buying a club board.
A board for a beginner and a board for a club
A beginner's board has wide squares, heavy pieces and a low price, and its first concern is that the child can tell a knight from a queen across the table. A club board comes at a standard size, with weighted bases and quiet colours that do not glare under a lamp, and it costs more because it gets played for hours at a stretch. So do not buy the second for a six-year-old and do not buy the first for someone entering a tournament, as the difference between them is use rather than quality.
A missing piece: what to do
Losing a single piece from a set is solved two ways. Either you buy a separate set of pieces and use it with the same board, or you teach your son the temporary-substitute rule, which is to put a piece from another game in the missing one's place until the replacement arrives. The queen is the piece most worth guarding, since losing her stops play, while a pawn has seven brothers in the set. That is one more reason to choose the box that keeps every piece in its own slot.
From six years: a child's first board
Age labels on this page open at six, and that is a correct label, because a child at this age holds the moves of six pieces and understands that the game ends with the king surrounded. Some boxes, though, are listed under a younger label while the maker recommends six, so your reference is the maker's recommendation and the higher of the two figures. If your son is under six, start him on draughts or on what sits in board games, and come back to chess a year later.
What is worth paying extra for
Three things are worth paying more for: a wider square, a box that holds the pieces in their places, and a wooden material that lasts ten years. Three are not: a smaller box at a higher price because it is for travel, glossy pieces that are hard to tell apart under a lamp, and elegant packaging thrown out the next day. After that the game moves from the board to books and training, and the rest of what builds this side sits in the focus and intelligence page, thinking games for boys and thinking games for girls.
