@irmux skeptic exactly. Or even just making specialized tools to take the guesswork out of carving the pieces. These people in India don't know what their doing. Or they are just purposefully making less and making it seem hard to make so they can charge more.... which really just makes tournament organizers look like fools for spending so much on chess sets.
@@resresres1 it's fine hand crafting one mistake can't be undone u have to start again. Takes serious time and patience. Hence the price tag. If they 3d print the pieces then there just regular cheap pieces use your brains.
Why does my set cost so much you ask? Because of the quality of the pieces you say? No, not at all. I implant a device into each piece that's wireless connected to an AI and vibrates when I'm about to make the best move. 10 MILLION DOLLARS!
To be fair, some horrible chess sets make your eyes drift off. Or when they change the classic pieces to something else. I played with a set that had red and brown squares and the queens looked like the bishops except one very different detail. The colors just make your eyes bleed. So I can see why it creates "less" of a chance of a mistake being able to clearly see what is what.
The knight makers can win the game by just not making knights for their opponent so Magnus or whoever would have to use cheaply made knights and then he blunders and loses
I do woodworking. The knight is the hardest because you can’t use basic templates to wood turn it. You can make most of the figures using a lathe and knives, then add details, however the knight is basically hand crafted from scratch, very challenging.
Seconding this, as someone who has hand carved a chess set. Even if you aren't using a lathe, it's relatively easy to make and use a template for the other pieces, but while an individual knight isn't too difficult, making *four identical knights* is significantly harder. If carving by hand, though, sixteen identical pawns aren't easy to make either.
@simoneetti5555 rags to riches stories are incredibly incredibly rare It helps in any career to have wealthy parents who get you into it at a young age
@@MinhLe-yj7hy Imagine getting your loose clothing stuck in a lathe. Not a fun death, as a Steelworker I've seen a lot of industrial accidents IRL and in safety orientations. A lot can go wrong even on a job making chess pieces.
To be fair I think they’re probably referring to time scrambles when players might drop or misplace pieces if they’re not well made. It’s still incredibly thin logic
@@अण्वायुवरीवर्त That's totally normal and everyone acting like they're all chess gods and don't even need to look at the pieces to play the game is being obnoxious.
"how did he beat hikaru? He must be cheating using stockfish" Me: Nah he just has a good chess set Other people: He is literally playing online chess, all boards are the same except for some colours
“It’s not like you will lose just because a piece falls over. Sure, you might lose some time but it’s no big deal” - Hikaru Nakamura, notorious flagger
I wonder if all those shaving could be processed and mixed with a plastic that could be 3-D printed. I bought a $200 wood set from House of Staunton and I was really happy to finally own a really nice set. But the the white king developed a hairline split. HOS sent me a replacement, but it didn't match. I ended up just filling the split with wood dough and using the heavier king as a decoration. I still recommend getting a nice carved wood set once you can afford it. It's just something you can really appreciate.
@@denisdooley1540 In this configuration almost all of their cuts are either peeling or scraping the wood so the resulting shavings would have no strength. You can crush them into fine dust just between your fingertips so they frequently don't even make good firestarting material, in my experience. You could use an epoxy to make essentially a glue cube that would make something like fiberboard but there are almost certainly better ways of doing this. So long as you cut your starting blanks of wood properly though there isn't nearly as much waste as most people tend to think. That sucks to hear about your chess set. Why did it not match? The color? Hopefully the wood dough fix worked well enough.
@@smockytubers1188 I don't think they had any strength, but thought they might give a realistic color to the pieces and be a use for the copious amounts of shavings they produce. It doesn't sound practical though. The replacement king they sent was boxwood but the style was different. It was stockier and an entire ounce heavier with a less refined cross. The filler isn't terrible and is very close in color, but the crack is still obvious. I didn't want to overfill and sand because I'd probably never get that buffed finish back.
7:15 I like the shape of the Tournament piece but the Championship piece has a more ergonomic design: less weight on the upper middle => less likely to fall (by mistake) => and that is where the "mistake" part comes in. Yes, I agree with you, the script that she had to read, was poorly done because there was no explanation attached to it.
Lowering mistakes they say When I was playing chess with my cousin we loss some pawn pieces and we always replace it with tiny pokemon figures, Legos or Bakugan toys.
Its only cause you play online chess way more. So when you transition your just not used to the look and Don’t see everything. For me physical chess increases my rating by a ton but thats just me.
I played with this weird set at the park once, it had weirdly pointy knights that looked super similar to the bishops. One guy actually blundered because he mixed them up.
As a person who has made two chess sets now, the knights are the toughest to make. All the other pieces are relatively easy to make. Even easier to make if you have tools specifically designed to make each piece like they do here. I made all my pieces by hand and no two are EXACTLY the same. They all differ in some way. Either slightly taller or slightly wider. From a small distance, they all look perfectly the same. Up close you will see the differences. When it came to making the knights, they were so much more difficult. On the first set made from Shawshank wood, I basically made them round and then added the horses mouth/snout after. My second set made from Ebony and Yellowheart, I took more time to break down the horse's head and sand it down and such. Learned a lot on the second one.
The reason why there's so little knight makers and why they are so truly expensive in the video is because this is in India. They have a lack of workers there, people just don't want to learn how to make knights, why? Because they aren't actually payed more, there is no incentive, they are payed almost nothing, that's all the comments kept saying apart from insulting the ridiculous pricing, like yeah its pretty bad, it is handmade, but doubt a whole 500 dollars, it's just an inflated price due to the lack of supply.
@@SpecterNeverSpectator The income gap in india is insane.. The profit 90% usually goes to the CEO, directors, chairman , top execs, Thus real workers left with small pay hence low motivation, Just look at their working conditions
@@SpecterNeverSpectator You think once the pirces are made all are used. The truth is, its not. One out of 12 to 14 sets are generally acceoted and approved. You can find a lot of hand made chess sets in India for 30USD but they won't be certified. They are made with same effort amd quality but they have defects ( in sense most needs to llok very similar upclose). People saying lets make it in 3D printers, why bother 3D printings, you can make them with machines even for 6USD a set but handmade is an art which is dying. You have a fancy suit from a fashion brand and then you have handmade Seville Row. That's what the difference is.
@@erabhikdasgupta while yes that is true for the whole world I think what I said still plays a big factor, I still don't think a certified wooden set would be worth all the way up to 500, but still, I wouldn't say it's unbelievable, at least looking back on it.
You can't 3D print these but you can autolathe every single one of those pieces. I believe hand crafted makes it better, but to say a machine can't produce the same thing out of a chunk of wood is misleading.
Misleading yes but why killing another hand crafting art like this? Chess from what i am aware is a very traditional game and even chess pieces like these have bigger value. Also if it is hand crafted and they make these pieces look like they are perfect make it more value. Replacing handcrafted art will always be bad
It's just marketing crap. Very easy to see they're pretty much just straight up lying, pretending this is such a premium chess set. And actually, you _can_ 3D print these. 3D printers have come a long way. The detail level with the most expensive 3D printers is quite insane already. The problem is, it is a very slow process. And it might actually be cheaper to just use human labor instead.
@@PHeMoX Which is also not correct. The current generation of resin printers can produce half a set in one print that takes 5 hours. That's unsupervised time. After that, cleanup in big batches is not that much work and easier compared to what goes into wood. But if we are in plastic land, going with injection molding is just faster and cheaper, by far. I mean - that's how normal sets are made. What I don't know is why they don't offer injection molded pieces that have wood mixed into the material. That would be a cool compromise.
9:26 it is essential these pieces are exactly correct because if they make the small mistake of carving a star wars chess set instead then you wouldn't know that moving rook B1 can be taken by the han solo Bishop
It’s bewildering that Hikaru, who has spent 3/4 of his waking hours looking at chess pieces, failed to realise the knight is carved and all the other pieces turned on a lathe.
I bought a Chess Set in India. There was a man carving the pieces by hand and he wanted ~20 €. I gave him 40 because everything felt and looked so high quality that i felt bad. On Amazon I wouldve paid 100 Euro at least for the same quality.
Dude. People in the US manufacturing industry get way less than 0.02% of the money the product sells for. I used to work in a bakery that made those honey buns and twinkies you see on the rack at the convenient store. Those things are like $1. I must have made 1000's of they in a day. Took home maybe $50 bucks for a 12hr day.
"Lower the chances a player can make a mistake."... it could help when you are in rapid, and moving the pieces so fast.. if one was an odd size, it might throw you off a bit.
Uhm... just no. There's really no way. People don't seem to realise how when playing a game, you know which pieces you're playing with. Even in bullet. I'm aware OTB chess doesn't have the instant illegal move prevention you get with online play, but come on people. We shouldn't take their claim seriously, which is about a piece being like a mm off in height. Height is not the only identifying factor.
@@PHeMoX go play on a novelty set and try and tell me you play at the same strength. And they’re talking about the design, not the precision of the cuts
Definitely has zero effect at master level, but for noobs having well defined pieces is key, otherwise they can look similar and cause problems for noob players
@Rainat oh, I've seen some exotic shaped fiigurez with blue pieces for black and light brown for white and it screwes with your brain... but a slight shape change really does nothing.
@Rainat I've ran across many people who hesitate on pieces that aren't well defined. Sometimes I won't see a Bishops line open up and it's easier if you don't have to think about it because they are that distinguishable.
Attention to detail, precision, and a lot of efforts and experience goes in making every piece a masterpiece. Thanks @GMHikaru for bringing this up on your channel and spreading the word around.
I do understand where they're coming from. I once played with a set where the bishops and pawns looked really similar(marble, both quite short and the bishop wasn't well defined) and more than once I thought my opponent's piece was one when it was another, especially in bad lighting conditions
Personally, I really like a lot of non tradition chess pieces more than the ones used for like real official chess pieces. There are so many interesting designs and reimagining of the pieces. In a tournament though I would definitely prefer the regular chess pieces so I don’t get stressed and make a stupid mistake because I messed up which piece was what. A bit more of a difficult thing when your pieces are like Yoda and Darth Vader and you forget which one is a knight and which one is a queen or something, but like I couldn’t really see making that mistake with the normal pieces of any set.
@@TheChessGiant i mean i think she doesn't mean between the tournament and the championship set ( for example ) . But the medieval chess set i saw was not the easiest thing to distinguish let along the height . But on the other hand you do get used to it i guess
A set with proper dimensions, weight, and balance is better than not having those features. Its clear that Hikaru is clueless to the world around him outside of chess.
It would actually be interesting to see players play a high level rapid or blitz tournament with wacky pieces, cuz i do think that if the pieces aren't what they are used to, they can mess up
1:17 Amateur woodworker and machinists here: I have worked with these machines for about, give or take 7 or 8 years now, and this is what I have to pitch in for the matter: It is because of the formation of the pieces, and the tools used. Instead of having away at the pieces with a saw, and having to sand down the shreds and splinters afterwards, or sanding everything down by hand (and taking a million years to do it), they use lathe machines (put the piece in and use a razor/knife to cut down specific areas of the piece while it spins in the lathe to make everything symetrical) and smaller sanders (the hand tools you saw them using to carve the notches into the knights horses maine) to cut the piece. That takes a lot of mastery in machining to be that precise in creation. Being able to handle the recoil from the machines used to not only sand down these parts (because all these tools have recoil, but if you think of a car's wheels against a surface, it is just like that, but more friction involved because the car's wheel in this instance is taking chunks out of the pavement from friction), but take chinks out like in the neck of the horse head in the knights part that is sanded down, and cut for accuracy, takes a lot of time to learn and master. And that doesn't begin to even get into cutting out the original stock from the driftwood/crude materials used, specific dimensions that need to be exacted perfectly (machine accuracy with a human body). The chemicals put on the wood to keep it from getting ruined over time due to water damage from exposure to the air, and preventing the wood from decaying (like you see what happens to old barns, but decay hits these pieces faster because they are so much smaller), etc, etc. You see a lot of these setup tables, and buildings, and as a complete novice/beginner you think to yourself, "I can build that, that isn't too hard." But when you actually get into doing the gritty work of this field, you find out for yourself, it isn't what you thought it would be like. EDIT: One small, stupid mistake done, one small twitch or flick of the hand when doing these projects, and you messed up the entire part and have to COMPLETELY RESTART THE PROCESS FROM STAGE 1. Imagine how much time is wasted on ruined parts.
You can use 3D printing using resins and stuff to make a professional set that acts very similar to a wooden chess set, and I think that’s how professional chess sets will be made in the future because it is so much easier than having to be trained for years and instead you just start a print and half a day later you got the full set done.
My favorite chess set came right out of the toy and game section of a department store for fifteen dollars and would last a life time if properly cared for. What else do you need? Not knocking the hand crafted sets. The skill and craftsmanship are admirable.
Although interesting, The video you reviewed really milks the whole thing. It greatly exagerates the difficulty of producing these chess sets. These sets are expensive-ish ($500 usd) because they are hand made, not because their precision is out of this world. Any machinist or competent process engineer could achieve higher levels of precision, and im sure many master woodworkers could make this set with a bit of practice, the demand is just probably not there There is a video on TH-cam of a machinist making a complete micro chess set and the tooling for it (w&m levsha) that gives a good idea of how one would go about automating this process to produce in higher volumes. It's cool how they make the sets, but let's be real, they arn't hand carving the statue of David, even in the woodworking world, what they are doing isn't that amazing or special - just look at the details on the 800 year old sets.
Yup, the real reason is because there's a monopoly because "official" sets are determined and certified by a central party. There are literally thousands of people on Earth who could make more complex pieces than this, by hand. And any machine can make anything out of wood
I mean, as cheesy as it sounds, having a standardized set of pieces does make sense for slightly better play. pattern recognition is easier when it's a set you're used to seeing. the more different/abstract the pieces are, the recognition of the pieces becomes less subconscious and requires more focus and can be distracting.
It's giving the impression that the chess pieces have to be done perfectly. As a wood machinist (CNC specialist), why in the world don't they just fasten a piece of wood onto a table and then make a CNC program and basically copy-paste knights all over the place? You can do that. A CNC should be able to make such a knight as fast as you can dismount, prepare and fasten another piece for processing (a couple minutes).
Cause then this scam wouldn't work. It's like audio cables for "audiophiles". Pretty sure any professional wood figurine factory could carve those out by the hundreds or thousands, like they do with christmas stuff.
u know about the universal rule ? if we increase the production rate then the value of the things highly decrease also man made things are just op u dont know the feelings , hardwork they put in every peice to make
Following the championship rules, you must move the piece you touch first. So I think that lowering the chances of making a mistake would mean that, as the piece is smaller, it is harder to touch it accidentally.
As a result I imagine seeing GMs play blitz on a regular sized board with tiny 1cm tall pieces, causing the players having their faces so close to the board.😄
Just bought the $1M chess set, I knew there was a reason I kept blundering. Now Hikaru should watch out for me, surely it was just the pieces holding me back.
1:00 It's not that it's hard, it's that there are only so many people who can be exploited. $500 for the whole set isn't a lot of money when it comes to making a living wage.
All the other pieces than the knight are perfectly symmetrical on all sides which means they can be carved those spiny things but a knight is not so it must be carved by hand
How about chess pieces made from casting metal alloys? I love the feel of metal - would this be too heavy or non-traditional for the highest tier chess tournaments?
it is probably actually relevant for bullet chess where u dont have time to pick up ur stuff and where it can actually be the decisive factor between a win and a loss on time
imagine spending 10 years learning to make a knight and then see somebody sacrifice it for no reason on h3
@irmux skeptic wut
@irmux skeptic exactly. Or even just making specialized tools to take the guesswork out of carving the pieces. These people in India don't know what their doing. Or they are just purposefully making less and making it seem hard to make so they can charge more.... which really just makes tournament organizers look like fools for spending so much on chess sets.
Whats the problem? It doesn't matter if you blunder the knight, if you destroy it maybe there's a problem
Or imagine a 3D printer 🤧
@@resresres1 it's fine hand crafting one mistake can't be undone u have to start again. Takes serious time and patience. Hence the price tag. If they 3d print the pieces then there just regular cheap pieces use your brains.
"bro, how is he so good at chess?"
"he just has a good chess set"
Why does my set cost so much you ask? Because of the quality of the pieces you say? No, not at all. I implant a device into each piece that's wireless connected to an AI and vibrates when I'm about to make the best move. 10 MILLION DOLLARS!
I knew it
Chess is pay to Win !
The gaming chair of chess sets
To be fair, some horrible chess sets make your eyes drift off. Or when they change the classic pieces to something else. I played with a set that had red and brown squares and the queens looked like the bishops except one very different detail. The colors just make your eyes bleed. So I can see why it creates "less" of a chance of a mistake being able to clearly see what is what.
Plot twist, people play on one same board
Knight makers are rarer than grand masters
They are rarer than Super GMs too
Much rarer haha!
I mean 10 championship knight carvers Vs 2 Championship players
The knight makers can win the game by just not making knights for their opponent so Magnus or whoever would have to use cheaply made knights and then he blunders and loses
No, only 10 are trusted to make championship knights, the rest can still make it. So it is grandknightmakers who are rare.
Imagine a Gm blunders but pulls out a ruler and shows it didn't meet requirements
Lmao
And imagine it works... But then again chess tournaments do get pretty nutty
This would make my day.
true
:)
@@MilkT0ast jjjjijj
I do woodworking. The knight is the hardest because you can’t use basic templates to wood turn it. You can make most of the figures using a lathe and knives, then add details, however the knight is basically hand crafted from scratch, very challenging.
*laughs in hillbilly with a whittling knife*
@@BountBhocula *CNC* goes *ZEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
Honestly just making a new design for knights makes production faster
Seconding this, as someone who has hand carved a chess set. Even if you aren't using a lathe, it's relatively easy to make and use a template for the other pieces, but while an individual knight isn't too difficult, making *four identical knights* is significantly harder. If carving by hand, though, sixteen identical pawns aren't easy to make either.
Imagine getting a million dollar chess set only to blunder a queen.
It was really the Botez gambit
They must have made the king the wrong height smh
😂
Hmmmm welp i guess still worth it
Woooow really funny
Technically world chess champion chess set has seen fewer blunders, so it's a fact!
Maybe, but stakes are higher so players are more likely to blunder less
@@adam6543 the joke he is making is that obviously the players in the championship are best in the world so less blunders
@@aarni-2660 typical Mu fan
@@adam6543 lmao. Really a whossh here. 🤣
@@adam6543 issa joke fam
This explains why I've been blundering so much. I knew that becoming a GM was pay-to-win.
This is a good joke but also a fact :v without financial help from his parents we might wont see magnus carlsen has achieve
@@arcadeplayer9804 Bobby fisher was poor af and yet is probably the best player ever, maybe second only to mangus.
@simoneetti5555 rags to riches stories are incredibly incredibly rare
It helps in any career to have wealthy parents who get you into it at a young age
@@simoneetti5555 who tf is mangus
@@arcadeplayer9804 that logic applies to everything
getting a college degree & school & litteraly everything require financial help
Me who uses a $7.5 chess set- man, I wish I could have used the same tricks they use on a million dollar chess set
chess is pay to win comfirmed
I use a 2.4 dollar chess set, small but it gets the game done
i paid 6 dollars for the chess set and 4 dollars for shipping bruh
lmao
As a 1600 whose chess set is ~$50, I can confirm that chess is indeed pay to win. 😂
Those are very well-trained hands and judging by the scars on them, I'd say they learned some painful lessons to become as well-trained as they are.
Lol I pictured an Indian man sucking his bloody thumb,cursing Staunton and magnus and all the chess Bullshit!
You watch Baki?
@@aqwq883 Some of it. Last thing I remember Baki was sick or something fighting in a tournament of some kind
right, and imagine the tiny wood dusts and carvings that goes into the cuts 😬
@@MinhLe-yj7hy Imagine getting your loose clothing stuck in a lathe. Not a fun death, as a Steelworker I've seen a lot of industrial accidents IRL and in safety orientations. A lot can go wrong even on a job making chess pieces.
The video be like:
Research has shown that if the dimensions of the king are changed , players are 1% more likely to use the bongcloud opening.
To be fair I think they’re probably referring to time scrambles when players might drop or misplace pieces if they’re not well made. It’s still incredibly thin logic
@@randombutspecific there are no time scrambles in classical, because of increment
When I was a kid, very knew to the game, I had those plastic sets I swear I'm not kidding I used to distinguish queen on the basis of height.
And why? Because Magnus and Hikaru use those.
@@अण्वायुवरीवर्त That's totally normal and everyone acting like they're all chess gods and don't even need to look at the pieces to play the game is being obnoxious.
This is the equivalent of having a really good gaming chair in the chess world.
Ehh more the console or cpu, then chair. Cause chess players sit in chairs also
like rgb keyboards
cause it doesn't really affect your game, but it makes you feel better and adds something that looks pleasing to your hobby
@@GardenHood Imagine playing physical chess on a gaming chair
@@arahabakihakai4177 if u look today s tournaments , players seat look like gaming chair
"how did he beat hikaru? He must be cheating using stockfish"
Me: Nah he just has a good chess set
Other people: He is literally playing online chess, all boards are the same except for some colours
“It’s not like you will lose just because a piece falls over. Sure, you might lose some time but it’s no big deal”
- Hikaru Nakamura, notorious flagger
He flags people online not during the chess championships
I wonder if all those shaving could be processed and mixed with a plastic that could be 3-D printed.
I bought a $200 wood set from House of Staunton and I was really happy to finally own a really nice set. But the the white king developed a hairline split. HOS sent me a replacement, but it didn't match. I ended up just filling the split with wood dough and using the heavier king as a decoration. I still recommend getting a nice carved wood set once you can afford it. It's just something you can really appreciate.
@@denisdooley1540 In this configuration almost all of their cuts are either peeling or scraping the wood so the resulting shavings would have no strength. You can crush them into fine dust just between your fingertips so they frequently don't even make good firestarting material, in my experience. You could use an epoxy to make essentially a glue cube that would make something like fiberboard but there are almost certainly better ways of doing this. So long as you cut your starting blanks of wood properly though there isn't nearly as much waste as most people tend to think.
That sucks to hear about your chess set. Why did it not match? The color? Hopefully the wood dough fix worked well enough.
Flagging no skill
@@smockytubers1188 I don't think they had any strength, but thought they might give a realistic color to the pieces and be a use for the copious amounts of shavings they produce. It doesn't sound practical though.
The replacement king they sent was boxwood but the style was different. It was stockier and an entire ounce heavier with a less refined cross. The filler isn't terrible and is very close in color, but the crack is still obvious. I didn't want to overfill and sand because I'd probably never get that buffed finish back.
me: I'm not bad at chess, my pieces are just not weighted properly.
my opponent: but we're playing online
😂
The mouse isn't heavy enough
7:15 I like the shape of the Tournament piece but the Championship piece has a more ergonomic design: less weight on the upper middle => less likely to fall (by mistake) => and that is where the "mistake" part comes in.
Yes, I agree with you, the script that she had to read, was poorly done because there was no explanation attached to it.
8:42 Didn't know chess was pay-to-win 😐
Garry Chess must lower the prices, otherwise Chess 1.0 is becoming pay-to-won for sure
@@sudiptodam7473 Garry Chess 7 moves PepeLaugh
I mean when people play against each other they usually use the same set
Yes,buy the artic ops skin bishops,they can snipe a piece every 5 turns just for 99.99$
@@subasan4798 come on Garry ches does not care about chess 1.0 he is currently working on chess 2.0
Lowering mistakes they say
When I was playing chess with my cousin we loss some pawn pieces and we always replace it with tiny pokemon figures, Legos or Bakugan toys.
Bakugan❤️
Apparently you'd be a GM by now if you used these chess pieces, I can't believe you were handicapping yourself
Ha! Amateur!I used a folded piece of paper and stones
I use my eraser
@@Mas.75316 Ha! Beginner! I'm using my imagination
8:42 y'all laughing, but my physical chess set is so bad that my rating drops by 200 points every time I play on it
i think the chess set isnt the problem....
its your gaming chair
My chess set was free, so that must be why I suck so much. I make mistakes all the time... Now I know why!
Ahh yes my set has a smiliar issue when i play my dad
Its only cause you play online chess way more. So when you transition your just not used to the look and Don’t see everything.
For me physical chess increases my rating by a ton but thats just me.
@@justinchen9071 who the heck has a gaming chair i have a bed
Imagine spending 10 years mastering this craft then your boss walks in with a computerized wood carving machine
I played with this weird set at the park once, it had weirdly pointy knights that looked super similar to the bishops. One guy actually blundered because he mixed them up.
how did he blunder? if he mixed them up he wouldve had to move it wrong, which isnt a blunder, but an illegal move
@@wubbinz probably because he thought the opponents knight was a bishop
@@spki8656 Or the opposite. Trying to check and just blundering some piece, maybe even the queen.
Chat spamming "you ever played with that set?" Lmaooo.
As a person who has made two chess sets now, the knights are the toughest to make. All the other pieces are relatively easy to make. Even easier to make if you have tools specifically designed to make each piece like they do here. I made all my pieces by hand and no two are EXACTLY the same. They all differ in some way. Either slightly taller or slightly wider. From a small distance, they all look perfectly the same. Up close you will see the differences. When it came to making the knights, they were so much more difficult. On the first set made from Shawshank wood, I basically made them round and then added the horses mouth/snout after. My second set made from Ebony and Yellowheart, I took more time to break down the horse's head and sand it down and such. Learned a lot on the second one.
Your one of the only 10 in the world who can make knights!! :O
The reason why there's so little knight makers and why they are so truly expensive in the video is because this is in India. They have a lack of workers there, people just don't want to learn how to make knights, why? Because they aren't actually payed more, there is no incentive, they are payed almost nothing, that's all the comments kept saying apart from insulting the ridiculous pricing, like yeah its pretty bad, it is handmade, but doubt a whole 500 dollars, it's just an inflated price due to the lack of supply.
@@SpecterNeverSpectator
The income gap in india is insane..
The profit 90% usually goes to the CEO, directors, chairman , top execs,
Thus real workers left with small pay hence low motivation,
Just look at their working conditions
@@SpecterNeverSpectator You think once the pirces are made all are used. The truth is, its not. One out of 12 to 14 sets are generally acceoted and approved. You can find a lot of hand made chess sets in India for 30USD but they won't be certified. They are made with same effort amd quality but they have defects ( in sense most needs to llok very similar upclose).
People saying lets make it in 3D printers, why bother 3D printings, you can make them with machines even for 6USD a set but handmade is an art which is dying.
You have a fancy suit from a fashion brand and then you have handmade Seville Row. That's what the difference is.
@@erabhikdasgupta while yes that is true for the whole world I think what I said still plays a big factor, I still don't think a certified wooden set would be worth all the way up to 500, but still, I wouldn't say it's unbelievable, at least looking back on it.
You can't 3D print these but you can autolathe every single one of those pieces. I believe hand crafted makes it better, but to say a machine can't produce the same thing out of a chunk of wood is misleading.
I 3D printed my chess set and the Dark Pieces are 20% wood that's stainable.
Misleading yes but why killing another hand crafting art like this? Chess from what i am aware is a very traditional game and even chess pieces like these have bigger value.
Also if it is hand crafted and they make these pieces look like they are perfect make it more value. Replacing handcrafted art will always be bad
@@MaksLangerd You can't beat a piece that's been lathed but I was just correcting the "Can't 3D Print"
It's just marketing crap. Very easy to see they're pretty much just straight up lying, pretending this is such a premium chess set. And actually, you _can_ 3D print these. 3D printers have come a long way. The detail level with the most expensive 3D printers is quite insane already. The problem is, it is a very slow process. And it might actually be cheaper to just use human labor instead.
@@PHeMoX Which is also not correct. The current generation of resin printers can produce half a set in one print that takes 5 hours. That's unsupervised time. After that, cleanup in big batches is not that much work and easier compared to what goes into wood.
But if we are in plastic land, going with injection molding is just faster and cheaper, by far. I mean - that's how normal sets are made. What I don't know is why they don't offer injection molded pieces that have wood mixed into the material. That would be a cool compromise.
The "chess set can affect the players" radiates the same energy as better gaming headsets/chairs
I don’t play video games but I assume being able to hear better will help in a shooting game.
9:26 it is essential these pieces are exactly correct because if they make the small mistake of carving a star wars chess set instead then you wouldn't know that moving rook B1 can be taken by the han solo Bishop
Don't you mean Rook to-D2 😂
Lmao
@@HenryFromCentrelink R-2D2 Smart
You will also be compelled to move your C3-Pawn
It’s bewildering that Hikaru, who has spent 3/4 of his waking hours looking at chess pieces, failed to realise the knight is carved and all the other pieces turned on a lathe.
Not really, its like me playing soccer for years and not knowing how the balls are made
He's only played electronic chess.
@@cavejohnson4054 Lol completely untrue!
@@cavejohnson4054 Not true at all
@@cavejohnson4054 are you a vegetable
This is pure gold.
Pretty sure it's made from wood
No, it's wood. Wtf.
the video not the sets
Not really, but sure
This is… pure gold wood?
0:12 bro really recreated the jjj laugh meme from spiderman
It's the fact that all four knights have to be pretty much identical with all that detail that makes it sooo damn hard..
But the sad part is that the craftsmen don’t even get 20% of the money at which these chess sets being sold in the market 😕
That’s sad 😢
Nobody values the real artist these days
I bought a Chess Set in India. There was a man carving the pieces by hand and he wanted ~20 €. I gave him 40 because everything felt and looked so high quality that i felt bad. On Amazon I wouldve paid 100 Euro at least for the same quality.
@@tesone6783 Thank you for your kind gesture towards him really appreciate it man!
Dude. People in the US manufacturing industry get way less than 0.02% of the money the product sells for. I used to work in a bakery that made those honey buns and twinkies you see on the rack at the convenient store. Those things are like $1. I must have made 1000's of they in a day. Took home maybe $50 bucks for a 12hr day.
Even Magnus would blunder his queen if it was 2mm short
She called the Knight’s mane its “tail” 😂 (3:53)
They have no fucking idea how chess works lmao, they probably don't even know how pawns move
@@ketzi2930 they don't know how horse looks like.
@@klemenhrovat1281 too
@@ketzi2930 Lol what does that have to do with knowing chess? That is basic horse knowledge. Horses exist outside the game of chess....
@@trumpetperson11 nah bro chess made horses first
I’ve never seen Hikaru learn something new about chess in real time
the equivalent of getting a new gaming chair
Knight makers: take time and effort a d training to make 1 knight in 2 hours
GMs: exchange knights in less than 15 moves
Knight makers:
Knight makers: surprised pikachu face
Knight Makers: we are not giving you Knights now use something else like sharper for knights.
GMs: That was...beautiful...
Me: "haha you lost the bishop pair."
Am I a joke to you
- Knight carvers
I knew as soon as I saw the video that Hikaru would laugh his ass off when he reacted to this video..
Ynwa
YNWA
You can tell when the guy making the script ran out of things a special chess piece can be and just key smashed whatever he thought of on the screen.
hikarus gonna pull out the "the pieces werent the right height" when he loses an online game to a sub
I have played with a set where the pawns looked almost identical to the bishops. There were a few mistakes made because of that.
In cheaper chess sets and especially small travel sets, all pieces are sometimes the same height and it's quite easy to mix up a bishop and a pawn.
I've never seen a set with bishops the same height as Pons but I'm only 79 so who knows
Damn, I guess it's true that knights are tricky
XD
Nice one
"Lower the chances a player can make a mistake."... it could help when you are in rapid, and moving the pieces so fast.. if one was an odd size, it might throw you off a bit.
Or bullet.
That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t except the video to talk about misidentifying the pieces!
Uhm... just no. There's really no way. People don't seem to realise how when playing a game, you know which pieces you're playing with. Even in bullet. I'm aware OTB chess doesn't have the instant illegal move prevention you get with online play, but come on people. We shouldn't take their claim seriously, which is about a piece being like a mm off in height. Height is not the only identifying factor.
@@PHeMoX go play on a novelty set and try and tell me you play at the same strength. And they’re talking about the design, not the precision of the cuts
how does it change or plastic pieces than? also now they play it on laptops so these pieces dont really have that effect
"I'm not a high-end, fancy guy..." Casually browses homes in the $15 - $100 million range on zillow.
@Kadence Meek Don't dream, girl. Set up a goal and go get it.
@Kadence Meek Kadence is a really pretty name
He's rich and buys expensive stuff, doesn't mean he has good fashion taste
@Jayden Tan
Amouranth out here making 1 mil a month whkle people with Phds makes less
I always wanted to carve a cool ass set. Have the pawns as Greek Hoplites or something
I have a really fancy one with ancient Greek figures and a chess board where one square is oak and the next is made of pearls,it's really cool
@@dusanradovanovic81 how much did it cost?
@@dusanradovanovic81 im curious too
@@noose7348 the left ventricle of his heart
@@noose7348 my grandfather has a similar one and he said it costed about 600 € because it was actual pearl (mind u it was not a full sized board )
Everyone can be a GM if they only had better pieces.😂
"Lower the chances a player can make a mistake." Okay this is actually comedy. I was laughing just like Nakamura was!
Hey!! Chess giant you make nice video's
Definitely has zero effect at master level, but for noobs having well defined pieces is key, otherwise they can look similar and cause problems for noob players
@Rainat oh, I've seen some exotic shaped fiigurez with blue pieces for black and light brown for white and it screwes with your brain... but a slight shape change really does nothing.
@Rainat I've ran across many people who hesitate on pieces that aren't well defined. Sometimes I won't see a Bishops line open up and it's easier if you don't have to think about it because they are that distinguishable.
same
I think the article meant “mistake” in that a player wouldn’t confuse pieces.. not a mistake like in the context of the best move.
Hikaru: plays staring at the ceiling.
Insider: the pieces need to look right to reduce mistake.
Attention to detail, precision, and a lot of efforts and experience goes in making every piece a masterpiece. Thanks @GMHikaru for bringing this up on your channel and spreading the word around.
I do understand where they're coming from. I once played with a set where the bishops and pawns looked really similar(marble, both quite short and the bishop wasn't well defined) and more than once I thought my opponent's piece was one when it was another, especially in bad lighting conditions
Can relate
Even though this chess set manufacturing factory is just a couple hours of bus ride away from my house, I can only afford bad ones.
I had a wooden set where it was easy to confuse the king and queen. It really wasn't ideal
I Choose the $25.00 Plastic Tournament Chess Set
Same pinch
Same here man. Not sure getting a nicer set will make me a GM...
I choose the 1$ set
@@TheChessGiant buy it for flex
@@chetanbaywala you beat my $1.5 set
"Lower the chances a player can make a mistake." actually got a gut laugh out of me
Hikaru: Chess pieces falling is a minor issue
Alireza: Not to me
It was another dude that made a big issue
I can imagine the precision of pieces affecting more for visually challenged players who might depend on the feel of the pieces more than the looks.
Personally, I really like a lot of non tradition chess pieces more than the ones used for like real official chess pieces. There are so many interesting designs and reimagining of the pieces. In a tournament though I would definitely prefer the regular chess pieces so I don’t get stressed and make a stupid mistake because I messed up which piece was what. A bit more of a difficult thing when your pieces are like Yoda and Darth Vader and you forget which one is a knight and which one is a queen or something, but like I couldn’t really see making that mistake with the normal pieces of any set.
Hikaru: You can't 3d print it
StuffMadeHere: We'll see about that
Lol staying up until 4 am was worth seeing this
I'm right here with you!
Algorithm telling you its time to sleep
2:50am here let's go
6 AM gang
425 booiii
I'm pretty sure she means that you make less mistakes using the new chess sets vs these medieval chess sets.
Hahaha
@@TheChessGiant i mean i think she doesn't mean between the tournament and the championship set ( for example ) . But the medieval chess set i saw was not the easiest thing to distinguish let along the height . But on the other hand you do get used to it i guess
@@IsaacNewton1687 nvm
Also she believes that elite chess players make mistakes recognising pieces.
A set with proper dimensions, weight, and balance is better than not having those features. Its clear that Hikaru is clueless to the world around him outside of chess.
It would actually be interesting to see players play a high level rapid or blitz tournament with wacky pieces, cuz i do think that if the pieces aren't what they are used to, they can mess up
Artisan: Accidentally makes the king 90mm tall instead of 95mm
Tournament player: Dang, which one's the king again?
1:17
Amateur woodworker and machinists here:
I have worked with these machines for about, give or take 7 or 8 years now, and this is what I have to pitch in for the matter:
It is because of the formation of the pieces, and the tools used.
Instead of having away at the pieces with a saw, and having to sand down the shreds and splinters afterwards, or sanding everything down by hand (and taking a million years to do it), they use lathe machines (put the piece in and use a razor/knife to cut down specific areas of the piece while it spins in the lathe to make everything symetrical) and smaller sanders (the hand tools you saw them using to carve the notches into the knights horses maine) to cut the piece. That takes a lot of mastery in machining to be that precise in creation. Being able to handle the recoil from the machines used to not only sand down these parts (because all these tools have recoil, but if you think of a car's wheels against a surface, it is just like that, but more friction involved because the car's wheel in this instance is taking chunks out of the pavement from friction), but take chinks out like in the neck of the horse head in the knights part that is sanded down, and cut for accuracy, takes a lot of time to learn and master. And that doesn't begin to even get into cutting out the original stock from the driftwood/crude materials used, specific dimensions that need to be exacted perfectly (machine accuracy with a human body). The chemicals put on the wood to keep it from getting ruined over time due to water damage from exposure to the air, and preventing the wood from decaying (like you see what happens to old barns, but decay hits these pieces faster because they are so much smaller), etc, etc.
You see a lot of these setup tables, and buildings, and as a complete novice/beginner you think to yourself, "I can build that, that isn't too hard." But when you actually get into doing the gritty work of this field, you find out for yourself, it isn't what you thought it would be like.
EDIT: One small, stupid mistake done, one small twitch or flick of the hand when doing these projects, and you messed up the entire part and have to COMPLETELY RESTART THE PROCESS FROM STAGE 1. Imagine how much time is wasted on ruined parts.
Meanwhile Checker Piece manufacturers:
You can play this game with Black and White M&Ms
Where tf you getting black and white M&Ms
Huh, I never even thought of that. Could probably play a game of Chess with Skittle pieces. Good to know, if I ever have to go to prison.
@@connorring597 hmmm i suggest you should buy the red and black ones of m&ms if you wanna experience the checkers vibe in it
@@connorring597 I just assumed 😂😂
@@connorring597 brown and yellow then.
Just started playing the beautiful game of chess, and just had to say I love your channel
Chess is boring
@@ffffjjjgfdgjjhf2996 then why are you here?
@@ffffjjjgfdgjjhf2996 what was the point of this comment?
@@frickmaddox827 to say that chess is boring
@@pedropooter1561 and what did that accomplish?
You can use 3D printing using resins and stuff to make a professional set that acts very similar to a wooden chess set, and I think that’s how professional chess sets will be made in the future because it is so much easier than having to be trained for years and instead you just start a print and half a day later you got the full set done.
And it's more likely for every piece to be the same etc
@8:40 the evil, most disrespectful laugh I’ve witnessed
Oh how times have changed. From better gaming chair to better chess set
2:05 ah yes wood comes from trees
15:30 man's trying not to laugh XD
Theres people who can carve things with precision and im standing and cant even draw a straight line.
My favorite chess set came right out of the toy and game section of a department store for fifteen dollars and would last a life time if properly cared for. What else do you need? Not knocking the hand crafted sets. The skill and craftsmanship are admirable.
Although interesting, The video you reviewed really milks the whole thing.
It greatly exagerates the difficulty of producing these chess sets. These sets are expensive-ish ($500 usd) because they are hand made, not because their precision is out of this world.
Any machinist or competent process engineer could achieve higher levels of precision, and im sure many master woodworkers could make this set with a bit of practice, the demand is just probably not there
There is a video on TH-cam of a machinist making a complete micro chess set and the tooling for it (w&m levsha) that gives a good idea of how one would go about automating this process to produce in higher volumes.
It's cool how they make the sets, but let's be real, they arn't hand carving the statue of David, even in the woodworking world, what they are doing isn't that amazing or special - just look at the details on the 800 year old sets.
Yup, the real reason is because there's a monopoly because "official" sets are determined and certified by a central party. There are literally thousands of people on Earth who could make more complex pieces than this, by hand. And any machine can make anything out of wood
9:00 I will say my granfather mixes up the pieces on my metallic set all the time.
Me too with my brothers set
I mean, as cheesy as it sounds, having a standardized set of pieces does make sense for slightly better play. pattern recognition is easier when it's a set you're used to seeing. the more different/abstract the pieces are, the recognition of the pieces becomes less subconscious and requires more focus and can be distracting.
cheesy cheesy
you could say it sounded very _chessy_
know what i mean? chessy?
10:43 bro said £735 instead of £735,000 lol
Wow that’s nuts 1:08 no it is knights
The intro made me laugh so hard wow
5:51 the cheaper one is better
hikaru in the next match:
hikaru : Wow look at that knight
oponent : it is just a knight
hikaru : no it is THE knight
Impressive, let's see Paul Allen's knight.
Those norwegians sacrificed …THE WHOLE SET!! (in gotham voice) in order to avoid taxes
The knight is more difficult because it can’t be turned, it has to be hand carved.
4:49 hikaru and me have the same expression when u hear it lol
It's giving the impression that the chess pieces have to be done perfectly.
As a wood machinist (CNC specialist), why in the world don't they just fasten a piece of wood onto a table and then make a CNC program and basically copy-paste knights all over the place? You can do that. A CNC should be able to make such a knight as fast as you can dismount, prepare and fasten another piece for processing (a couple minutes).
Cause then this scam wouldn't work. It's like audio cables for "audiophiles".
Pretty sure any professional wood figurine factory could carve those out by the hundreds or thousands, like they do with christmas stuff.
u know about the universal rule ?
if we increase the production rate then the value of the things highly decrease also man made things are just op
u dont know the feelings , hardwork they put in every peice to make
@@Shah_73 I do. But being able to make them cheaper makes you able to able to sell them cheaper, outcompeting the other manufacturers.
@@baden271 doesnt work like that mate, best example are diamonds
@@Zyczu55 Don't really know anything about the diamond market..
Following the championship rules, you must move the piece you touch first. So I think that lowering the chances of making a mistake would mean that, as the piece is smaller, it is harder to touch it accidentally.
As a result I imagine seeing GMs play blitz on a regular sized board with tiny 1cm tall pieces, causing the players having their faces so close to the board.😄
@@asdfhklljfztvvw3686😂😂😂😂 f you. I laughed out a big fart. No joke.
hans niemann has an amazing chess set
Just bought the $1M chess set, I knew there was a reason I kept blundering. Now Hikaru should watch out for me, surely it was just the pieces holding me back.
Well, the chess pieces does affect the player a bit. Like sometimes, big pieces are harder to quick attack. While small pieces are harder to handle.
If only I had a 500 dollar hand made chess set that took multiple days to make them i wouldn’t have blundered
hey wanna join a discord server?
@@ermes6358 no
1:00 It's not that it's hard, it's that there are only so many people who can be exploited. $500 for the whole set isn't a lot of money when it comes to making a living wage.
*$1 million? The queen better be mating me on every square for that price.*
The queen better be mating with me *
Every game I've ever lost has been due to poorly made chess pieces.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
*These guys work so hard, just to see two grandmaster do a bongcloud.*
All the other pieces than the knight are perfectly symmetrical on all sides which means they can be carved those spiny things but a knight is not so it must be carved by hand
3:30 spoke like a true american
"Why is the knight harder to make than like a bishop for example"
People who've 3D modeled a chess set before: *PTSD flashbacks*
"There are only a few people to be trusted to make these."
Correct: "We could only find a few people to do these for 10 dolars at a garage."
We all love a short king
💀💀
As if CNC would not take over if the demand were high enough.
How about chess pieces made from casting metal alloys? I love the feel of metal - would this be too heavy or non-traditional for the highest tier chess tournaments?
Will come handy in rage
I think they should be made by good machines for more accuracy in shape
it is probably actually relevant for bullet chess where u dont have time to pick up ur stuff and where it can actually be the decisive factor between a win and a loss on time
8:54 so what your saying is skins=wins?