Treasure and behold this gem of craftsmanship completely handmade in America.  Made of Walnut and Maple woods sourced in the region, the board is solid hardwood from top to bottom, and the underneath side features a similarly smooth finish over 64 squares.

It’s a remarkable gift paired with almost any suitably sized chess set. Decorative maple border squares inset may be enjoyed more for the purpose of display and decor. Chess players or those that will play frequently may prefer the chessboard without the maple border inset.

The creator of this chessboard has studied wood movement extensively. Wood is actually “living” after it is cut down. It’s not just a rigid piece of plastic. Due to the circular ringed nature of a tree, the direction of cuts is very important to the natural expansion and contraction of the wood as humidity levels change from one environment to another. This unique expansion of both woods used in this work of art, require great attention in every phase.

This new JLP Pennsylvania, Solid Hardwood Chessboard Handcrafted in the USA is a welcome new American made product and the timing couldn’t be better after the near 100 year old Drueke company discontinued production of hardwood chess products.

What results is a premium quarter-sawn American Walnut playing surface, the hallmark of Summerville-New England quality, plus floating surface mounts, a fully splined stage, triangulated support pads for perfect stability, and solid premium oiled and hand-rubbed hardwood throughout.

Visit Summerville-New England chessboards at ChessHouse to learn more.

BROOKLYN CASTLE from Rescued Media on Vimeo.

Amidst financial crises and unprecedented public school budget cuts I.S. 318 in Brooklyn, New York has assembled the best junior high chess team in the nation. Brooklyn Castle follows five chess team members for one year, and documents their challenges and triumphs both on and off the chessboard.

See the full write up here

ChessHouse and Chess4Life are helping fund the movie due out in 2012.

Virtuoso paper engineer and illustrator Sam Ita’s innovative new creation is a complete chess set unlike any other. The chessboard and pieces are meticulously crafted, and each one comes pre-assembled and neatly folded until you are ready to “pop” them open and start playing. A handy guidebook to the game that explains the basic rules and offers tips for players of all levels.

See Pop-up Chess Set at ChessHouse

When you make a move on the board, it reflects this automatically on the PC. You can enjoy many features of the chess program without having to click the mouse to make moves!  In my configuration, I can sit alone with the board, and hear audible announcement of the moves I make, such as “e2-e4″, the computer thinks, and then verbally says, “e7 e5″ which I then move on the chessboard.

This means you can play any level the software offers and even others through the Internet.

Illegal moves are noted with a sound, and other prompts such as coaching likewise can be enjoyed with the DGT board connected.  Think of it as an extension of the software, freeing you up from looking solely at the computer screen.

Traditional electronic chess computers have nowhere near the playing speed, power, and capabilities that software offers, so this is the perfect way to enjoy a wooden chess set while playing the computer by yourself, or better playing others across the globe.

Fritz 13 enables free access to the PlayChess.com server for 6 months, and you can enjoy rated games and even learning from other good players.

I usually play at least a 30 minute per player game using the DGT board and playchess.com server.

If you like A-H, 1-8 coordinates on your board, the Rosewood and Wenge have them – the standard Walnut board does not.

Another nice feature, if you don’t want to rely on the audible move announce is to add the compatible DGT XL Chess Clock which will show the computer’s requested move on the clock display! So now you are completely free from the computer during the game, and you could play the board in a complete different room!  The bluetooth version is best for this.  The USB version is more simple to setup.

New in Fritz 13 is the “Let’sCheck” tool which accesses ChessBase game servers and shows helpful statistical analysis based on other player’s (and your own) games, focusing on improvement of opening moves.

So, if you want to play games with Fritz’s many levels, coaching, and hints, or play others through PlayChess.com and receive a true chess rating with the rank/points system, you really don’t need anything else!

Beginners ratings on average are say from 800-1100. Intermediate players around 1200-1600, strong club players from 1700-1900. Experts, 2000-2200, Master 2200+, and so on up to Grandmasters around 2600 to 3000.  Internet based ratings are not official, but they try to give as accurate a rating to real world competitive play as possible.

Some of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows ship with a version of chess, called Chess Titans. This is considered very limited compared to chess software like Fritz 13. Beginning chess players or advanced players will find Fritz 13 easy and fun to use. It has all the features you could want and many things you’ve probably never imagined that can help your game.

There are also many chess playing websites on the net, cometoplay.com and yahoo for example, and other more dedicated chess servers such as chessclub.com and playchess.com, my recommendation is the latest version of Fritz chess for the perfect combination of PC chess and Internet chess play.

When friends or family want to play a game, you can enjoy the looks of the wooden DGT Chessboard together as well!  So you don’t need an extra wooden chess set around the home.  It’s all one and the same.

You can easily take back moves by reversing the last moves played. (Not on your Internet games of course) . On the PC screen you can watch the computers analysis of recommended moves, best moves, variations, scoring.  The computers evaluation can really help you improve your game.  And you can see where you have made a mistake during a game, or when analyzing a game you already played.

You can even store your all your games you have played (Playchess.com does this automatically), or input games with the DGT board that you have played at the club and recorded on the scoresheet.

And here’s one final tip that not everyone knows. You can take your DGT board with you, and provided it is powered on with the USB cord, it can save a handful of games (500 moves), say 10 games of 50 moves each. You can bring it back home and retrieve those games into your computer.

Those are just a few of the common and creative ways you can enjoy the Electronic DGT chess board.

You can start here to compare the different DGT chessboards, 3 in USB, 1 bluetooth.