THE JAILBIRD They had seen the best of times. They had seen the worst of times. This is the tale of two Argentinian Campo sets that had fallen down on their luck; one spending many years in storage, the other an unkempt drifter, bumming from one collection to the next. And as you may have […]
Category Archives: Chess Set
Abbreviations:MMP (the MacMillan Project)RRP (the Rob Roy Project) PdA (Piezas de Ajedrez, an Argentinian Youtube channel) FADA (Argentinian Ajedrez Federation) FFS (let’s get a move on) I absolutely adore working week in and week out with different chess sets from different parts of the world and consider myself very fortunate in being able to do so. Many […]
For the first time in many, many months we had friends stay over for the Canada Day weekend (July 1st – 4th) and after a sumptuous dinner and a few cold bevvies some lively games of nine-man-morris and chess were had outside on our patio. Today is Monday the fifth, and I’ve just spent the […]
Chess Set
MANAS, THE KYRGYZ & THE GREAT SILK ROAD: A sojourn into the small world of folk-art chess pieces in Central Asia
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[The suffix, –stan is from Old Persian, also -istan or -ustan, meaning ‘land of’ or ‘a place where there are many of.’ Kyrgyz is pronounced krrr–Giz with a rolling ‘Scottish’ r and emphasized g. Manas is not pronounced ‘manners’ but m’Naz with a lingering zzz and emphasis on the n. You’re all caught up.] To […]
This month I thought I’d take you through the process of stripping down a set (and we’ve all seen them) that are virtually unplayable. A prime example being this deep purple vs. black Botvinnik-Flohr set that made a brief appearance in our May Chessay, TO STRIP, OR NOT TO STRIP? and in this sorry case […]
My husband is an incredibly talented mixed media artist. A humble one, too, so I have insisted on taking the reins of the latest Chessay to brag about his inclusion in an excellent article published in Canada’s top national paper, the Globe & Mail. The item is about the recent popularity of the Netflix series […]
Amber, otherwise known as ‘Russian Gold’ (Latin electrum, from Ancient Greek elektron speaking of a ‘beaming sun’). Some time a while back (the weeks and months all roll into one these days) I was very kindly gifted an excellent little-known tome from the well-respected U.S. chess aficionado, Chuck Grau. The wonderfully illustrated (and for me, […]
…as the old Monty Python skit (from The Holy Grail, 1975) kinda said. But instead of bringing out the ‘dead,’ in this month’s Chessay we’ll be bringing out the ‘lead.’ In this case from a late 1950s ‘Grandmaster’ or ‘GM’ set. A classic design that dominated Soviet chess tournaments (in several variations) well into the […]
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