The World Chess Championship chess set is set to become one of the most important designs of chess set this century. You may ask why this new design is more important than any other Staunton variant on the market but that is just the point. This is not another Staunton variant. This set, while clearly taking cues from Staunton has been designed from the ground up. It has dispensed with conventions like the age old tradition of green felt on the bases of all thirty two chessmen. Instead the set features black felt on the black pieces, and white felt on the whites. Like it or loath it you will be seeing rather a lot of this new chess set, this is because it has been adopted as the official chess set of the World Chess Championship (hence it’s name) and will be the set used in all the tournaments.
The rights for the world chess championship were originally secured by AGON in 2013, an Andrew Poulson company. AGONs mission was to bring chess back to the world stage, to see it back in the media spotlight and for the world’s top players to become household names again. One huge development has been the release of ‘chess casting’ a system of analysis of chess games that can be used to enhance the audiences experience when watching a game as well as give players huge amounts of data on past chess games, their own as well as their future opponents. During the development of AGONs first tournament it was noted that no actual brand of chess set exists. There is of course Staunton, but technically no such brand actually exists, after a hundred and fifty years since Jacques original set came out the design has seen numerous permutations and is now associated with a number of retailers, rather than a central brand.
The original World Chess Chess Sets from 2013 were manufactured and distributed by SAC, a well known chess set brand. Today the sets are owned, distributed, and marketed by ‘World Chess Shop’ who have exclusive rights to the brand and design.
AGON partnered with Pentagram for the entire design and branding of the world chess championship in 2013, the black and white logo and branding are iconic and striking, they lend themselves perfectly to chess in the twenty first century. The chessmen themselves were designed by Daniel Weil. The pentagram website says is perfectly ' Daniel Weil created an experience that is a sturdy for the player, an embodiment for the brand and a set for the camera and the audience who are watching.'
The Regency Chess Company are of course delighted and honoured to be one of the pioneering retailers of the very first edition of this famous chess set. In 2013, when we began stocking the first edition there was only one version of this set, today the brand sells a selection of products including a plastic set with board and an array of top quality chess boards. As always, we are holding good stocks in our UK based warehouse and sets can be ordered for immediate dispatch with next day delivery in the UK and express air service to the USA.
