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27 of 29 found the following review helpful:
Kids Absolutely Love This Chess Set.... Mar 29, 2007
By Learning All The Time
"It's Never Too Late to be what you might have been..."
This chess set is wonderful, it has inspired at least two children who have been to our home to learn how to play chess.
My own children love playing with this set. In addition to playing chess, sometimes they recreate the Fritz and Chesster games they've played and printed from the computer, sometimes they make up puzzles for each other "Move one piece and put my king into check", sometimes they haul the chess pieces around the house to do double duty for some other imaginative play venture.
I do wish there was some way to weight the pieces, they are hollow plastic with felt bottoms. I've debated opening them up to put sand inside of them, but haven't done so yet. Anyway, I'm not sure how this game would hold up outside on a windy day, but regardless, we have been very pleased with this chess set.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Inexpensive giant chess board for outdoor use Dec 03, 2008
By Michael A. Duvernois
This is great for chess instruction for a whole group. Everyone can see the board well. Also use it outdoors, "garden chess" in decent weather.
Very nice for what it is, though the pieces, 4-8" tall, are a bit lighter than I would have hoped. As someone else noted, they are hollow and could have sand or something similar to fill them and weigh them down. It's on the to-do list...
16 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 ARE THEY KIDDING? DO NOT BUY ......THIS GAME CANNOT BE PLAYED! Dec 26, 2010
By I. Speakthetruth
"THOUGHTS WORTH READING"
I've read every single review here before ordering this chess set and the basically positive reviews are what made me purchase this set. Well was I ever disappointed when we opened this set and tried to place the pieces on the LUMPY plastic playing board! It is amazing to me that NO ONE mentioned the horrible excuse for a playing "board" (which I KNEW would be a plastic mat but is it too much to expect a FLAT mat?) and they only talk about the playing PIECES. This is odd to me, as I cannot be the only person receiving this lumpy mat! There is NO WAY to flatten this mat. (And by the way, the person who wrote detailed instructions about how to drill holes in the bottoms of the playing pieces, where during the process the bottoms could "pop out" [not to mention crack???] and fill them with EXACTLY a certain amount of [purchased] sand, then again travel to a store to purchase glue, plastic, felt etc. to FIX the lightweight pieces....then do this 32 times?....is he kidding? I'd rather get a root canal! Talk about someone having TIME on their hands! All this for a $40 set? Why not use the money to buy a better set in the first place? Also WHY shoud I have to do an elaborate REPAIR on a chess set in order to make it usable? I was not looking for a high quality set for $40, just a fun larger set for my daughter to play with and since the pieces are plastic they are what they are, seamed molded plastic, period, pretty much what I expected. Also to me they COULD have been weighted, but I can think of a lot easier ways to weight them than the elaborate process from the man with time on his hands....weighting them is only necessary IF you choose to play this game outdoors in such HIGH WIND that it blows the pieces down! My my. MY problem is with the plastic MAT they supply as a "playing board". The set arrived in a cardboard box and the mat was folded several times into a tiny package, inside. The mat is made out of fairly thick vinyl, so the FOLDS DO NOT FLATTEN OUT and it makes the board not usable! FAR FROM THE PHOTO SHOWN! I checked back to view the photos shown for this product on Amazon, which showed a perfectly flat playing "board" in more than one photo, and I thought "this is very deceptive!" You try and place the pieces on the lumpy "board" and it is just ridiculous. A SIMPLE SOLUTION of better packaging could have avoided this lumpy playing surface, perhaps rolling the mat instead, and packaging the entire set in a longer narrow package to accommodate the rolled mat. I plan on contacting the manufacturer tomorrow (they are closed on Sunday) to see if they have a solution to flatten the vinyl or to send me a replacement board that can be shipped rolled or flat (I kind of doubt it though) but I am betting they will just suggest a refund instead.....which leaves me back to square one with no chess set, much disappointment and a child who has to send a gift back! Unless they package this playing mat differently I'd say do not by this product. If I could have given a minus 5 rating I would have (for lack of common sense in packaging this product, and selling this product ridiculously folded, which basically runs the playing surface).
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
the kings lose their heads Jul 01, 2011
By Sarah Postellon
This chess set was purchased for the children's department of a public library. It's available at all times for unsupervised use. The kids love it, and it has prompted some of them to learn to play chess who were previously uninterested. I found that the vinyl board flattened out sufficiently given plenty of time and some encouragement. You may not be able to play with it as soon as you open the package. My main beef about the quality is that in less than four months, the cross shapes have broken off the tops of both the kings. They look sufficiently different from the queens that this is mainly an aesthetic problem. You might consider it a choking hazard, though. The top and bottom of the black king have also separated, although they fit back together and the piece is still usable.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
better than expected Nov 25, 2011
By Terry Moore
I was pleased that the quality of this chess set was better than expected. the plastic board was heavy duty and the pieces were nicely made.
See all 18 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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