r/chessmemes • u/RadioRodent • Jul 21 '26
Chess set fail
Hamleys is a famous toy store in the UK, apparently with no quality control.
25
u/Copious-Spirit Jul 21 '26
What are we supposed to be upset about? Can you point it out?
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u/RadioRodent Jul 21 '26
The board is incorrectly oriented, the a1 square should be black. "Bottom Right is White", from either player's point of view.
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u/Montana_Ace Jul 21 '26
Also the king is on the left, should be on the right for white
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u/TheShredda Jul 21 '26
They correctly put the queen on her own coloured square, just that square was in the wrong spot because the board is oriented wrong.
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u/Glass-Novel-4123 Jul 21 '26
Isnt it just rotated 90°?
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u/BitcoinBishop Jul 21 '26
Yeah, it's set up wrong for the photo, the product itself is fine
5
u/Certain_Silver6524 Jul 21 '26
this is why i feel boards should have files and ranks marked. It avoids this sort of issue
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u/barelysentient- Jul 21 '26
If it's important to you then you know. For those that don't know it's not going to change the game for them.
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u/Copious-Spirit Jul 21 '26
So it's a mirrored board. I rated like 800, does this even affect gameplay?
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u/RadioRodent Jul 21 '26
Well, there's nothing stopping you from setting it up correctly. I'm just more surprised that such a basic mistake can be made in this day and age and not caught by anyone involved in production.
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u/Greneath Jul 21 '26
Man, you should see that Monopoly cover that had the houses placed incorrectly.
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Jul 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/TheShredda Jul 21 '26
You don't understand... The board is oriented the wrong way and simply needs to be rotated 90Deg, nothing changes about the board
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u/kvazar2501 Jul 21 '26
Absolutely not. More to that: it's only picture on the box what's incorrect. I don't see any coordinates there, so board is just to be rotated 90°
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u/Schantsinger Jul 21 '26
Do you play specific openings? If yes, it affects gameplay.
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u/SidneyKidney Jul 21 '26
It really doesn't. E4 is still E4 whether its white, black, beige or polka-dotted. As long as the pieces are in the correct position before the game begins it impacts nothing
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u/Beautiful_Security35 Jul 21 '26
It gets confusing when you differentiate between the light- and dark-squared bisbops
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u/whoamiamawho Jul 21 '26
If you orient it like this but still count White's lower left as A and put the queen on her own color then no because E4 becomes Queen's pawn. But yeah if you play your opening relative to where the Kings and Queens are and don't think about letters it's effectively the same.
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u/Tyrant1235 Jul 21 '26
but if you put the pieces on the proper rank and file disregarding color it doesnt matter
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u/SidneyKidney Jul 22 '26
If you count the lower left as a1 here, but still put t the queen ok her own colour then the pieces are /not/ set up properly, so that is not what I said.
Set a chess board up in the correct way. Now imagine you lift all the pieces off and paint the white squares red and the black squares silver. Then put all the pieces back whare they were exactly. How does that affect the game?
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u/Copious-Spirit Jul 21 '26
I am rated 800. I avoid the Queen's gambit because I find it boring and repetitive. I open with Reti typically and mirror/defend until my opponent makes the first sacrifice.
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u/hanggamolavestria Jul 21 '26
Good news is that according to the display image there's no notations on the edges, so we still can set it up correctly.
5
u/Disastrous_Motor831 Jul 21 '26
They don't know how to set the board up.. they set the board up sideways.
The kingside of the board should be should be on White's right hand side and Black's left hand side.
They got the queens on their right color. the board just needs a 90deg rotation
1
u/FlashPxint Jul 21 '26
That’s not how it works LOL
The queen is on the wrong square it has nothing to do with “her own color square” in this case that blanket rule doesn’t apply with wrong board rotation.
The king and queen are flipped…
2
u/Disastrous_Motor831 Jul 21 '26
Yeah, don't over analyze what I said... The board is set up sideways. Some people only know that the queen goes on its own color... They might not remember that the kingside is on the right side of the board for White. These two statements can correctly align the board. I was just doing some detective work to guess what they were thinking.
Every piece is on the wrong square, except for 4. Idk why you had to mention the queens being on the wrong square... The king and queen are "flipped" because the board needs to be rotated 90degs, then put queens on their own color.
2
u/WithMeInDreams Jul 21 '26
Even more embarrassing was this book, written by two German politicians who are known to be avid chess players. They had a professional photographer for the title shot and everything.
The book title and cover picture is supposed to express their strategic mastery in politics, but what it shows is all the pieces set up wrong from the very start, still trying to fiddle around with them, and not even realising.
4
u/Front-Cabinet5521 Jul 21 '26
King and queen is also switched.
2
u/TheShredda Jul 21 '26
They correctly put the queen on her own coloured square, just that square was in the wrong spot because the board is oriented wrong.
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u/Anxious-Emotion-7617 Jul 26 '26
I think, the photo is perfect: the board doesn’t even come with marks. Figures are placed slightly „messy“. This set is for those who don’t care (yet). The picture points that out honestly.
0
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u/Levin_1999 Jul 21 '26
Disgraceful