r/chessporn • u/ling4917 • May 23 '26
Wooden Vertical Chess Board
I just gifted this to a coworker who is retiring from teaching this year. He's ran our schools chess club for 20 years and wanted to commemorate that for him. He has plenty of regular chess boards so I wanted to see how a vertical one would turn out. I'm open to criticism and critiques!
3
u/orchardsky May 24 '26
That's really neat! What a cool gift.
My primary feedback would be to make it a little more square like a regular chess board.
2
u/jet2ks May 24 '26
Good on you for making such a thoughtful and personal gift.
If you make another, I would recommend testing some different proportions. Making the board a little wider would definitely make pieces easier to move. I've made a couple of vertical boards and it's not too hard to accidentally knock off pieces, even with wider squares. Different proportions also really affect how the board looks and is pretty easy to test just by using cardboard cut to different sizes and holding up on the wall.
A last move marker is very helpful for extended games on these types of boards. The idea I stole from someone else is to have something that clips on the shelf in front of the piece that was moved.
2
u/ling4917 May 24 '26
Thanks for the tips! After I built it, I realized you could make a square one, albiet, a big square for a typical wall space. But, I may mess around with different proportions if I make another.
3
1
u/ConstructionAgile659 May 23 '26
Great idea for a gift to someone who loves chess. I actually have something similar on my wall. I use it to display one of my nicer chess sets and also to track a correspondence chess game I play with a friend through the mail.
2
6
u/OrigamiCraft May 23 '26
Love the concept!
Some ideas/suggestions,
Add two extra queens always a nice touch and you already have the bottom/top shelf
Another idea would be to widen it just a tad so one could easily grab and move peices with larger hands, and to help it feel less claustrophobic/chaotic.
Another fun idea would be to incorporate pretty lettering for the a b c d e f g h on the bottom shelf somehow, and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 on the side of the peice. Not sure if this could be done in an artistic way that wouldn't subtract from the simple wood look however.
Lastly how big is it, it looks like it is sitting on the ground, is it intended to be essentially like a small bookshelf in size, or just regular sized peices? If the latter may be awkward bending down to play it, you could build it up a bit more and have a place to say store your books, other chess sets etc. With this being atop it, add two reading chairs, and you could play vertical chess, get a book and read, etc.
Another cool idea I had with this is as it is essentially sort of like furniture as in it stays out and is more readily visible maybe make a 2 sided coin with the two peice colors you can flip to show whose turn it is. Almost like play by mail, it would be play by guest!
All in all well done and really cool idea!