Ornamental Chessmen

Do you find that you don't play as well with ornamental sets? I find them distracting. Probably since I am so used to using the Staunton men.

I agree... I had a friend, who I normally beat, beat me twice using an ornamental board. I just couldn't see the game. All I saw was the distracting pieces.

You have to get used to every single board. Especially if they vary in size, it can be more distracting then it seems...

I personally prefer the staunton women over the men, but that's a personal choice. Anyhoo, try playing with shot glasses that have pictures only on one side. It's akin to playing blindfold chess, while drunk!

You can add 500 points to your game by getting used to a Star Wars set, etc., and springing it on someone that only knows Staunton style pieces.

When i was a kid, i played my best friend's grandfather, who was over for a visit. He had this very strange, antique chess set. Anyway, somewhere in the late middlegame, he ran his king in a diagonal right next to my queen and yelled, "Checkmate!"

Sorry...continued.

"How can you checkmate my queen," I said.
"No," he said. "That's your king."
I tapped the top of my piece. "Look, it has a crown on top."
"That's how you tell a king," he said. "Have you ever seen pictures of kings or movies of kings? Don't they always wear crowns?"
He had me there.

This happened a few weeks ago to Jonathan Speelman. He was playing a simul at Oxford University (with regular Staunton chess pieces on every board) and after about ten moves he checkmated one of the weaker players only to discover that he had checkmated his queen by mistake. His opponent promptly won Speelman's queen but was still not able to win the game (I think it was a draw, but Speelman definitely didn't lose).