The Best Chess Sets in 2024: Our Picks

Choosing the best chess set for you is no easy feat. Especially in 2024, where the choices are as vast as never before. This is why we created this article – to help you choose the right chess set for you. Whether you’re a beginner, an experienced club player looking for an electronic chess board or a seasoned expert in hunt for a luxury tournament-sized chess set, you’ll be sure to find the right option here. Without further ado, let’s look at our picks for the top chess sets in March 2024.

While we can’t buy and extensively test each chess set in this list, we did our best to combine personal experience, online user reviews and product properties to into a coherent list of the best chess sets at the moment.

Best Chess Set Overall

If you don’t have specific needs for your new chess set, be sure to read on. We uncovered the best overall chess set money can buy (in our opinion), which will serve you well – whether you’re a newbie starting out, or a regular at your local chess club.

You might ask yourself: What makes a good chess set? We have uncovered three main areas to focus on, when looking to buy a new set:

1. Material & Craftsmanship
2. Price
3. Use Case

We will go into detail on this a bit further down in the article, but the gist of it is: You want to get a chess set that perfectly fits your use case (playing at home, while travelling or at tournaments), with decent quality for the best price possible.

With that, we’ve uncovered our winner for best chess set overall:

Best Beginner Chess Sets

Finding a good beginner chess set can be a challenge, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t know the ins and outs of what to look for in a chess set. For beginners, we are primarily looking for 3 characteristics in a set:

1. Affordable price: Obviously, you don’t want to spend thousands on a chess set if you don’t know whether you’ll enjoy chess long-term.
2. Tournament-sized: If you are a serious player, make sure to choose a tournament-size chess set. This way you won’t outgrow it as quickly.
3. Notation for game analysis: As a new player, analyzing your games is crucial. A chess set with notation can help make that easier.

Keeping all that in mind, we found a winner for the best chess sets for beginners and new players:

You can find a full guide to the best beginner chess sets in 2024 on Chessily.

Best Chess Set Made From Wood

Wooden chess sets are a classic and traditional choice for chess players and collectors alike. Made from high-quality materials, these sets offer a combination of durability and beauty that can be passed down from generation to generation. There are a lot of different types of wood used for these timeless classics, such as:

• Rosewood,
• Boxwood, or
• Maple.

In addition, all these can be colored to create almost unlimited different combinations.

Our personal favorite chess set made from wood comes from The House of Staunton:

You can find a full guide to the best wooden chess sets in 2024 on Chessily.

Best Luxury Chess Set

Best Chess Set For Schools and Clubs

Best Magnetic Chess Set

Similar to travel chess sets, magnetic models are a convenient and practical way to play chess on the go. A magnetic chess set offers several benefits such as portability, ease of use and usually affordability. When shopping for a magnetic chess set, it’s important to look for several key features such as strong magnets to ensure the pieces stay in place during play and a compact and lightweight design for easy transportation. Whether you’re traveling, taking a break at work, or simply looking for a compact option for your home, a magnetic chess set is an excellent choice for chess enthusiasts of all skill levels. 

Here’s our best magnetic chess set of 2024:

Best Foldable Chess Set

Folding chess sets are a convenient and practical option for all different walks of chess life. You can either use these to take with you while you travel, or simply store them more conveniently than non-folding chess sets.  So, whether you’re looking for a compact option to take on the go or simply want to save space in your home, a folding chess set is the way to go. Often, these foldable sets are also magnetic, offering a good playing experience even on bumpy train rides.

Here’s the best folding chess set we found:

How To Find The Best Chess Set For You

In this part of the article, we’ll give you a detailed buying guide for your new chess set – what exactly do you have to look out for when shopping for a new set?

How Will You Use Your New Set?

The main point that will govern all future decisions is the intended use case of your chess set, as different sets are better (or exclusively) suited for different purposes. For example, you can’t turn up to a club meeting with a travel-sized plastic chess set. Those lightweight, travel-friendly should only be used for playing on-the-go. Clubs will usually have their own, tournament-size boards and pieces, often times out made from vinyl and plastic.

On a similar note, don’t try and pack up your heavy tournament set made from wood to take travelling with you. It’ll be a disaster and most likely end up damaging your beautiful chess set (and pride).

The Triangle of a Fitting Chess Set

After determining your main use case, you have to pay attention to three main points.

They make up what we like to call the triangle of a good chess set:

• Price: Obviously, you want to choose a chess set that fits your budget
• Material: Given your budget, you can choose a suitable material
• Size: For most players, a tournament-size chess set is perfect (unless you want to travel with it).

Let’s deep-dive into each of the three points (and we have two more adjacent ones you have to take into account):

Material

When it comes to materials for a chess set, the options really seem limitless:

• Wood
• Plastic
• Vinyl
• Metal
• Stone
• and many more.

But what is the right material for your new set?

Generally, we would recommend getting a wooden chess set to 99% of people. If you have a very low budget or are looking for a travel set, consider plastic or vinyl as a material.If you want to have a luxurious and elegant playing experience, go for high-quality wood, stone or metal.

But the fact of the matter is: If you just want to play chess, you can do that on chess sets of any material! 

Size Matters (When Choosing a Good Chess Set)

When choosing the best set for your chess needs, there are two key sizes to base your research around:

• Square size: The length of one individual square on the chess board
• Board size: The length of all squares combined, plus any additional space made for coordinates.

This graphic should illustrate the difference:

We have a whole paragraph on how to choose the right sized chess set for you further down in the article. So we’ll leave it at that for now.

The Price Consideration

Craftsmanship and Quality of The Royal Set

Lastly, the craftsmanship and quality of the set comes into play. This will mostly be decided by your budget, as quality does come with a (often hefty) price tag.

If you know that you’ll enjoy playing on a certain set for a long time, there is no harm in spending good money on it – after all, it is an investment for life (okay, mostly…). If you’re a beginner and not sure if you’ll play chess long-term, there is no harm in starting out on a cheap vinyl roll-up set. If you do decide to upgrade, you can always opt for more quality and better craftsmanship.

How to Find The Right Sized Chess Set

Finding the correct size for your chess set is mainly a consideration of your use case.

Here is a very general guide for what the right size for a new chess set should be:

• For portable and travel chess sets, we recommend a board size of 10-14″ inch / 25-35 cm.
• For general play at home, we recommend a tournament-size chess set, which is roughly 20″ inch / 50.8 cm
• For a breathtaking playing experience, opt for a chess set with a board size of over 20″ inch / 50.8 cm

If you are specifically looking for a tournament chess set, make sure to check out the FIDE Handbook, which goes into regulatory details on board size, square size and the height of the pieces.

Take Care Of Your Chess Set!

Once you bought your dream chess set, you want to keep it in tip-top condition. Besides being careful not to spill drinks or scratch it, you should also clean your chess board (and pieces) regularly, in order to keep it clean and looking its best. So, how do you clean a chess set?

In general, it is enough to use a soft cloth with a bit of water to dust off both your chess board as well as the pieces. If there is sticky residue or very stubborn stain on your board, you can add some dish soap to help get it off. But make sure there are no hard particles (such as small stones etc.) between the cloth and your board, or you might scratch it!

If you have a high-quality chess set that is lacquered or otherwise treated, make sure to read the instructions or ask the manufacturer on how to clean your chess set – this way you can avoid any mishaps!

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking for a basic beginner set or a luxurious playing experience, we hope this guide helped you to find the best chess set for your needs!

Again, if you still haven’t found the right set for you, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll help you as fast as possible!