I was looking for a cheap tiny chess set to use with my kid while hanging out at the in-laws. Something that I could leave behind tucked away in a corner that wouldn’t take up much space. Something not heavy that I could bring on short overnight trips. Something so inexpensive that I wouldn’t cry if it got lost.
This is fine. It cost less than 550 yen when I got it in February 2020 in Osaka.
The fold up plastic board can store the pieces, and it comes with a trifold instruction manual. The manual is Japanese only and unnecessary if you know how to pay chess. You have to punch the pieces out from the plastic mold yourself, but it wasn’t difficult and I didn’t break any pieces in the process. I’ll probably get a small bag of some sort to put the pieces into before putting them inside of the board to prevent everything from rattling around like cheap a cheap baby rattle.
The pieces are easy enough to tell apart. They are extremely light hollow plastic. Not satisfying to move at all, but hey, didn’t buy this for that feeling anyway.
The board has indented plastic spaces to prevent the pieces from sliding around, but the spaces are circles that are much larger than the bases of the pieces.
As it was so cheap this was a worthwhile experiment since I’m trying to keep up my kid’s interest in chess. I mainly set up one move checkmate situations and other chess puzzles that I find online, and my kid enjoys solving them. Soon I think we’ll be able to play a game together! For that sort of training, this cheap set is worth it. If you’re looking for a permanent travel set that you enjoy playing games with, keep looking.