Dear Designer,

I told you about this! Are you trying to kill the dude?

Prevent Cruelty to Chess Players

In honor of Garry Kasparov's entrance into the Russian presidential race, I wanted to talk to designers about their game boards.

There are rules! You can design all the damn gameboards you want but they will be useless unless you get it right. Let's just check out what the geeks over at the US Chess Federation have to say. When it comes to gameboards, it's "light on right." It's not just the USCF, either; those crazy kids over at the World Chess Federation (FIDE) say so too; see rule 2.1 in the FIDE handbook. Even the idiots at wikipedia get it right.

I know there are at least two designers who check in here every now and then. I hope they will help me spread this important message.

Help prevent cruelty to chess players.
Help prevent cruelty to chess players.
Help prevent cruelty to chess players.
Help prevent cruelty to chess players. (It would have been fine if she stopped at 8!)
Help prevent cruelty to chess players.
Help prevent cruelty to chess players.
Help prevent cruelty to chess players. (Eight, people, eight squares by eight squares.)