Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Setting up a chessboard

I think that people generally know how to properly set up a chessboard, even if they don't know how to play chess: the rooks go in the corners, then the knights, the bishops, the king and the queen, with the pawns going in front of them (for each color). The only thing that most people think they need to remember is the queen goes on her own color, meaning the black queen goes on the black square, and the white queen goes on the white square.

I can't imagine that I'm the only person that automatically checks whether or not a chessboard is set up correctly, but apparently I'm in the minority. I mention this because there is one other rule to correctly setting up a chessboard: the bottom right square is supposed to be white (or red - you know what I mean). And having observed the photography in catalogs, the boxes that chess sets come in, chess sets on display, etc., I've noticed that it is wrong more than half the time! And come to think of it, I rarely even look to see if the queens are correctly situated, since they usually are, but I'm always looking at the bottom right squares.

I recall watching a Madonna video years ago and the chessboard was incorrectly positioned. What does this all mean in the grand scheme of things? Not a whole lot, but it still gets to me!


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