Giant Chess Mat & Chequerboard
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If you don't want to make your own board (see below), we offer two types for use with our Giant Chess Sets. These are essential for temporary situations, sites that cannot spare the space for a permanent board or where giant Chess will be played in multiple places. It also gives the option of playing indoors on rainy days!
The PVC sheet board (as shown in the picture on the right) is very quick to put down or move around and once rolled up, does not take up much storage space. It has eyelets in the corners so that it can be easily pegged down in windy locations. Dimensions 3m square (9ft 10ins sq) - 36cm squares.
The lawn-friendly board (as shown on the left) comes as 64 plastic squares
which need to be connected together. The lattice structure allows grass to breathe
and receive light. The Rolly board is 3.5m (11ft, 6 inches) square .
Change to $  Change to  |
UK pounds (ex.VAT) |
Pounds (incl. VAT) |
Typical ETA in wkg days |
Add to basket |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Giant PVC Sheet Chequerboard (8 x 8 squares) |
£37.30 | £42.90 | 1 + transit time | ||
Garden Games Giant Lawn-Friendly Chequerboard |
£124.26 | £142.90 | 1 + transit time | ||
For an immediate quote and ETA, add to the basket & select your location. |
Creating your own Board
Many people opt to create a permanent board on hard ground. You can use patio tiles, or paving slabs or just paint squares on clear ground. For the large sets (2 feet high King), squares of around 400-500mm are recommended.
If you want to paint your own board on the playground or floor, see our Chess board painting FAQ.
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The Origin of Chess
A great deal has been written about the origins of chess and there is still a lot of debate on the subject. The earliest clear ancestor of chess is shaturanga or chaturanga which was invented by a 6th century Indian philosopher. It was a battle between four armies each under the control of a Rajah (king), two players being loosely allied against the other two and and each containing 4 corps - Infantry, Cavalry, Elephants and Boatmen. The board of 64 squares used for shaturanga, was borrowed from an earlier game called ashtapada, which was a race game played in ancient India.
Under Hindu law, gambling became forbidden early on in the Hindu civilisation and, to avoid the gambling laws, shaturanga players dispensed with the dice. Another early modification was the merging of the allied armies into a single army making the game a two player form and duplicating the pieces, both developments which have survived until today. Other changes also occurred; and the resulting game was called shatranj.
There are three versions of the story of arrival of shatranj in Europe - did it come from the Saracens via Spain, from the Byzantine empire as a present to Charlemagne or was it brought back from the Middle East by Knights returning from the Crusades?. Nonetheless, in Europe, the game developed into modern European chess now played worldwide while in China, Japan, Burma, Thailand and Korea, other variants became just as popular.
You can learn more about the History of Chess from The Online Guide to Traditional Games.