I was lucky to record a friendly game of chess between GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and WGM Darja Kapš on the eve of Ljubljana Chess Festival 2014, WFM Indira Bajt dropped in for some kibitzing. Alexandra Konstantinovna was welcomed and presented with BCE Stage 1 Eastern Black chessmen and BCE Stage 1 Quattro Red magnetic chessboard. Both were tested at once in the lobby of Hotel Lev, Ljubljana, Slovenia.


The trio autographed my personal Stage 1 Eastern Rh Red set. In other news our BCE GM Count is incremented once again. I’m happy as a little kid.


-Izmet

Tags: S1EB, S1QR, magnetic

Building a Pycochess chessbot. Ingredients:

One Raspberry Pi computer.
One PiFace Control & Display interface.
One 8 GB SD card.
Power.

-Izmet

Tags: chessbots

King size 3.5 inches, weight 40 grams. Total set weight 650 grams. No extra queens. Price? Very reasonable. Email me.





Here’s a size comparison to regular 3.75” chessmen:



height diameter weight
King 88 mm 38 mm 40 g
Queen 79 mm 34 mm 29 g
Bishop 71 mm 31 mm 20 g
Knight 67 mm 32 mm 29 g
Rook 53 mm 31 mm 26 g
Pawn 47 mm 27 mm 13 g

-Izmet

Tags: S1EBH

Next iteration of the awesome chessbot adds some more menus and, most importantly, autonomous operation. No electronic chessboard needed!

If interested in purchasing a ready-made plug & play solution, I advise against as parts are readily available on the web and software is open source. If you insist, email me.

-Izmet

Tags: chessbots