Best Chess Sets of 2026

Twenty inches square with 2.25-inch squares and a 3.75-inch king, the A&A Tournament set is built to the dimensions club and tournament players expect, and it gets there for about the money the wooden folding sets here charge.

The board is the interesting part: silicone, fully matte, with low-saturation squares that are easier on the eyes over a long game than a glossy vinyl roll-up, and it folds and squeezes without taking a crease. It packs into the included bag, and the 34 quadruple-weighted plastic Staunton pieces — two extra queens among them — travel in their own velvet bags with a printed instruction sheet.

This is the set we point club players to. Plastic is a feature at this level: consistent, easy to replace, heavy enough in the hand for fast play, and the quadruple weighting is more convincing than most wooden pieces of the same height. Where it loses ground is the living room — it is a set you lay out and pack away rather than one that closes into itself, and it is not the board to leave standing on a coffee table.

This is the set to look at if the top pick feels plain. The format is identical — 15 inches, folding, magnetic — but the board is walnut and maple, the hinges are brass, and the whole case is a grade better finished.

We think it is the better-looking of the two, and the better made one: felted, hand-carved pieces with clean detail, a board that sits flat, and latches that keep the halves together in a bag. The two-year limited warranty is unusual at this level, and of the wooden sets here this is the one that most convincingly feels like it cost more than it did.

What it does not add is size. At 15 inches it plays the same game as the top pick, so a bigger board means stepping up to the Imperator. What the extra money buys is the walnut and maple, the brass, and the finish on 34 pieces — which, on a set that comes out every week, is money that keeps paying.

The Imperator is the set we point to if the board is going to stay out. At 21.1 inches square it wants a real table, and it gives a room something to look at: a beech and birch board, hand-carved hornbeam and sycamore pieces with felt bottoms, and a folding case with slotted compartments for all 32.

Size is the feature. A board this big makes long games easier on the eyes and the hands, and the pieces are chunky enough to move without looking. It is substantial at 2.4 kg, and it reads as furniture rather than equipment, which is exactly what you are paying for at this end of the range.

The boundaries are worth naming. It does not travel — folded, it is still a large wooden box — so it is the wrong set if the board moves between rooms, let alone between houses. And it wants a table that is not doing anything else; a 15-inch set plays the same game for far less if the board lives on a shelf.

Nine and a half inches across with 1.1-inch squares, this is the set we take when the alternative is no chess at all. It is small in adult hands — you pinch a knight rather than grip it — but it weighs under a pound, folds into its own box, and the magnets hold the position through a car ride or a windy picnic table.

Inside are 32 felted Staunton pieces plus two spare queens, slots for all of them in the board, and an outer storage box that keeps everything tidy in a bag. Instructions are online rather than printed, and the grey-on-black board is easier on the eyes than the usual red and black. Replacement pieces are available, which matters more on a set this small than on one that lives on a table.

Thirty-two sculpted figures taken from the films sit on an 18.5-inch board with marble and stone textures and metallic logos around the rim. It is a display object that happens to be a working chess set, and for the right household that is the entire appeal.

The pieces are big, which suits children's hands, and each character reads clearly as its piece once you have matched them to a role. Two drawstring bags hold the set instead of molded slots, and the board is a standard fold-out with the film styling printed across it. In play it is ordinary chess with unusually dramatic pieces.

We think it earns its place where someone loves the films and someone else needs a nudge to sit down at the board, because the theme is doing real work there. If nobody in the house cares about the wizarding world, the same money buys better wood and better-balanced pieces elsewhere — the AMEROUS or the Hurdaos.

Teaching a four-year-old chess usually ends with a lost queen and a lost interest. Story Time Chess takes the rules out of the way: every piece has a character and a story that explains how it moves, so a child learns the bishop's diagonal by hearing about it rather than memorizing it.

The board is double-sided, with the illustrated story board on one face and a standard board on the other, and the included book walks through each piece with a short tale and a mini-game to practice the move. The mini-games are the part that works: a child can spend a session on just the knight and finish having won something.

The pieces are plastic and the board is 10.25 inches, so this is a learning set rather than the one a family will still be playing on in a decade. It is also aimed squarely at a child who does not yet know the moves; a six-year-old who already plays will get an afternoon out of it and move on.

Of the sets here, this is the only one that teaches the game instead of assuming it, and that is the case for buying it: get it when you want a small child playing properly by school age, and hand it down when they outgrow it.

The checkers are the reason to look at this one. The same folding wooden board that carries the chess pieces also takes a full set of checkers, and there is a printed rules sheet in the box rather than a link.

In chess it behaves like a good magnetic folding set: walnut and maple with wood pieces, two spare queens, storage slots inside the board, and 3.6 lb of case that is happy on a coffee table. The magnets are the gentle kind — enough to stop pieces sliding, not enough to fight you when you move one.

The handover between games is where it gets awkward. Chess pieces stored in the board sit proud enough that the unfolded board will not lie flat for checkers until every one of them is out of its slot. It is a minute of work and an irritation every time you swap.

One box instead of two is a real gain in a small house, and the magnetic hold makes it a decent travel set as well. If chess is the only game anyone wants, the plain 15-inch AMEROUS above is the better set and the simpler one.