$500 Chess Set vs $1,000,000 Chess Piece

but the design of these chess  pieces isn't solely aesthetic   it can actually affect the outcome of  a game affect the outcome of the game   so essential by lowering the  chances a player will make a mistake with every shaving and small incision  master artisans turn these trunks of wood   into 32 hand carved chess pieces you can pick up  a plastic set for 20 but a wooden set certified   for the world chess championship cost 500 much of  the value of a high quality set comes down to how   well just one piece is made the knight there are  less than 10 people who are trusted to carve the   knights for the official world chess championship  sets so how are these whoa they're saying they're   like there are only 10 people in the entire  world who can make the nights that's insane   that's nuts the knights are what makes it wait so  so why doesn't okay why is the knight harder than   a bishop for example like is it just because  it's because of the formation of like you have   to you have to do like lines on like at the  bottom at the top like all over the edges of   the all over the place because the curve's okay  ah because the rest is round okay okay all right   yeah because you have to do a bunch of them  you have to do like little little cuts here   you're all over the piece okay makes sense these  chessmen made and why are they so expensive at this factory in amritsar india artisans  carve the pieces for the official world   chess championship sets and the factory produces  only 250 of them each year true artisans train   over four to five months learning to masterfully  shape each figure these small blocks of boxwood   were once large trunks dried for three to six  months cut down and shaped to the necessary size   each block is attached to a lathe which turns  the block rapidly before artisans begin to carve   wow artisans use particular steel tools called  cutters designed to make the proper cuts   and overall shape of a chessmen  once the cutter makes contact   it immediately changes the wood and any slight  misstep could ruin the final shape of the piece no piece is more difficult  to produce than the night   while other pieces are carved in just a few  minutes a single night takes two hours to produce less than 10 people are trained to  craft nights for these championship sets solution compare that to the four to five months it  takes an artisan to learn how to carve the   other chess pieces but unlike these other  chessmen the knights actually you know but   i mean but it makes sense because actually  i'm looking at the rook here it's just like   yeah because it's all circular right it's  all circular it's like yeah it's circular   but it's it's like it's it looks like a very  straightforward process like on the rooks so i   now now it starts to make more sense about about  the whole thing with the knights it totally does   but unlike these other chessmen the knight isn't  an abstract representation of a medieval figure   it's designed to look like a realistic horse  head it's the most detailed of all the pieces   each carving is intentional from the hair on  a knight's tail to the curve of its neck wow the quality of the final piece largely  depends on the skill of the artisan   a top quality night must be completely symmetrical but but it's just as important that all  four nights in the set look totally uniform   otherwise the set altogether won't be nearly as  valuable according to the house of staunton a   large manufacturer of chess sets a set of finely  carved knights can represent up to 50 percent of   the total cost of the chessmen the other chessmen  have specific height and width requirements   designed by architect daniel whale the king must  be the tallest at 95 millimeters and have a base   that's 39 millimeters wide the largest of them  all the pieces have defining characteristics   like the king's crown or the refined jewel at the  top of the queen's coronet these distinct features   require more time and effort for the carver the  king's crown in a championship set should have   eight small cuts and be slightly rounded along the  edges compare this king to the king of a regular   set which has a much simpler straight edge design  pieces with even which one do you guys like more   which one do you like more do you like do you  like this this one or do you like this one   the right i mean the right is easier to  hold that's true actually the bass on the   left is probably harder to move it that that's  definitely true i kind of agree with that part   um so yeah that that that makes sense i mean both  are but they both look pretty nice it's true that   actually the one on the one on the right has the  felt on the bottom right it's got the little green   felt which probably does that make it easier or  hard probably that's a little bit easier i mean   i've used the i've used both i think but um which  one do i like more i think they're both amazing   uh in terms of stylistically it's it's difficult  like i'm not i'm not a high-end fancy guy so i   kind of i probably because i grew up playing a lot  of the cheaper sets i probably prefer the one on   the right um but but objectively i have spent  probably the last like last couple of years at   least since like 2016 i have seen this set much  more um it's literally 50 50. i think probably i   would say i would say the only reason i would say  tournament is because i grew up playing i grew up   playing on the cheaper sets that's probably the  only reason um that i would say that but do i   own any of these sets no i don't own an official  set i own one of the house of sunsets from one   of the sink field events i don't remember which  year it was um which i think retails for like 1   500 or something absolutely insane so i i mean i  um i do own one of them but not this specific set   so um yeah that's what i say it's 50  50 by the way it's like exactly 50 50.   the championship one is too yellow um i  don't know i mean it's it's uh yeah it's   i don't know i don't know i don't know i mean i  think i think both designs are pretty good this   is it's exactly like 50 50. so it's like 51.49  for tournament over championship pretty insane   have i ever made my own set you guys no i am  not a carpenter you guys i'm not a carpenter   uh so no i have not made my own set uh i mean i  mean these guys probably spent like six months   i mean six months to your training i mean like  it's serious not yet not yet right so tournament   wins by uh by 17 votes 1356 1356 people prefer the  tournament set 1339 for the championship set so um   so basically that's crazy so 17 vote  differential so it's really 50 50.   yeah amazing simpler designs than that like a rook  take these artisans seven times longer to produce   compared to regular chess sets if the chessmen  is like of a championship set then we are only   able to make 25 to 30 kings in a day because  it's a very special design if you're talking   about making chessmen or tournament players which  are used in vast quantities then a carver is even   able to make 200 to 250 chess kings in a  day but the design of these chess pieces   isn't solely aesthetic it can actually affect the  outcome of a game each piece must be the correct   height the king being the tallest followed  by the queen bishop knight rook and pawn in   fact the outcome of the game was so essential by  lowering the chances a player will make a mistake oh my god did i really uh  did i really just hear that   um that basically if the king is like  one centimeter one centimeter lower   you're like you're gonna look over  the king you're gonna make a mistake   it's because the piece is not precise so the  piece was a little bit too short okay that's   um oh my gosh that that's like the  greatest thing ever let me go back   on the detailed features are also essential by  lowering the chances a player will make a mistake   if you see in medieval ages the chess men  were not really in a good form the chess men   were round some of them were spiral the knives  were not even carved in the shape of a knight   in this form you can see the kings properly  the night very distinguished the bishop has a   mitre cut the queen's is very sharp so you can  easily distinguish between all the six pieces   this is known as the start in design well i mean  what he says is not wrong except he's talking he's   talking about games from like um i mean the guy's  like talking about games from the medieval ages   from like the 1200s so it's a little bit different  but he's not wrong it's just the way they worded   it it just sounds really silly um but but but  i will say some of those old sets like the um   the the chestnut set from the from like  is the uk um what is the chestnut set   what what is it called the um the the the  lewis testament set is like really really   really expensive um so like there's this article  on forbes and it's that i mean this is from uh   this was from 2019 july 4 2019 it's almost  almost exactly two years ago and like this piece   this this chess piece it says you know on what's  to say it says an unnamed buyer has bought the   missing lewis chessmen piece at a london auction  for 735 pounds 925 000 us dollars until recently   its previous owners had no idea of the item's  value as the family's grandfather had bought   the piece for just five pounds in the 1960s nice  crazy kept safely in a drawer despite working as   an antiques dealer the grandfather reportedly  didn't know of the item's significance when   he passed on to his family who kept it in a  drawer for more than half a century a family   spokesman said in a statement from sotheby's  auction house the woman who inherited the piece   was very fond of it keeping it carefully wrapped  she believed it was special and thought perhaps it   could even have had some magical significance  from time to time she would remove the chess   piece from the drawer in order to appreciate its  uniqueness that the spokes to the spokesperson   southern miss expert alexander keator said the  rediscovery was one of the most exciting he'd ever   seen in his career the three three 3.5 inch high  piece is a warder styled as a man with a helmet   shield and sword as with the other pieces it is  made from walrus ivory but has a darker color   cater said the new lewis warder's dark  tone clearly has the potential to offer   valuable and fresh insights into how other  lewis lewis chessmen may have looked in the past   there is certainly more to the story  of this warder still to be told   crazy right um the significance of the  lewis chestnut the lewis testament caused   the sensation when they were unearthed on  the isle of lewis and the scottish hebri   hebrides hebrides in the 1830s and are without a  doubt the best known scottish archaeological find   the pieces are believed to have been made  in scandinavia most likely norway during the   12th century the four sets include seated kings  and queens bishops knights and ponds along with   standing waters which have since been replaced  by brooks and modern chess they are now among   the most popular attractions at the british museum  and the national museum of scotland in edinburgh   while souvenir replicas are sold in tourist shops  including at trondheim's naderos cathedral however   one night and four waters have been missing  from the original discovery so yeah that's right   because i think it was 32 pieces and five pieces  were missing which is why um which is why uh which   is which is why it's so valuable because if the  complete set is on earth then i mean it's just   it's like you know the holy grail um discovered in  a sand bank while it while while it was known that   the pieces were discovered in a sand bank at camas  uig bay on louis by local malcolm mcleod how they   got there is shrouded in mystery one hypothesis  is that visiting norsemen buried the collection   to avoid paying taxes on them kate cona right  avoid paying taxes the american way um perhaps   some broken or decayed were left behind in that  sand bank uh or assist by whoever discovered them   written accounts of defines are contradictory  contradictory said nancy murray brown   in her book ivory vikings whatever their story  their very existence questions the economics   of the time the viking's impact on scotland  the struggle the struggle the norse people   had in fully adopting christianity and the  dominance of the norse world on the region   until well into the middle ages the search  is on for the four remaining missing pieces   the distinctive pieces should be easy to identify  hold this hold the thoughtful little queen in your   hand and it's easy to become enthralled said  brown that's crazy isn't it that that's crazy   uh july 4th the value of the cell has been  corrected yeah so so basically this one piece   uh this one piece sold for for one million uh  basically one one million dollars insane right   insane um so all right uh let's go back to go back  to the video now one million for incomplete chess   that's just for one piece the whole chess set is  probably worth like lord only knows how much money   it is um it's gotta be i mean i would get guess if  there's one million for that single piece it's got   to be the set alone has to be worth at least like  15 to 20 million dollars at least if not more um   so let's keep going the only style  allowed in international competition today   pieces used in the championship match have an  electronic coil making it possible to track   and broadcast each player's move a full set with  this tracking component costs about seven hundred   dollars more well okay i mean first of all i'm  pretty sure that all chess sets that work with dgt   boards have this so this is not like some special  uh some special um some special feature to this   set because all all pieces that you can use with  dgt boards have this capability i believe or the   weight of each piece along with a felt bottom are  two more significant factors that affect the game   both make the chessmen easier to use effectively  upping their value if the pieces are properly   awaited then they do not fall while you are  moving the pieces on the boats and also it gives   a very nice and special feel to a chess men some  chessmen must be dyed black and dried for 10 days   all of the pieces are buffed and polished  three times before they're assessed for quality chess has been played for over 1 000 years with  some form of the game yes these are these are the   lewis chessmen by the way these sets um yeah  they said buffed uh which is really funny but   no i was just laughing because i mean what  they're saying is right but they're they're   slightly exaggerating i mean like it's very  well done but they are slightly exaggerating   when they say um that like if they're saying  it makes some difference like it's it's like   you know the piece might fall over and you're  it's like they're acting like you're gonna lose   the game because the piece falls over sure you  might lose a little bit of time and things might   happen but it's not like life and death like  it's like it's just some maya it's a minor issue   okay so let's keep going in india around the  sixth century over the past two centuries   high-level competitions have drawn international  interest in the game today tournaments continue to   keep the game popular as do displays of these  competitions in the media the release of the   limited series the queen's gambit on netflix sent  sales of chess sets skyrocketing in november 2020   this demand is a positive for the industry it  also poses a challenge to chess producers like   aditya it is very difficult to find good quality  skilled covers for manufacturing chessmen   and even after four to five months six months  we don't know if the carver would be good enough   to carve a knife so uh nobody  wants to spend so much of time   and realize that he was not able to carve the  desired quality of chessmen without enough   experienced carvers these sets could become more  difficult to produce and it's fair to expect   that 500 sets like these and similarly hand  carved ones could get even pricier in the future yeah i mean like you know what this reminds me of  this reminds this sort of of the um this reminds   me of kind of the uh the problem with like the  problem with uh with the entire world frankly   at this point whereas anything that's like old  world like these these sort of these these these   uh these these la these things that require like  sort of is it manual labor is that the right word   these things that are very labor intensive um are  dying slowly for this exact reason like again no   the the span of interest in the time that  people have like is getting less and less   so people don't want to spend months and months  on something when there's no guaranteed return   um skilled labor sorry skilled labor yeah  manual skilled labor yeah so like it's actually   it's kind of a it kind of is an issue i think  for the world in general as we as we go forward   um because it's not it doesn't just apply to chess  it applies to so many things that are like wooden   like i was thinking about like it's like if i  go to a local like furniture store like and i   look at things that are that like you know just  like wooden frames for like beds or these sorts   of things generally they're pretty shoddily done  these days like it's not the same as like 20 30   40 years ago when like when it was much different  and there were so many more things that were hand   carved so it's a problem i think everywhere  these days just you know what's happened   uh but i i don't know um i don't know if uh if  if you can 3d print it i'm not sure you can as my   guest maybe maybe you can i i don't know um maybe  you can you can't 3d print wood like this yeah so   you can't okay plain and simple um i would also  add this is another thing i really hope that the   that the uh the the people the the skilled  laborers who are doing this are getting   paid their fair share it is pretty amazing  the amount of time they spend on this um so   to all those people in india you know it's  just incredible and i think everybody's very   thankful that they keep doing this so that's  that's what i would add um at about do i carry   chessboard when i travel no i don't i don't  carry i don't care i um carry any chessboards you

Channel: GMHikaru

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Keywords: Hikaru Nakamura, master chess, chess instruction, magnus carlsen, chess commentary for beginners, hikaru chess commentary, chess tournament, twitch streamers, chess game play, chess tricks, master chess moves, TSM, hikaru reacts to videos, hikaru reacts to chess videos, hikaru reacts to uncommon twitch videos

Id: IowQeiC4V8I

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021