“If they are good under hand, then they are good”
— IM Živoslav Nikolić on the chess pieces design

There is a moment when people start taking chess seriously. You can recognize it when you no longer have a peace of mind over won or lost game. That moment is a kind of crossroads, which in extreme cases can lead you to a destructive passion. Fortunately, most people have no desire to dedicate their entire lives to a regular game, no matter how beautiful it may be. But that beauty of the game is the call of the mermaid, and I recognized my moment when I enrolled in the college. There I had my first chance to play chess more seriously…

It was in the early eighties, when the Faculty of Law, where I studied, organized a tournament in which we had to choose a team that will represent our high school at the Student Chess Olympiad. The first four top ranked entered the team directly, and the fifth and sixth man could hope to enter as substitutions.

Until that moment, I played chess for pure fun, mostly on variants of generally available sets of designs taken over from the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The requirement for the tournament is that each participant must bring their own set, and so I brought the one I had, which is now with my nephew Pavle:

Every day, the strongest player among us entered the classroom where the tournament was played, carrying a rolled green-cream vinyl chess board under his arm, a bag with nice big plastic pieces in his hand, and greeted us with a wide smile with the words: 'What’s up, non-*uckers!’ Typical of a man who knows what complete devotion to chess means. 😁😆

When it was my turn to play with him, of course there was no question of whose pieces we are going to use for the game. His set was so much better that they were a clear choice. He was without a doubt a better player for at least two categories, and I lost the game smoothly. But I was amazed by the beauty and stability of the pieces we played with. I couldn’t believe how different that experience was from playing chess on a relatively small board and with pieces you weren’t allowed to move too fast so they wouldn’t fall all over the board. I immediately decided that I had to have such a set. At that time, I did not know the name of these pieces, nor their history. His set showed signs of fierce (ab)use, the pieces had visible damage from the ‘collision’, one Queen did not have a ball on the top, but that chessmen still enchanted with their beauty and functionality.

Immediately after the tournament, I started searching, and soon bought them. They were not expensive either, since it was a light, non-weighted set, but even in such a variant, the pieces were extremely stable. The only thing I didn’t like was the board with the green fields. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that it was this combination of board colors and pieces that was a favorite of former world chess champion Robert Fischer:

Fischer had a Zagreb version of the set, which was sketched by the famous cartoonist Andrija Maurović, and handmade by the late Zagreb master Vjekoslav Jakopović. The set was seized by the bank in whose safe Fisher kept the pieces as jewels, at the moment when the former world champion was left without the means to pay the rent for the safe. Hence his anger and warning not to buy stolen property, because those pieces at the auction today could easily reach a price of several hundred thousand dollars:

In the video, Fischer mentions the original set from 1950, which is very difficult to find today. This is exactly what he insisted on in the return match against Spassky in 1992:

And here is a modern interpretation of the original made today by the Slovenian workshop ’NOJ’:

History

Let’s go back in history for a moment, to see how this extraordinary design came about, which deviates from the hitherto inviolable Staunton standard. The original pieces were designed by a Serbian sculptor and painter from Cetinje, Petar Poček, specifically for the IX Chess Olympiad, which was held in 1950 in the former SFR Yugoslavia, in Dubrovnik.

Poček had to meet several requirements with his design. The pieces, quite naturally, had to have an aesthetic quality, and they had to be functional, suitable for play, which means that they must be stable and have a secure grip – what the International Master Živoslav Nikolić, commenting on quality pieces, pointed out, saying that they must be ‘good under hand’.

Poček solved the problem of function and aesthetics brilliantly. The pieces had a fuller (fatter) base, which made them significantly more stable than the usual design, and from the imperial Austro-Hungarian design, he took the Bishop’s finials of the opposite color, which made the overview of the board during the game much better. However, the key deviation from Staunton standard followed not for chess, but for political reasons. Since the SFRY was a declared atheist state, it was necessary to remove religious symbols from the pieces. Thus, the Bishops lost the cut characteristic of the mitres of Catholic bishops, and instead of a cross, the King got – a ball!

Numerous variations of this set can be found on sale today, but these are the three interpretations that have been proven best in practice and estetics – the original Dubrovnik from 1950, Dubrovnik II, the Zagreb version from the sixties, and then so-called Minčeta variation in which the Rook is made chunky in the style of a tower of the Dubrovnik fortress:

Whichever version you choose, you won't go wrong. For example, I have a plastic, almost 40 years old Minčeta version that you can easily buy even today here:

I still haven’t come across a better set for a blitz games. And I still think green vynil is disgusting. I recommend the brown-cream combination.

In those good old days when I bought these pieces, wooden ones were practically not on the offer. Today, you can find great wood interpretations from most manufacturers. For example, House of Staunton for about 200 dollars offers great sets, and if it’s too expensive for you, decent Indian reproductions can be found at a much lower price. If you care about getting top-notch handicrafts, you can sign up for the waiting list of the NOJ workshops, but I warn you that they are sold out until 2023!

At those times, I could not find any weighted pieces, or a set with four Queens. Nowdays these are ordinary things. Today, you also can find wooden and plastic versions of Dubrovnik set in which the King has a cross again, but also luxury versions in which it is possible to change the top of the King as you wish!

If you want to see how the original Dubrovnik looks like, here is a set that belonged to Milan Vidmar, the grandmaster who was the chief arbiter at the IX Chess Olympics in Dubrovnik:

Today, many tournaments are being played with plastic replicas of the original 1950 set. The shape is true to the original, but I don’t like the color of these plastic pieces at all:

On the other hand, all those who are dissatisfied with the color, shape or proportions, have one last option – they can make their own set!

The design of the Dubrovnik set was the first serious deviation from the Staunton standard after 100 years of its dominance in the world of chess game. After Poček’s design, other designers began to think about what could be done to make the pieces even better. And of course, the lessons are learned. In the new versions of Staunton pieces, finesse and experiences from the beautiful Dubrovnik set are included. But that would be a topic in the next sequel of our series…

Following in the next part: Return to Staunton standard