Now we enter a world as vague as the Twilight Zone! We have distilled determining the best color for your chess set down down to two basic - slightly competing - issues. Matching the pieces and chess board aesthetically or the pieces and board having high relative contrast for the ease of playing a game. Let's examine the former first and then return to understand the latter.
Matching the pieces and chessboard together for an aesthetically pleasing look is relatively simple. One usually considers the dark pieces and playing squares of each, and then match them accordingly. Most white side chess pieces, made from wood, are carved from Boxwood. With chessboards, the white square are usually made from Maple, Aspen or Erable. This should be of little concern. The dark side (no intentional reference here to Darth Vader) can be comprised of many different "flavors" of woods or materials. If you would like, go to our Wonderful Woods pages to learn all about the subject of woods used in manufacture of pieces and chessboards. When aesthetics is the primary concern, we usually recommend to consider where the board will be used. Let's say you have a beautiful Mahogany table that you plan to display and play on. Then obviously a Mahogany chessboard would be a good choice. Then you could choose pieces in a Honey Rosewood, or even a Crimson Rosewood, which would go with it very nicely.
In summation, there is not a right or wrong way to have your perfect chess set - many folks really appreciate a matching feel, while chess players often appreciate the contrast. This is why in tournaments they used black and white pieces with a green (!) chess board. The best way for both worlds might be some out-of-the-box thinking. Instead of focusing on matching the board and pieces ot each other, try to make sure the chess board matches (or strongly compliments) the room it is going to be displayed in. This ties everything together convienantly.
If you're looking for a more direct match withtthe woods of chess boards, the closest matches will be honey rosewood with walnut, crimson rosewood (or padouk) with mahogany, ebony or ebonized with wengue, and rosewood with darker browns such as palisander or macassar.
We often sell boards and pieces as combined sets and offer the same pieces on each board so you can see what the contrast (or color-match) looks like. The following images show the same chess set in two different woods paired with both similar and contrasting colors.
The sizing of chess pieces to a chess board is mostly a matter of personal taste. Tournament play is the exception to this, since very clear specifications are given by the governing bodies as to the specific sizes of pieces and boards. For example, the US Chess Federation, the governing body for chess in the United States has specific "Equipment Standards" outlined in their rules. For chess pieces they specify a King that measures 3 3/8" to 4 1/2" with a base diameter of 40-50% of the height.
For chessboard proportions the USCF specifies:
The chess pieces should fit comfortably on the chess board, being neither too crowded nor too isolated on the squares. The king and queen, for example, should be subject to easy placement on a square without touching any edge. Chess boards for standard sets should have squares of approximately 2 - 2 1/2 inches (5.08 - 6.35cm). One convenient test is that the square formed by the bases of four pawns should be about the same size as any square on their board." - The USCF's Official Rules of Chess/compiled and sanctioned by the U.S. Chess Federation. -4th Ed., ISBN 0-8129-2217-4, David McKay Company, INC., pgs. 165-166
Let's examine some options when your chess sets, boards, or your personal taste differs from the tournament standards. We shall attempt to give you specific examples for "Staunton pattern" pieces and "non-Staunton" pieces.
Below are some examples of some "Staunton pattern" sets we carry along with sizes of boards they work with. You can also use this for reference, and comparison, on sizes, colors and dimensions within the selections. Bear in mind, the four pawn guideline may not work in the case of many chessmen available, since each manufacturer makes its pieces with different styles. Consider also your personal sense of the aesthetic.
If you look at our descriptions of chess pieces you will notice that we always include the height and base diameter of the kings. This is because we have found an effective method of choosing a board for a given set of chessmen. This is called"The 75% Guideline". It's a simple little guideline that says the kings base diameter should be 75% of the playing square diameter of your chessboard. Simple! Well not really, there are always exceptions to any rule, but for the most part we find this works fairly well with most "Staunton pattern" chessmen.
In the images below you will see"The 75% Guideline" in application. This king measures 1 3/4" inch base diameter and the chessboard has playing squares measuring 2 1/4" inches. This works out so the kings diameter is about 75% of the size of the square.