Narrator: 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 costs $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 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.
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.
Artisans use particular steel tools, called cutters,
designed to make the proper cuts
and overall shape of a chessman.
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 knight.
While other pieces are carved in just a few minutes,
a single knight takes two hours to produce.
Less than 10 people are trained to craft knights
for these championship sets.
Narrator: 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 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.
Narrator: The quality of the final piece
largely depends on the skill of the artisan.
A top-quality knight must be completely symmetrical.
Narrator: But it's just as important
that all four knights 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% of the total cost of the chessmen.
The other chessmen have specific height
and width requirements
designed by architect Daniel Weil.
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 simpler designs than that, like a rook,
take these artisans seven times longer to produce
compared to regular chess sets.
Aditya Chopra: If the chessman is 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 we're talking about
making chessmen for tournament players,
which are used in vast quantities,
then a carver is even able to make
200 to 250 chess kings in a day.
Narrator: 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.
The detailed features are also essential,
by lowering the chances a player will make a mistake.
Chopra: If you see in the Medieval Ages,
the chessmen were not really in a good form.
The chessmen were round; some of them were spiral.
The knights were not even carved in the shape of a knight.
In this form, you can see the kings properly,
the knight, very distinguished.
The bishop has a miter cut;
the queen is very sharp.
So you can easily distinguish between all the six pieces.
Narrator: This is known as the Staunton design,
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 $700 more.
The weight of each piece along with the felt bottom
are two more significant factors that affect the game.
Both make the chessmen easier to use,
effectively upping their value.
Chopra: If the pieces are properly weighted,
then they do not fall
while you're moving the pieces on the board.
And it also gives a very nice
and a special feel to a chessman.
Narrator: 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 first appearing
in India around the 6th 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.
And although this demand is a positive for the industry,
it also poses a challenge to chess producers like Aditya.
Chopra: It is very difficult to find good-quality,
skilled carvers for manufacturing chessmen.
And even after four to five months, six months,
we don't know if the carver will be good enough
to carve nice chessmen.
So nobody wants to spend so much time
and realize that he was not able
to carve the desired quality of chessmen.
Narrator: 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.