Muba Dubrovnik 6EF Review: A 21-Inch Folding Board With Plastic Pieces

The Muba Dubrovnik 6EF gives you a 21.65-inch folding board, 2.24-inch squares, two brass clasps, and a 3.6-inch king. The pieces are plastic. That last point decides the review for most people, so here's my verdict up front: I'd buy this for the board and the Dubrovnik silhouette, and I'd skip it if plastic men on a set this size would nag at you every time you set them down.

What it is and who it's for

On paper this sits at the deluxe end of Muba's standard range: a handmade beech and birch folding board, burned ornament detail, algebraic coordinates along the borders, and an insert tray with a formed slot for every piece. It closes to 55cm x 3cm x 55cm, which is 21.65 inches square and 1.18 inches thick, and two brass clasps hold it shut. King height is 9.1 cm, or 3.6 inches. The storage box built into the board is the whole appeal if you don't have a permanent table. So the buyer here is a club player chasing the Dubrovnik profile without carved-wood money, or anyone whose chess kit lives in a cupboard and comes out twice a month. If the shape is what pulls you in rather than the game, I've written about other oddball designs in my guide to the best unique chess sets.

What the specs actually tell you

Three numbers matter: king 3.6 inches, squares 2.24 inches, board 21.65 inches square. US Chess guidance wants kings between 3.375 and 4.5 inches and squares between 2 and 2.5, so this sits inside the range on both counts. The pairing is roomier than most, though. A 3.6-inch king usually lands on a 2-inch square, and 2.24 inches leaves a lot of air around each piece. I happen to like that. Bigger squares forgive clumsy fingers when the clock is running. The king base diameter isn't listed anywhere in the data, so measure it when it arrives; the old rule is roughly 75 to 80 percent of a square, which would put it near 1.7 inches on these squares. The real gap is weight. There's no figure for it at all, and on a board this size (21.65 inches across, 1.18 inches folded) you'd want that number before you plan to haul it onto a bus.

What owners report

The complaint that shows up most on sets in this family is the pieces. People read "handmade wooden chess set" in the title and "wood imitation" three lines down, then open the box expecting wood. The men are weighted plastic on felted bases, finished to look like wood, and that's the long and short of it. The second theme is the storage: the formed compartments do hold each piece separately and the tray kills the rattle, but you have to seat everything properly or the clasps won't close cleanly. The burned border coordinates are the sort of detail people mention once and move past. One more thing, said plainly: the listing carried no star rating and no rating count when I looked, so I can't hand you a crowd score. Judge it on the numbers. I'll concede the logic of plastic, mind you. It keeps the cost down, and from across the room the silhouette is what registers anyway.

Pros and cons

What works

• A 3.6-inch king and 2.24-inch squares, both inside US Chess guidance (3.375 to 4.5 inches for kings, 2 to 2.5 inches for squares).
• Beech and birch folding board with two brass clasps and letter and number coordinates on the borders.
• A formed compartment for every piece plus an insert tray, so nothing rattles loose in transit.
• 21.65 inches of playing surface, which is a lot of room for a set that folds.
• Burned ornament detail on the board; the look is the reason to buy this over a plain folding set.

What doesn't

• The pieces are plastic. The listing says so, the title blurs it, and it's the biggest compromise in the box.
• Board weight appears nowhere in the specs, so portability is guesswork until it lands on your doorstep.
• King base diameter isn't listed either, so you can't check the 75 to 80 percent fit against those 2.24-inch squares from the page.
• No rating or rating count on the listing when I checked, which means no owner consensus to lean on.
• 21.65 inches square eats table space; the same 3.6-inch king on 2-inch squares would pack smaller.

Specs at a glance

Alternatives worth a look

If the plastic pieces are the sticking point, hand-carved wood is the fix. My guide to the best Indian chess sets covers the boxwood and sheesham route, where the 32 men carry the money and the board is almost an afterthought. It's a diffrent purchase from the Muba, closer to buying furniture than buying a box.

Want carved figures instead of the clean Dubrovnik line? The medieval end of the market does exactly that, and the better ones still play like chess sets rather than display pieces. I've grouped the ones that don't look like souvenirs in my roundup of the best medieval chess sets.

For novelty, the market splits into licensed boards and hand-carved character sets, and my themed chess sets hub covers both. Neither gives you a folding beech board with two brass clasps, which is the thing the Muba genuinely does well.

And if plastic is fine but you want a different kind of plastic, my lego chess set review covers a build-it-yourself option. You assemble it before you play, which is either the whole point or an immediate dealbreaker.

Should you buy it

Buy it if you want the Dubrovnik look, a 3.6-inch king, and a 21.65-inch board that folds and swallows its own pieces. That combination is why the set exists, and the beech and birch board with two brass clasps is the part you'll still like in five years. Don't buy it if you assumed the men were wood, because they aren't, and no amount of admiring the board changes that. My honest read: a good board with adequate pieces, built for club players who want the silhouette without the carving bill.