PrintWorks New Yorker Chess Set Review: A 13.5-Inch Gift Board

Thirteen and a half inches square, 32 pieces, half an inch deep. That's the PrintWorks New Yorker chess set, and those three numbers do most of the describing. My verdict up front: it's a likable novelty gift for someone who loves New York and plays a little chess, and a frustrating buy for anyone who plays in a club. The gap between those two buyers is the whole review.

The listing itself doesn't help. It's titled "PrintWorks Women's Chess NYC - The New Yorker X" and filed with a clothing-style "One Size" tag, which is a baffling way to sell a board game. Ignore the filing. If you want a wider sense of how these licensed boards stack up, my themed chess sets coverage is the honest starting point.

What it is and who it's for

Here's the complete published spec, and I mean complete: 32 wood playing pieces, a wooden board, New York City themed pieces and a matching board, measuring 13.5 inches long by 13.5 inches wide (34cm), with a depth of 0.5 inches (1.5cm). Colorway is black and white. That's it. No king height, no square size, no wood species, no board weight, no felt description.

So who is this for? Someone who wants a chess set that reads as a New York souvenir, keeps it on a coffee table or a shelf, and plays the occasional game with a friend. The theming is the product. If you're buying for a kid who's just learning the moves, a 13.5-inch board is also a reasonable size to sit across from them at the kitchen table.

What the specs actually tell you

Do the arithmetic on the board. 13.5 inches across eight squares is 1.69 inches per square before you allow for a border at all. Add any frame and you're looking at something closer to 1.5 inches, which is the kind of number that turns a casual game into a negotiation about whether a piece was touching the line. US Chess guidance puts tournament squares at 2 to 2.5 inches, with a king base around 75 to 80 percent of a square. This set is small, and it's small in a way that shows up in play.

The half-inch depth is the more interesting figure. At 1.5cm it'll sit flat on a table without rocking, and it stores on a shelf beside books. The listing doesn't say whether it folds, so I won't claim it does. Don't assume a folding hinge.

Piece size is the real hole in the data. Without a king height I can't tell you whether this is a stubby 2.5-inch set that feels like a toy or a 3.75-inch set with some presence, and I'm not going to guess and dress it up as a spec. PrintWorks comes out of the puzzle and gift world, and licensed sets from that world usually run small. That's an inference, not a measurement. If published numbers matter to you, the unique chess sets I've looked at tend to be more forthcoming with them.

What owners report

Honest part. The listing carries no customer rating and no review count, so I can't hand you a pattern of complaints the way I usually would. I haven't played on this set, and I'm not going to pretend I have.

What I can do is tell you what this format usually gets wrong, based on years of reading reviews of flat, printed, licensed boards. The most common complaint is legibility: themed pieces with low contrast between the two sides are hard to tell apart at a glance, especially under a warm lamp at 9pm on move 30. The second is stability, since light wooden pieces on a thin board tip when you slide them instead of lifting. The third is base wear, where thin felt pads flatten or come off. If a track record of owner feedback matters more than the theme, my best themed chess sets picks have more of it behind them.

I'll concede the counterpoint, too. Plenty of people buy a set like this, play it six times a year, and love it. Nobody at that table is measuring squares.

Pros and cons

Pros

• 32 wood pieces and a wooden board included, not molded plastic.
• 13.5-inch footprint (34cm) fits a side table, a shelf or a small apartment.
• Half-inch (1.5cm) profile stores flat without a bulky box.
• New York City theming on both pieces and board, which is the whole reason to buy it.

Cons

• No square size published, and 13.5 inches over eight squares lands under 2 inches per square.
• No king height, base diameter or wood species listed anywhere.
• No rating or review count on the listing to check quality against.
• Listed under a clothing-style title with "One Size," which makes comparison shopping painful.

Specs at a glance

Alternatives worth a look

The product data for this piece contains one set, so there's no second ASIN to line up against it. I'm not going to invent comparisons. Here's where I'd send you instead, depending on what the PrintWorks set fails to give you.

If you want a set built to be handled and rebuilt over and over, the Lego chess set review covers a brick build with real durability and a known piece count.

If the draw is fandom rather than New York, the best Star Wars chess sets run from shelf pieces to sets you can actualy play on, and several list their board dimensions.

Should you buy it

Buy it as a gift, not as equipment. If you know a New Yorker who plays casually, or you want a wooden set that looks right on a shelf and costs less than a night out, the 13.5-inch PrintWorks board does that job, and the 32 wood pieces beat anything molded. Buy it and don't think about it again.

Skip it if you play in a club, study seriously, or care about knowing what you're getting before it arrives. Under 2-inch squares, a king height the listing won't name, and zero owner feedback is too many unknowns for a board you'd sit at for two hours. A regulation set with published measurements is a better $60 spent, and a better set to teach a kid on, too. Three stars from me: good theme, thin data, and a board that will feel cramped the first time somebody reaches for a rook. <<>>