The St. Petersburg Luxury Chess Pieces - 4.2" King - From the Camaratta Collection

"The Maestro has improved upon perfection by combining an asymmetric Bishop's miter with the golden proportions of the St. Petersburg 1914 design, without a doubt one of the finest tournament reproductions ever produced."

The House of Staunton is proud to offer another masterpiece - the St. Petersburg 1914 Chess Pieces, from the Camaratta Collection.

This full Club-sized Chess set features a 4.2" King with a 1.5" diameter base. The Chess pieces are hand carved by our master artisans and crafted out of the highest grade woods. The Chess pieces are heavily weighted with luxurious billiard cloth base pads and a beautiful finish, and weigh 52oz. per set.

An unusual and distinguishing feature of this design is the Bishop's asymmetric miter cut, a detail faithfully preserved from the original St. Petersburg 1914 Chessmen, resulting in the most accurate reproduction ever made.

As with all of our Chessmen, the St. Petersburg 1914 Chess Pieces exemplify a perfect combination of distinct beauty and functionality. They have been designed to withstand the rigors of practical play while maintaining an elegance which has become the hallmark of a House of Staunton chess set. The design, quality and craftsmanship of this set is UNMATCHED by any set of Chessmen in its price range. Nothing even comes close!

The Chessmen are new and each set consists of 34 Chessmen, including four Queens, a standard that was introduced by The House of Staunton in 1993.

History: The St. Petersburg 1914 Tournament

The St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament celebrated the tenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Chess Society. Organizers intended to invite the era's top twenty players, including reigning World Champion Emanuel Lasker, challenger José Raúl Capablanca, and the two winners of the All-Russian Masters' Tournament of 1913-14, Alexander Alekhine and Aron Nimzowitsch. Several invitees could not attend due to rising tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary that year. Leading players from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Cuba, and the Russian Empire ultimately took part.

The main event ran from 21 April to 22 May 1914, with games played at the St. Petersburg Chess Club under a time control of 30 moves in two hours, followed by 22 moves in ninety minutes and 15 moves per hour thereafter.

A preliminary round-robin determined five finalists. Capablanca led the field into the finals with a point-and-a-half advantage over Lasker - a result made more striking by the elimination of Akiba Rubinstein, considered one of the tournament favorites.

The final round pitted the five qualifiers — Capablanca, Lasker, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall — against one another in a double round-robin, with preliminary results carried forward. Capablanca entered as the heavy favorite. But in the nineteenth round, Lasker defeated Capablanca outright; unsettled, Capablanca lost the following round to Tarrasch from what had been a winning position. Lasker's finishing run of seven wins and one loss overtook Capablanca by half a point, in what remains one of the most celebrated championship performances in the tournament's history. Siegbert Tarrasch later documented the tournament in a book, published in German and not translated into English until 1993.

It offers the highest level of detail and would make a wonderful addition to any Chess collection.