Who wouldn’t want a chess board that moves its own pieces?

Any player of a certain vintage will have owned a computerised chess board, where you were forced to move the pieces to wherever the digital Kasparov demanded via its LEDs. But what about a chess board that can move its own pieces?

That’s exactly what’s on offer from Square Off, a chess board that magically (or, more accurately, magnetically) slides it own pawns et al into the right position. In my short video below, you’ll see how the computer moves a rook in the top-left hand corner of the board:

Unlike those bleepy boards from the 80s, you don’t only get to take on the computer. The Square Off can be linked to renowned chess site Chess.com, letting you pit your pawns against 16 million other players worldwide.

There are two versions of the board. The $249 Kingdom Set which you can see in the video, or the larger $299 Grand Kingdom Set, which has a “designated parking space” for each piece and an auto reset feature to put all the pieces back where the Chess Gods intended.

I’m desperately trying to squeeze one in my suitcase on the way back from Vegas.

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