Zoë Blade's notebook

Latvian chessmen

Latvian chessmen are a style of chessmen.

As with Eastern and Central European chessmen in general, they're abstracted enough for each piece to be instantly recognisable. Here, it's the royalty whose hats wear the opposing colour, in contrast with the Bishops doing so in Coffeehouse and Dubrovnik chessmen.

They're simple enough to scale nicely to a regular size. A full sized version can be seen in the final tournament of the miniseries The Queen's Gambit.

Styles of chessmen: Bauhaus chessmen | British Birds chessmen | Coffeehouse chessmen | Dubrovnik chessmen | Latvian chessmen | Lewis chessmen | Staunton chessmen