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Standard Contrast Rules for Tournament Boards

Posted By: Albert Steg
Date: Monday, 4 May 2015, at 7:54 p.m.

In Response To: Standard Contrast Rules for Tournament Boards (Phil Simborg)

Aesthetically, I favor boards that employ some combination of neutral shades (black, white/cream, tan) with one vivid 'accent' color, which can be a close match to one of the checker colors. A lot of the old boards that came with nice bakelite checkers look very handsome with their simple Black and White Pips on a tan (cork) field. Almost any checker colors look great on this field, and provide ideal contrast for clear vision, and effective streaming. I think a black field with White pips alternating with a single accent color, like orange or green looks and plays great, and as Phil points out, will keep cleaner better. Victor's Zavoral board is a great example.

I have to say that there are a lot of finely-made boards I see being made these days that have stunning bad color combinations, like a drunken magic leprechaun vomited on the table with 5 different seemingly unrelated colors fighting it out or attention. Another really really bad idea is having two different species of the same color clashing -- say forest green checkers with a lime-green point color. No, no no. A close match between one off the checker colors and one of the point colors can be fine, unless the proportion of the points and checkers and the 'flatness' of the colors has the effect of 'hiding' checkers. A swirled or carved checker can help with this this.

Some of this is a matter of taste -- I much prefer the traditional, bold, colors available in the bakelite era far preferable to the crazy range of 'electric' and pastel colors I see a lot of these days. They just look garish.

I'm not calling out any particular makers, and I actually think many makers have both beautiful and ugly boards. As an example, Tak Morioka's boards are among the handsomest around, and I *love* the job he did on mine (but I was really specific about the colors I wanted for the checkers I supplied.):

http://chicagopoint.com/Images/tm/takboards2.html

So, for example, both 16 and 17 have the nice old bakelite checkers, but the color scheme on 17 is totally schizophrenic. #15 has the right idea for a scheme, but I just don't like that green. I'd go blind playing on #13 or #14. B&W checkers can be a good idea -- I'd say #4 is easily one of the the best color designs on the page.

That's maybe more than anyone wanted to hear -- but I think a lot of manufacturers do a far far better job on the actual board construction / materials and sort of 'wing it' on colors, with very unfortunate results.

Albert

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