About
Beginnings...
My first chess-themed icons were created somewhat out of necessity, through my interest in a very different type of chess art – the composition of chess problems. Some problem-solving software available (e.g. Popeye), though indispensable, lack their own program icons. Hence I was tempted to create suitable ones for them, especially since there were icon editors, such as IcoFX, that made the task quite manageable.
After releasing the early versions of Chessicons as a free download, I received the occasional emails from people who indicated they have utilised the figurine designs of the set to make chess diagrams. Though that wasn’t my intention, it does make sense to adapt the icons for this purpose. So eventually I tried my hand at producing such diagrams myself, and the results lead to Diagramkit v1.0.
Chess Problems
Some of the illustrations on this site feature actual chess problems. These quoted works are mostly well-known, but a few comments are provided below for chess-playing visitors who are not problem-addicts.
The reflected position on the Home page is a “mate in 2” problem by Comins Mansfield, the late grandmaster of chess composition.
On the Diagrams page, the brown board on the right shows a “proof game in 12.5 moves” (2 solutions) by Dmitry Pronkin. The task is to reconstruct the shortest game that leads to the diagram position.
Two of the positions in the wallpaper ‘Classic endings’ are too famous to require a comment. The middle diagram is not an endgame study, but a 2-move problem from the Bonus Socius Manuscript, a collection dated to the 13th century.
The cube on this page shows another proof game, by yours truly, and it’s easily the least well-known of the problems presented here :-). The three sides of the cube give slightly different positions, each of which must be reached in 7 moves.
For a general introduction to the art of chess composition, see my Problem World articles on the OzProblems site.
Contact
My email address is peterwong@virtualpieces.net. Feedback and requests are welcome. If you wish to seek permission for using Virtual Pieces graphics in your application (or on your website), let me know its web address if available, and mention whether it’s freeware or a commercial project.
Copyright Info
The contents of this site are copyright © 2008-2021 by Peter Wong. Chessicons, Diagramkit, and the wallpapers are freeware for personal, non-commercial use only. All other uses, including display on websites and redistribution of the files, require my permission.