...but the title was slightly different (included "Trice's"), right? I read the thread earlier this week and couldn't find it later. Odd.
Great Games of Gothic Chess
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GrandPatzerDave wrote:
...but the title was slightly different (included "Trice's"), right? I read the thread earlier this week and couldn't find it later. Odd.
Yeah apparently Amazon sells something called a "Gothic Chess set" which was made by an artist/sculptor named Ganine. He licensed the term Gothic Chess to the people that made his plastic pieces. Kids were asking their moms for a "Gothic Chess set" for Christmas. Moms would google it and get links back from Amazon. Moms were ordering the regular chess pieces and not the chess variant. Kids would open up the sets, be disappointed, then moms would send it back to Amazon. Amazon was losing money on refunds. Not too many at first, but a couple hundred one year, then over 1000 at the peak of COVID. Once Amazon figured out Trice's Chess was the thing they were looking for, they sent the inventor a few letters. He was asked to change the name "or else" so he did, not wanting to fight with Amazon. The irony is, the Ganine sellers eventually dropped off Amazon, one at a time, until there's no sign of them anymore. But Amazon hasn't taken away their demand, so the name change to Trice's Chess is probably permanent.
Gorgon_Slayer wrote:
GrandPatzerDave wrote:
...but the title was slightly different (included "Trice's"), right? I read the thread earlier this week and couldn't find it later. Odd.
Yeah apparently Amazon sells something called a "Gothic Chess set" which was made by an artist/sculptor named Ganine. He licensed the term Gothic Chess to the people that made his plastic pieces. Kids were asking their moms for a "Gothic Chess set" for Christmas. Moms would google it and get links back from Amazon. Moms were ordering the regular chess pieces and not the chess variant. Kids would open up the sets, be disappointed, then moms would send it back to Amazon. Amazon was losing money on refunds. Not too many at first, but a couple hundred one year, then over 1000 at the peak of COVID. Once Amazon figured out Trice's Chess was the thing they were looking for, they sent the inventor a few letters. He was asked to change the name "or else" so he did, not wanting to fight with Amazon. The irony is, the Ganine sellers eventually dropped off Amazon, one at a time, until there's no sign of them anymore. But Amazon hasn't taken away their demand, so the name change to Trice's Chess is probably permanent.
Interesting backstory - I didn't know the Amazon connection. It did seem, though, that Ed was never thrilled with the name "Gothic" but gotta have some name, right? (I would've liked "Chess-80" as a name.)
The only Ganine Gothic sets I see (originally produced by the now-defunct Pacific Game Co. decades ago) are on eBay. Hard to imagine that someone stockpiled enough sets back then to maintain sales through Amazon. Nothing like a little weird, I guess...
I still wonder what happened to the thread from earlier this week...maybe it got "Amazoned" too? 
Could have sworn this was a topic here already. One of the best variants on chess dot com