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A folding chessboard will always have a dividing line in between the 2 halves of the unit.
Is there a guideline where exactly the line should appear; Should it be between the armies (seen mostly) or should it be between the king and the queen?

enter image description here

Notes:

  • Some people use the 2nd way (i.e. line between king & queen) reasoning that white side's rightmost should be a light square. Probably a manufacturing defect?!
  • Above chessboard is only for the illustration purpose. May be I have chosen an image with a wrong arrangement.
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    Personally, I have yet to see a folding chess board folding between Q and K, including all my training demo boards. I did see a quarter-folded chess board, but you can guess the longevity of such a construction...
    – Hauke Reddmann
    Apr 20 at 7:06
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    @HaukeReddmann here I discovered one example with folding between Q and K: reddit.com/r/chessbeginners/comments/rpkdr3/…
    – Christian
    Apr 20 at 7:51
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    @Christian Likely that board is double-sided, meaning the fold would appear between the armies on the other side. See a video of such a board here: youtube.com/watch?v=UhLNUR6OrP4
    – L. Scott Johnson
    Apr 20 at 11:46
  • Occasionally, boards do fold between Q and K. i.imgur.com/m52NSDf.jpg I believe, were it not for the asymmetry stemming from queen and king, it would not seem irritant at all. To verify this, recall the old placement of rajas and mantris in chaturanga. They are placed point symmetrically to the center of the board- rajas facing mantris. The board could be folded vertically without problem.
    – Pattmann
    May 13 at 22:05

2 Answers 2

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I don't know whether there are any 'official' rules about this, but my guess is, that this comes down to the construction of the board.

If you have an example as in your picture it is pretty obvious, as the white pieces go on the first line (Which in the picture is set up incorrectly, as they are on the last line), and thus the folding is between armies.

If you have a board, that does not provide the numbering, you have to look on the field closest to you on your right side: this one has to be a light square. According to my observations, in most cases this means a folding between armies is correct, however, I've also seen one example, where a folding between king and queen was correct.

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It should be between the two armies. Ultimately, the only actual thing that has to be setup correctly is the placement of the king and the queen, the h1 square must be a light square, and the white pieces start on the 1st and 2nd rank (optional).

The picture you have posted is incorrect in that the black and white pieces should be swapped.

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    To clarify: that picture is incorrect in that the black army should be swapped with the white army. We can see this because this chessboard is marked with file-letters and rank-numbers. Each queen should go on a square of her own colour. This means that in that picture the two queens should swap, and the two kings should swap, and so on.
    – Rosie F
    Apr 20 at 5:20

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