I have settled for having mine face to the left as Kasparov and Carlsen do. It could bring me good luck to follow their example.
A guy at work was critical of this and said they should face forwards to show them moving forward. I should have mentioned to him that they have a crooked move. and don't move directly forward but to the side forward.
Another guy asked me what direction the slit in the bishop's miter should face. I had never thought of that.
By the way, I always have to resist orienting my opponent's knights the way I want them to face. If his are facing forward I get the urge to make them face to the side the same way mine do.
Sometimes to annoy my opponent I will face them diagonally off the sides of the board. Right hand knight facing my right elbow, left hand knight facing my left elbow. When I'm feeling less psychotic, I face them to the left like a diagram. Something else that is fun to do to annoy your opponent is rotate them 90 degrees clockwise after every time you move them.
I only started having them face not straight forward less than a year ago. I know of one player who faces his knights backwards and uses the nose as a handle.
Originally posted by Forest9 Pedantic but what the hell. It is "Which direction..." as it is a closed list.
I learned English descriptive notation first and algebraic later. In descriptive notation, it is sometimes helpful to know which is the KN and which is the QN, if both can move to the same square. I have an elegant wooden chess set from the 1940s in which the KN and KR are both marked with a little crown symbol, so I'm not the only one who wants to know which one is the KN or the KR.
Originally posted by moonbus I learned English descriptive notation first and algebraic later. In descriptive notation, it is sometimes helpful to know which is the KN and which is the QN, if both can move to the same square. I have an elegant wooden chess set from the 1940s in which the KN and KR are both marked with a little crown symbol, so I'm not the only one who wants to know which one is the KN or the KR.
Just don't try to place the knights upside down, they don't balance so well. True fact.
In the initial position, Queen's Knight faces towards the Queen, King's Knight faces towards the King. That way later on you always know which is which -- helpful sometimes in following old books in Descriptive notation, as someone else said.