Background & Mission

Our founder, Peter Shikli, ran his fingers over a large teak chess piece years ago and realized he had to surround his home with this unique art form. With his father a wood carver, Peter had no choice but to start MegaChess.

At a Trade Show

Over the years, we were all surprised at how popular MegaChess became. Besides providing our customers the finest hand-carved chess pieces, MegaChess grew to have another mission. We are on a mission to win young people over from TV and video games, to introduce them to a pastime that uses their minds more than their trigger fingers. We see hoisting giant chess pieces as a way of putting the fun (and even some exercise) back into the learning process, to make it fashionable for our children to think.

A family business where even the Top Model gets to paint

The largest newspaper in our region, the Orange County Register, did a summary of our business. Take a peek at: www.ocregister.com/ocr/2004/07/28/sections/business for an uplifting overview. The newspaper makes you log in to look at the full article "Check mates".

At an Art Show

We have thus launched several initiatives to help chess clubs and schools to inspire our kids to play chess. And we believe the friends kids make playing chess will last longer than the ones met on the corner.

Pummeled by electronic soundbites, artificial entertainment, and growing world violence, we feel it is time to go back a thousand years, to the game of our forefathers. When kings and conquerors met on a battlefield of the mind.

The Wizard (MegaChess CEO) and Harry (MegaChess Founder) inspiring kids to play chess