Vinyl vs Silicone Chess Boards: Which Roll-Up Mat Lasts

Vinyl and silicone are two different plastics, and the difference you will notice is memory. A vinyl chess board keeps the shape you store it in, so a board rolled tight or folded in a box comes out with ridges that never fully go. A silicone board does not take a set: roll it, fold it, sit on it, and it lies flat again when you put it down.

Vinyl is thinner, lighter and cheaper, and it is what most tournament roll-up boards are made from. Silicone costs more, weighs more and grips the table.

Is vinyl the same as silicone?

No. Vinyl is PVC, polyvinyl chloride, a rigid plastic made flexible by adding plasticisers. Silicone is a rubber built on a silicon and oxygen backbone rather than a carbon one. They feel similar in the hand at first, which is why the question comes up, but they behave differently in three ways that matter for a chess board: silicone stays flexible in the cold, it does not go brittle as the plasticiser leaves it over the years, and it does not hold a crease.

Vinyl vs silicone at a glance

What a vinyl chess board is good for

It is the standard for a reason. A vinyl board is cheap enough to own several, light enough that a club can carry twenty to a venue, and it is the format the whole tournament world already uses. If you need a board for a school club, a park, or a box of gear that gets replaced every couple of years, vinyl is the sensible answer and paying more would be a waste.

Store it rolled rather than folded and it stays usable for years. The failures are almost always storage, not the material.

What a silicone chess board is good for

It is the answer to the two things people actually complain about: the board that will not lie flat, and the board that shifts when someone leans on the table.

Silicone grips the surface underneath it, so the board stays put while you move a piece rather than traveling half an inch across the table. Combined with weighted pieces, which stay where they are put, the whole position stops drifting during a long game.

It also takes a spill without consequence. There is no crease for liquid to sit in and nothing to warp, so a wipe with a damp cloth is the whole maintenance story. That is the difference between a board that lives on the kitchen table and one that lives in a cupboard.

The curl problem, and non-curl vinyl boards

Most searches for a non-curl vinyl board are really searches for a fix. There are two.

To flatten a curled vinyl board, roll it the opposite way to the curl, not tight, and leave it rolled for a day or two. If that is not enough, lay it flat under a few heavy books somewhere warm, never hot, for a week. Do not use a hairdryer or an iron on it: PVC softens and stretches before it flattens, and a stretched square is worse than a curled one.

To stop it curling again, store it rolled around something with a wide diameter, a poster tube or a rolled magazine, rather than folded into a box. A crease is a fold, and a fold on vinyl is permanent.

Boards sold as non-curl are usually thicker vinyl or vinyl with a backing layer, which slows the problem rather than removing it. Silicone removes it, because there is nothing to crease in the first place.

Chess mat or chess board, and what size to get

The words are used for the same thing. A roll-up board is often called a chess mat, especially in club and tournament settings, and nothing about the specification changes with the name.

What does matter is the square. The size that matters is 2.25 inches, which is 5.72 cm, and it sits inside the 5 to 6 cm that FIDE asks for. Buy a roll-up board with smaller squares and tournament size pieces will crowd each other, which is the single most common mistake in a first chess purchase. Our own board is 20 by 20 inches with 2.25 inch squares, reversible, green and white on one face and black and white on the other, with the algebraic notation printed on both.

There is more on matching pieces to squares in tournament chess set size.

Which one should you buy

Buy vinyl if you need several boards, if they will be handled by a room full of children, or if the board is a consumable. Buy silicone if this is the board you will use for the next ten years, if it will live somewhere with food and drink near it, or if you have already owned a board that would not lie flat and do not want to do that again.

Both of our sets come with the silicone board, the 3X with triple weighted pieces and the 4X with quadruple weighted ones. See the 3X Tournament and the 4X Tournament Modern, or browse our roll-up silicone chess boards.

Common questions

Can you fold a silicone chess board?

Yes. Fold it or roll it, and it relaxes flat again once you lay it out. A crease from a long journey goes with a few books on top for a day. That is the property you are paying for.

How do you clean a vinyl chess board?

A damp cloth and a little dish soap. Keep alcohol, acetone and any solvent cleaner away from it, because they strip the printed surface. The same rule applies to silicone. There is a fuller version in how to clean and store a roll-up board.

Do tournaments allow silicone boards?

The federations specify the square size and the colors, not the material or the notation. A silicone board with 2.25 inch squares meets the same specification a vinyl one does. Individual organizers can set their own equipment rules, so check the event if it matters.

Why does my new vinyl board smell?

That is the plasticiser, and it fades over a few weeks if you leave the board unrolled somewhere ventilated. Silicone boards do not have it.