“Ron also started teaching Harry wizard chess. This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron’s set was very old and battered. Like everything else he owned, it had once belonged to someone else in his family — in this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen weren’t a drawback at all. Ron knew them so well he never had trouble getting them to do what he wanted. Harry played with chessmen Seamus Finnigan had lent him, and they didn’t trust him at all. He wasn’t a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him, which was confusing. "Don’t send me there, can’t you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him.”
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 12
I love sooo many things about this:
a) Ron teaching Harry wizard things always makes me smile
b) Ron the strategist (yes, please)
c) Ron being better at something but not being an ass about it
d) The family history in the pieces
e) Old and tattered does not mean bad! And in fact, is sometimes better than new (makes me think of the watch Molly gives Harry in DH)
f) The pieces trust Ron because they know him and his abilities
