Doing the challenge here I realized how little I know about lighting… and how much setting good lighting takes and how big of a difference does it make…
During lighting setup I remade all of the materials… Shiny ceramic/marble for a chess board. Dark side 
is bronze, the low poly side looks IMO best with a wooden material. It kinds of remind me of a simple chess set that could be carved out of piece of a wood.
And of course I spent waaaaay too long for this “simple” exercise. And of course not fully satisfied with the outcome yet… but got to move on 
. In the end, the 2 renders that I’m most satisfied with have a setup with 3 spot lights and with/without HDR.
Below are 2 versions. First with softer lighting and without HDR background adding to the lighting:
And the version with more intense lighting with HDR background:
