Here is a piece done in Cycles. The background light-probe image is from Bernhard Vogl. What do you think?
In my opinion you strongly overused DoF. And I don’t really like the red colour of the queen, it looks very much like blood. But that’s just a matter of taste, of course.
The chessboard texture looks good, I think.
That’s interesting. I appreciate your comments,and I don’t mean to sound stubborn but both the things you don’t like about the image, I do like. I will fiddle around with it. I was divided about the materials anyway.
Overall this looks well rendered. My critiques would be that the queen looks unrealistically shiny. Also the image lacking a narrative draw. Perhaps a planned out chess game configuration that would give chess fans a reason to be interested and to add “drama”.
My critiques? None! Nicely well done! I thought it was real at first.
Looks great, the lighting is awesome. Is the board all one texture? If the marble cracks are a separate texture, I would play around with raising the bump a little.
Thanks for the comments! I updated it with slight changes to the materials. The texture on the board is one image so I cannot raise the cracks, but it’s meant to be polished. I slightly roughened the queen material, and slightly decreased the DOF. In regard to the full chess scenario, I will probably work on it as a separate project.
The link in the original post is also updated.
I think that the first render was better. I think you might want to increase the reflectivity, possibly decrease fresnal. The marble could also probably use some more reflectivity. As for the dof, pull off a little more. Also, Is there a chance that I can have that a link to that lightprobe, I quite like it.
simple but cool 
I like it.
I like that window reflection on the red queen and also the dof and the texture of the table
The lighting is buging me somehow but… it`s ok
Looking good. Raising the roughness helped IMO. I would mess around with the compositor some just to give it a nice touch. Just the basics levels and coloring, nothing too major. Also have you tried different bokeh shapes with the DOF (change the Sides)?
Another minor update. Increased reflectivity of board and queen, and pulled back the DOF.
And the link to the lightprobes.
sorry but the “picture” isnt right. in reallife you need a big telelens and a lot of zoom to get such DOF, what will give another background composition as well. what kind of focal do you use?
the DOF is way way overdone.
how did you make the DOF? with the compositor or by camera properties settings?
I made the DOF with the camera properties, and I’m sorry but that’s one element that I won’t get rid of. I see nothing wrong with having DOF like that. There are plenty of images like that:
In any case, because this is digital, who says I’m not using a big telelens?
Your DOF can look however you want, very nice scene, realistic, but i would suggest adding in same pawns… or a table underneath the board.
I would have thought a fast enough lens, and wide iris and full frame sensor - maybe macro you might get this shallow dof… but I’m only guessing.
An updated render with a table.
First I do really like this but I think the composition could be tweaked to be more dynamic. With just the two Queens on the board it looks like a dual (I presume this was what you where going for). I think you should take that even further and add more threat to the composition like the classic western gunslingers posters, you know the ones where you are viewing from hip/gun level behind one of cowboys. Ok that may look a bit tacky but it’s worth having a play.
An interesting idea but I think I need to see more of the white queen than that.
Improved composition. http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/320/6/4/queens_of_chess_by_clavin12-d4g3uy3.png
and added a counterpart: http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/320/7/1/queens_of_chess_2_by_clavin12-d4gd6l8.png
The first one is really good! Now the picture tells a story 