I've never found the chess event too bad. I guess the problem is that it's exactly as easy (or difficult) to solo as it was back at 70, which I would do every week with my rogue because our guild typically cleared up to Curator on tuesday then come back for the rest friday.
Foolproof chess event strat:
1) Zerg their king with your rooks, one at a time til each rook dies.
2) Zerg their king again with knights.
3) As soon as their king moves up enough to be in range of your queen (3 or 4 rows away), switch to queen and nuke the shit out of him.
I get a win pretty much every time doing this, even if they spawn a bunch of fire under your king; your bishops do a pretty good job of automatically healing him. If you're lucky they'll rush their king forward early and you can get a quick win with your queen, but if not I still usually win while controlling my first knight.