I mean you should model the chessboard, it seems , that its just a textured box. For example make some height-difference between the black-white and the wood area... or if you are crazy with lots of free time
, model each square separately, and place them manually, it should give it a realistic feel. And you should change the lightning, i really miss the shadows. And for example a little DoF will be great !
But it is for a model-competition, so these things are not really necessary...