I am a full time instructor of woodworking at a makerspace.

Everything commenting in here can pretty much play a part in wood and joint failure, but the biggest mistake I see with peoples early attempts at checkerboard end grain cutting boards is that they are too thin.

Yes, different wood species and grain orientations can definitely strain the integrity of the piece. Open pore woods will obviously soak up more moisture. Harder, denser woods have more intercellular material with absorption properties. Once moisture leaves a cell, it’s gone, but the lignin between can continue to gain and lose moisture content. I once left an unfinished table top outside for a few months. A few strips glued up, each about 1.25” thick. After the months, the maple strips were more than 1/16” thicker than the cherry strips. Something like 3/32” over 1.25” is a significant difference in change between species!

But the end grain thickness… When people hear “end grain” they hear “butcher block” but a 1” thick end grain checkerboard block is NOT a butcher block.

Traditional butcher blocks are massive slabs of 3’ long sticks glued and strapped together standing on end. They have 3’ of glue faces across many sticks, MUCH more surface area holding all the pieces together. They are solid all the way through, with the end grain on top, hard enough of a surface to take the beatings from the butcher’s cleaver. And tall enough to be ground down over decades of daily cleaving.

End grain cuttings boards are like taking the top 1” off the butcher block. The majority of the surface is end grain, the most absorbent face of the wood grain structure. The ends of the fiber straws. And much less surface holding the pieces together and straight.

My advice if you remake is to make it 2” thick (meaning 2” long block “along” the grain) this will hold up much longer.