It’s hard to explain if you’ve never played. Chess to me was one of the first games I remember having a complete infatuation with as a kid. My older sister by seven years grew up longing that her younger brothers would eventually engage enough mental ability to be come a more interactive playmate.

This was a process she did her best to speed up by trying to teach us how to read, play and compete at a very young age. Besides being able to read “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” and “Goodnight Moon” before entering kindergarten, I also had a firm grasp on the basics of checkers and Go Fish.

Watching my sister and parents slide polished wooden figures of crowns, castles and horses across the board in what seemed like completely random ways fascinated me. With cool sounding names like pawn, king, rook and knight, I was dying to command my own army.

I begged to learn and my sister begged me to play and the two eventually met sometime after I began school. I don’t remember the first game or how old I might have been, but I remember cheating and faking most of the moves because at first I couldn’t keep it all straight.