By the time I reached kindergarten, my dad had taught me how to play chess.

            We sat at the kitchen table and he showed me where to place the pieces on the board. Everything made sense in my six-year-old mind; there were castles and horseys and bishops, like at church—and there were ponds. Dad explained that in chess, castles are called rooks, horseys are called knights, and yes, they’re bishops like at church. But he didn’t explain that the ponds were actually pawns, because he didn’t know I was confused and neither did I. Only later, around the age of ten, did I realize that ponds were actually pawns, and the childhood discrepancy was settled.  

            My dad taught me chess tactics, too. He advised:  Always get your knights and bishops out early, control the center of the board, and castle as soon as you can. He showed me how to win a game with only two pieces, a king and a rook. He showed me how to win a game with only four moves, start to finish.

            He taught me to love chess, like he does, like his father did.

            Now, so many checkmates later, chess isn’t so much a game that I play as it is a memory linking together the family generations. My grandpa died three years ago, my dad only plays chess occasionally, and I’m married in college with a life that yields little mention of chess at all. But I still love it. I love a game I rarely play, because the places and people connected to the game last longer than the pieces and moves and games themselves.

            When I first learned to play, Dad was a chess fanatic. He played at home, across the table from me, or one of his close friends, or anyone who had the slightest interest in chess. Dad played at picnics, church socials, and official chess tournaments. He played chess online (three or four nights a week) against people from all over the world. For a while, he even played chess by mail. Books of chess strategy lined a shelf on the bookcase in his office. A new edition of Chess Life magazine arrived each month, and we were members of the U.S. Chess Federation.

            At one point, Dad built his own chessboards. He made two of them, one to keep and the other to give to Grandpa. He cut each block separately, and then glued the alternating dark and light wooden pieces together. He sanded the checkered boards to a sliding smooth finish and stained them so they shined. Some of the squares were uneven, and I think one side of the board might have been longer than the others, but my dad’s not a carpenter—he just loves chess.

            Whenever I played chess against Dad, he’d give up one of his pieces before the game even started. “Choose any one of my pieces,” he’d say, “and I’ll play without it.”  I picked the queen every time—the tall, elegant, merciless queen, invaluable for her versatility—but even with this handicap, my dad always won.   

            I can easily see why my dad loves chess, because bishops and rooks crisscross through the memories I have of my grandpa. I grew up in Ohio, and Grandpa lived in Utah, so I only saw him for a week or so every other year. My dad says Grandpa played a lot of chess as a twenty-year-old merchant marine, especially when he was stuck in the hospital with tuberculosis. Move after move, the games piled up because the hospital staff wouldn’t let Grandpa out of bed to do anything else. Fifty years, nine kids, and thirty grandkids later, he was still playing. When the aunts, uncles and grandkids filled his house during the holidays or summer break, Grandpa played with anyone who could sit at the table and reach the pieces. “Anyone up for a game of chess?” he’d ask the crowd.

            Grandpa used a favorite set of small wooden pieces and the shiny smooth board that my dad had given him. Whenever I played with Grandpa, he would go easy on me; he’d say, “Now are you sure about that move?  I’ll let you take it back if you want.”  But even with the help, I still never beat him.

            Grandpa had taught my dad to play chess, and Dad told me his chess life story—he learned from Grandpa, then joined the chess club in high school, and played and played, and read and studied all those strategy books, until finally he beat Grandpa. And Grandpa used to tell me the same story, except slower and with a bigger smile. He explained how Dad joined the chess club in high school, and played and played, and read and studied all those strategy books, until my dad finally beat my grandpa. The way Grandpa told me the story; I could tell he was proud of my dad.

            I love chess because my dad loves chess, and because my Grandpa loved chess.

            Now just a few years after Grandpa’s death, I’ve learned more about him. I know that his favorite nighttime snack was bread with milk. I know that when he had an old car, he usually didn’t sell it—he just gave it away. I know that my grandma and my aunts asked for a dented coffin when Grandpa died, because Grandpa was as thrifty as they come.

            My grandma cried when she gave me the favorite set of chess pieces and the solid smooth board that belonged to Grandpa. And that seems right, because most of what I know about Grandpa, passed on by my dad, is chess—moves and schemes shifting and twisting into beautiful synchronous sense.