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Despite the hot bright sun, Miranda chose to finish beating her father Jay at chess before moving into the shade of the small playground in Greensboros Springdale Park. Last Monday, it took the almost 9-year-old less than half an hour to put the 55-year-old in Checkmate. Just eight days before International Chess Day.

Celebrating July 20 as International Chess Day was first proposed by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1966. The date was chosen to mark the 1924 founding of the International Chess Federation, commonly known by its acronym FIDE (pronouncedFee-Day, from its French name,Fdration Internationale des checs). The concept and date proved so popular that, by the end of the 20th Century, International Chess Day was observed in over a hundred countries.

Despite its worldwide popularity, the holiday was not formally recognized by UNESCOs parent organization until two years ago. In December 2019, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously voted to name July 20th as International Chess Day. Last year, The International Chess Federation asked people around the world to celebrate the holiday by teaching someone to play chess. A press release issued by that organization in July 2020 suggested teaching a child, as it would be easier, and more rewarding to you both.

Ive played chess (albeit never terribly well) for most of my life, having been taught by my father after I bought him a board for Christmas that Id seen him admiring in a Fayetteville gift shop. But the only kids I know belong to my friends.

I initially decided to teach Page Hackenbergs lovely daughter Rosemary how to play the game, but poor Rosie caught a cold the day before our first lesson (dont worry, shes recovering fine). With a deadline looming, I asked various other parents, but their kids either already played or werent interested, necessitating a change in plan.

Then, Erin Poythress told me about the chess games her husband Jay Parr plays with their daughter Miranda. Miranda has been trying to teach me, but so far, Ive managed to dodge her, said Erin, who works from home as an Executive Assistant. Her husband is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

And thats how, two days before my deadline, I ended up watching Miranda and Jay play chess, something theyve been regularly doing since Miranda was seven and her grandparents gave her a Harry Potter chess set for Christmas.

Miranda was delighted by the idea of my watching her trounce her father, but was adamant about one rule: no staged photos.

Were not going to do one of Dad putting me into a mate because that would be completely unrealistic and he literally never does that, she said in Springdale Park as her father set up her Harry Potter chess set on the wooden picnic table which seemed to have the most direct sunlight.

This proved uncomfortable when the clouds broke, but Miranda insisted on not moving until she had finished her dad off. After she did, declaring easy mate, we moved to the shade, where Jay checked his daughter for signs of sunburn. If that happened, and Erin found out I forgot sunscreen, Id be in for some grief, he said with a laugh.

When I suggested that his daughter would never rat him out, Miranda also laughed. Youve just seen me play some vicious chess. Do you really trust me not to rat on him?

I asked her if she recalled the first time she ever beat her dad. Not really. Its happened so often.

Thats fair, said Jay.

I asked Miranda to rate her father as a player.

I think Dad will agree with me on this, she said solemnly. Hes insane. Sometimes, hes insanely good, sometimes hes insanely bad, and sometimes hes insanely crazy. I try to figure out his plot, so I can move out of it, and I try to figure out things he doesnt notice so I can use them to my advantage. To me, chess is strategy, but also luck.

Jay asked me to assure our readers that his daughter was not some sort of real-world version of Beth Harmon, the driven and troubled chess prodigy heroine of Walter Teviss 1983 novelThe Queens Gambitand its 2020 Netflix miniseries adaptation.

Neither of us knows anything about those, he said after I asked if Miranda has a favorite gambit. In chess, a gambit (fromgambetto, an archaic Italian word meaning to trip), is an opening move in which a player sacrifices a piece with the aim of achieving a positional advantage. We just wing it.

I told him thats why I chose them, as I wanted to watch ordinary people play, not experts, obsessive fans, or prodigies.

Then, were not the people to talk to at all, said Miranda. Were not ordinary in any sense.

Nobody really is, I told her.

Thats fair, she said, echoing her fathers earlier remark when she said she always beats him.

Since I couldnt teach Miranda how to play chess, something Jay had obviously done better than I ever could, I wanted to tell her about the games history. But father and daughter were due to meet their mother for lunch, and so, assuming she doesnt already know all about it (a very unsafe assumption), shell have to learn about it by reading this article (hi, Miranda, and thank you).

The true origin of chess is a story lacking in clarity or consensus. Little credible evidence exists that the game existed in anything resembling its modern form before the Sixth Century. Game pieces older than that have been found in China, India, Iran, Russia, and Pakistan, but are now believed to have been used in board games that, while related to chess, also involved dice, and were played on boards with over a hundred squares.

One of those possible ancestors was a war game called chaturanga, which is mentioned in the Mahbhrata, one of the two great Sanskrit epic poems of ancient India. Chaturanga is Sanskrit for the "four divisions of the ancient Indian military: foot soldiers, cavalry, elephant riders, and charioteers. These were represented by the pieces that became the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook.

Chaturanga is considered the earliest precursor of modern chess because of two key features found in all later variants: different pieces had different powers (unlike checkers and go), and victory was based on capturing one piece. When the game spread from India to Persia, players started calling "Shh!" (Persian for "King!") when attacking the opponent's king, and "Shh Mt!" (Persian for "the king is helpless) when the king could not escape from that attack. With the Arab conquest of Persia, chess entered the Muslim world and, through the Moorish conquest of Spain, spread to Southern Europe. But in early Russia, it came directly from the Khanates (Muslim territories) to the south.

The queen, the most powerful piece in modern chess, was originally both much weaker and identified as male. At first, the piece was called the Mantri (Sanskrit for minister or counselor), which was translated by the Persians to farzin, which means counselor or wise man. This was shortened by the Arabs to firz, and this became ferz or fers in Medieval Europe.

In her 2004 bookBirth of the Chess Queen, historian Marilyn Yalom argues that the popularity of powerful medieval queens, including Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of Castile, may have influenced the pieces evolution, especially as chess became a game in which women could compete on equal terms with men. By the 16th Century, that game had evolved into its modern form.

In the 20th century, hundreds of variants of the traditional Western game were invented. Some simply altered the number or distribution of the pieces. For instance, Dunsanys Chess, invented in 1948 by the Anglo-Irish baron, playwright, and fantasy writer Lord Dunsany is an asymmetrical game in which one side uses the standard pieces, while the other uses 32 pawns. Others added new pieces, such as Unicorn Chess, which adds a piece that looks like a Knight with a horn on its head, and can make multiple knight moves in the same direction.

Some variants use the traditional pieces but employ radically different boards. One subcategory of these is three-player chess, using a three-sided or hexagonal board. And then there are the variants that expand the game into a third dimension. These have existed since at least the late 19th century. One of the oldest is Raumschach (German for Space chess ), invented in 1907 by Ferdinand Maack and considered the classic 3D game.

But the most famous variant originally wasnt a real game. Tri-Dimensional Chess started out as a prop played on the originalStar Trek seriesbroadcast on NBC from 1966 to 1966. The initially fictional game made its debut in Where No Man Has Gone Before, the second pilot episode of the series. The unaired first pilot, The Cage, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, had been rejected by the network. Lucille Ball, who co-owned the studio that produced the show, persuaded NBC to reconsider, and a second pilot was shot, with the hero rechristened James T. Kirk and played by William Shatner.

While made first, Where No Man Has Gone Before was the third episode broadcast, originally airing September 22, 1966. It includes a scene of Kirk playing Tri-Dimensional Chess with Leonard Nimoys Mr. Spock.

The prop used to portray the game was constructed with boards from 3D Checkers and 3D Tic-Tac-Toe, real games sold in stores at the time, and used pieces from a futuristic-looking chess set designed by Peter Ganine in 1961. The prop retained the 64 squares of a traditional chessboard but distributed them onto seven separate platforms: three larger ones with fixed positions, and four smaller attack boards that could be moved throughout the game.

In 1975, Franz Joseph wrote and designedThe Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual, a fictional reference book containing details and even schematics of the imaginary technology used in the original series. It also contained plans for building a Tri-Dimensional chess set and a few basic rules. The complete Standard Rules for the game were originally developed in 1976 by Andrew Bartmess, with encouragement from Joseph.

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Checkmate: The world prepares for International Chess Day - Yes! Weekly