When I was in fifth grade, a buddy named Keith and I started playing chess, and I have been a chess player ever since.

In sixth grade I bought and read Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, and it really helped my game.

I had three chess sets, given to me for various birthdays and Christmases.

My first set was a small brown and tan set, with wooden pieces that lived inside the folding chess board.

I also had a very small red and black magnetic set, sometimes called “travel chess,” since it was the size of a paperback book. The pieces all had magnets in their bases so you could easily pick the set up and move it while to game stayed intact.

By the time I was in junior high, I had an elaborate, ornate Renaissance chess set, with the pieces carved to resemble actual characters, like knights riding atop horses and royalty dressed in long gowns with ornate crowns.

Fast forward to tenth grade, when I joined the chess club and was elected president, then won the fall chess championship at my school.

It sounds like a bigger deal than it really was.

I thought of my chess history recently as I was moving and rearranging some items in the storage area in my house, a room my wife used to call the “terrible room.” As I dug around and sprayed spiders and glanced at old report cards, I found the two chess sets in my life now, a medium-sized tan and brown one, and a very beautiful, and fun to photograph, crystal set, with one side having clear glass pieces, and the other side with frosted glass pieces.

I happen to think that nice things in storage aren’t nice at all, but wasted inside a box or closet, so I elected to set it up on one of the glass-topped tables in my kitchen. It looks great there, and, of course, I had to photograph it.

Now I need someone to come play chess with me!