On the night before the Fourth of July, Patricia's parents are around the dinner table. They then announce the guests they will be hosting for Independence Day.

"Tomorrow, we will have guests. Maybe you remember Bohdan and Yakiv among the guests" Patricia's mother tells the whole family.

Last I saw them, they made me play ChGK. I disliked the game back then, but for after-hour outings, my colleagues avoid bars because bars remind them far too much of their jobs. Or more specifically, their patients. This means I can't fit bar trivia my in social life. When you work around mentally ill people and/or addicts day in, day out, you want something different and non-addictive. I feel my own intellect suffering at times at work. Cooking wine alcoholic this, lack of activities for outpatient addicts that... My job is not the most intellectually stimulating in the world, but at least it pays the student debt, Patricia dives deep in thought upon hearing about these two first-generation Ukrainian immigrants being invited over to their home on the Fourth of July. I may as well ask about whether they're still playing this riddle contest.

But then her train of thought "resurfaces" and she decides to get a recipe for some of the items on what they intend to serve tomorrow. While her parents prepare hamburgers, Patricia, on the other hand, plans on preparing the apple pie, using store-brand ingredients whenever possible. And, of course, corn on the cob. After all, they eat corn on the cob regularly during summer.

That said, it's the pie that makes Patricia work harder in the kitchen. Especially with the crust, since she shapes the top so that a tryzub (i.e. an Ukrainian emblem, which was common in her early childhood) motif would appear. Corn on the cob only requires peeling off the ear before they grill it. But once the pie is done, she could put it in the refrigerator before returning to her bedroom.

Once in her bedroom, Patricia gets more flashbacks from her last meeting with Bohdan and Yakiv, along with their respective relatives. Obviously, if you spoke Russian at an appropriate level for the ChGK Worlds, you would definitely make our team! Bohdan's voice rings in her head. If he believes quiz bowl translates well enough to ChGK that I can play it competitively with them, there's a lot of questions remaining! He only told me about the basics of ChGK. There are online tournaments, and championships at the state, national and world level but that's all I know about ChGK tournaments.

"Bozhe moy! (Oh my god!) There's playing ChGK, and there's playing it competitively. I have a lot of questions about competitive play. Is Chto, gde, kogda going to fill that void in my personal life?" Patricia utters, a little confused about some aspects of ChGK.

"What void?" Patricia's mother asks, puzzled about hearing the words "void in my personal life" from Patricia.

"It's about intellectual voids. For much of my life, I was always told about how my intellect was an asset, but I feel like I can't use it at work as I would have liked" Patricia then starts crying. "I also want to prevent it from being a stranded asset"

"What exactly is a stranded asset?" Patricia's mother asks her daughter, not knowing anything about accounting.

"Stranded assets typically lose, or lost, usefulness for their owners"

You must keep using your intelligence regularly or you lose it. For my entire life, I was used to operate at a certain intellectual level. For better or for worse, my intellect is part of who I am. However, it's not about showing off how smart I am, Patricia muses, while trying to stop crying.

"I don't know... maybe you could try reading some material outside of medical or business publications" her mother tells her daughter about how to prevent intellectual decay.

"Modern literature just isn't that stimulating to me. Themes are pretty shallow. If you're talking about reading nonfiction, however, I have so much choice in topics that I often can't seem to decide what to read when I have time to do so"

"Honey, I never saw anyone else your age tie so much of who they are as a person on their intellect. But you know there's more to you as a person than just what's in your head"

The following day, the family's guests arrive, and Bohdan, being the first to arrive, recognizes her almost instantly despite their last encounter dating as far back as high school.

"Privet. (Hello)" Patricia then greets Bohdan.

"It's been years since we last met each other. Even as far back as high school, you were the erudite of the family. I also remember you on a video from VGTRK; your team sure showed these Russian blyady (bitches) on the buzzer!" Bohdan exclaims, while looking up that video on his cell phone.

"It was a team-wide effort, and, speaking of VGTRK, let's say that, during all those years in college where we went to ACF Nationals, we could enter it without paying entry fees. And teams will continue to do so until VGTRK stops paying the tournament's bills"

That was the only female-only edition of the Quiz Bowl World Cup; Russia suffered a lot of backlash internationally over the female-only nature of this tournament! Subsequent World Cups were mixed. Russia won the middle school division that year, which, in later years, led the Russian Union of Quiz Bowl to focus on middle school over college, more flashbacks come to her as Bohdan shows her the clip from the collegiate division of the Quiz Bowl World Cup, held at Ostankino Palace's Ballroom Theater.

On the clip, the Green Wave ladies accomplished what Imélie, the Green Wave's player-coach at the time, set out to do. That is, crush the Russians on the buzzer, using Russian sets on Russian soil. Beating the Red Army in the very heart of Moscow.

But then they stop talking about quiz bowl and they catch up on each other in other areas, namely their professional lives.

And then the rest of the guests arrive, within minutes of each other:

"I guess you already know Yakiv, but here are our other teammates: this is Vira, and this is Sergei" Bohdan then runs down the other two teammates present to celebrate the Fourth of July with Patricia's family, alongside their respective families. "They are my ChGK teammates. Unfortunately, one of the teammates is a little sick, and another one passed away this year"

"I remember you: when you were in high school, you had some reservations about playing ChGK. Maybe you have changed during those years in college, maybe you would be willing to give ChGK another chance" Yakiv then tells her.

"I'm Sergei, Yakiv's nephew. My uncle made me play ChGK when another of his old teammates stopped playing"

"In the past five years, we replaced two players. But Bohdan and I form the core of the team" Yakiv explains to them.

I really wonder what was holding back our team. Our best finish at the ChGK Nationals was a 17th place five years ago. No further top-20 since. Fingers crossed that I can get Patricia to play again, Bohdan muses, while a lightbulb flashes in his mind. If it's erudition, then I have great hopes in Patricia.

"Sometimes, to do well in ChGK, you may want to write your own questions. So, for now, we'll write two questions, and we will ask them" Bohdan tells Patricia. "Once you ask a question, you cannot participate in discussions about it until the sixty seconds are up"

"I'll go first" Patricia announces the group. "I'm willing to give ChGK another chance"

If I remember correctly, ChGK questions feel like riddles. So here we go, Patricia thinks while her brain is going into overdrive. She starts formulating the first question on a dime and ask it a few moments later:

"During the American Revolution, the roof of this building in Boston was used for counter-intelligence by the Thirteen Colonies. Name this building" Patricia starts asking her question for this drill.

"Counter-intelligence? What's counter-intelligence?" Sergei asks, while the others think about what use could a rooftop be for counter-intelligence in the 18th century, rather than as an early warning system.

"The key to Patricia's question lies right there: determining how a rooftop could be used as a device to catch spies" Yakiv comments on his nephew's remarks.

"A place where the Thirteen Colonies could leak false documents to suspected British spies?" Vira asks the other 3 players present. "Why do so on a rooftop? They could simply do it indoors, or just outside, in the dead of night"

"Patricia wouldn't be mentioning this building's roof if the roof didn't house some device used for catching spies!" Bohdan adds to the chorus of comments.

"On top of that, in that era, suspected spies would usually prowl around civic or government buildings" Yakiv continues.

That's already better than some other people I heard about around me: some of them wouldn't even know about who fought in the American Revolution, Patricia reflects on what the foursome discussed for the last 60 seconds. Once the 60s are over:

"Your answer please" Patricia warns the ChGK players.

"Architecture of that era always had sloped roofs and weather vanes on top. So it could have been any civic or government building on the Freedom Trail" Bohdan explains to the host.

"Faneuil Hall" Patricia then reveals the answer. "You were right in that Faneuil Hall is on the Freedom Trail, however"

"Remember Nationals about three months ago: this is at least as difficult as questions at Nationals, and this could even be a question at Worlds! Just that we never had a sliver of a chance to win at Nationals" Vira comments on the question itself, while facing the other 3 ChGK players.

"Remember who tends to dominate the fields at the ChGK Worlds: ex-USSR countries. The only reason why this would have been a question at ChGK Worlds is because question writers at Worlds tend to know American history at a very superficial level at best" Bohdan explains to Patricia and Sergei, while the other two know better.

While the next 4 questions asked after this one don't seem to be history-themed questions, Patricia always seems to give them a fighting chance to "take" (answer correctly) a question. Before Patricia even have a chance to ask her second question:

"You said that you never had a sliver of a chance to win at Nationals, but what did you struggle most in? Is it a specific area? Is it something more general?" Patricia asks the foursome of Ukrainian immigrants, first or second-generation.

"There's something I don't understand. When you were in high school, you had the impression the questions were deliberately confusing; now you seem much more comfortable playing it" Yakiv points out to her.

"It has to do with how college coursework differs from high school coursework" Patricia explains to the players.

They keep quiet about what they feel are the problems of the team, about how they seem to hit a ceiling at the ChGK Nationals. Not that they wanted to discuss the team's issues with Patricia, they wanted to finish the drill first, with Patricia's second question of the drill being the following:

"This slogan is about one of the two unavoidable things in life; however, the slogan is not about on whom its burden falls. What is the slogan?" Patricia asks.

"That's much easier than your previous question. And this is the kind of question I can plausibly see being asked at the state level, or on a blitz at Worlds" Vira comments on the question.

"The two things that are unavoidable are death and taxation, so the slogan has to do with one of those two things" Yakiv points out to the group of four players.

"A slogan about either death or taxation that isn't about on whom its burden falls...." Sergei sighs and starts thinking before he proposes an answer a few seconds later. "No taxation without representation?"

"Correct. But I have a few questions, Vira: first, what's a blitz and second, I have no idea how hard questions are" Patricia asks Vira.

"A blitz, in ChGK, is a special kind of question split into three sub-questions, and usually have no relationship to each other, unlike quiz bowl bonuses. You usually have twenty seconds to answer a sub-question in a blitz. As for question difficulty, you are forgiven for not knowing how hard questions are since you have no experience of tournament play" Vira explains to Patricia.

The rest of the drill proceeds with Patricia doing some work on answering the final 4 questions the drill comprised.

Once the drill ends, Bohdan comes forward, fully convinced Patricia was to provide what his past teammates couldn't.

"Patricia, by now it's obvious where you're going to fit on our team. I hereby offer you a position on the Kansas State Team" Bohdan tries to shake Patricia's hand.

"I have a few questions: first, how often are practices and tournaments held?" Patricia asks, wanting to gauge the time commitment before deciding.

The player who died this year was not nearly as good as Patricia. Sergei just doesn't feel the same as her. He first came on the team when the last player divorced because he got a new job in the renewable energy sector. Or, should I say, Vira's ex-husband and therefore Yakiv's ex-stepbrother, since Yakiv is Vira's brother. I don't think Sergei is an improvement over his father. The question then becomes: is Patricia enough of a difference-maker to push Kansas into national title contention? If so, Kansas will take the US ChGK circuit by storm and qualify for the ChGK Worlds! Bohdan reflects on his dealings with Patricia in ChGK.

"Ideally, we communicate tournament schedules weeks in advance, and normally we aim for an online tournament every two to three weeks" Bohdan then tells the player he wants to woo. "They're usually held at night Kansas time, but for the organizers, it usually means morning"

"I wonder how you guys even won a state championship without me. How am I different from past players who left?" Patricia asks, still clueless about the context of the team, and then turning to Vira.

"Sergei's father had unremarkable erudition, well, the whole team, really" Vira starts answering. "Even if you had a team that worked well together, there is only so much teamwork can do. But you must understand that Kansas does not have much ChGK talent. While we might have won several state championships in a row, the margins are not that large between us and the second-best team"

For now, however, I am not sold on whether my son's erudition is better than his father's, especially not since college, as Patricia said earlier, had a different style of teaching. You do gain, yes, erudition, just unevenly so. And yet, my son's education at Trinity College, while only ultimately somewhat more expensive for us than KU would have been, was only marginally better to his eyes, Vira reflects on her son's education.

"Also, Vira, are there publicly available sets from past ChGK Worlds?" Patricia asks, puzzled about Vira's repeated mentions of question difficulty during the drill.

"Yes. One more thing: the "shelf life" of ChGK questions in tournaments is thirty days from the date of first use. After that, they become clear for practice" Yakiv explains to her.

"If you think erudition is what made me different from the other players, my weakness is popular culture. Sergei is better in that area than I" Patricia tells her would-be teammates. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It might feel that I could be what we need to get to the ChGK Worlds, but there's a difference between how I perform in drills and ChGK tournaments"

"One last thing: if you accept, we may as well give you our contact information now. In addition, should you accept, please register at the IAMG and we will add you to our roster on the IAMG system" Bohdan warns Patricia.

"IAMG?" Patricia asks, confused.

"The IAMG is the International Association of Mind Games. The international federation of competitive ChGK. Its website is in Russian, though" Bohdan continues.

"All right"

Patricia then collects the other 4 players' contact information, before opening the IAMG's new player registration page. I guess, here goes nothing. And, of course, I know better than to take for granted that I will actually deliver on what these Ukrainian refugees hope I could bring to them, Patricia muses while she enters her information in the IAMG's registration form.

But then they keep playing ChGK, using 3 different question packets so that Patricia can get a better idea of what questions would be like at the state, national and international levels.

"One last thing: in ChGK, questions lean more heavily towards the arts and literature, and science takes up less space, when compared to quiz bowl" Sergei explains to her.

Then comes the time for Patricia to bake the pie she prepared yesterday, while Sergei cooks mushrooms using sunflower oil, cooking wine and garlic when the apple pie is being baked.

When dinner time comes, the ChGK players and their relatives can't help but look at all the dishes they have on hand for the dinner. And, of course, the apple pie with the tryzub on the top of the crust.

What did I get myself into? I might have some promise as a ChGK player, but at this point there is still so much I don't know about the game. As such I have no clue as to how vital the missing knowledge really is. But, on the flip side, ChGK is a complete unknown here, on the prairies of Kansas. Only time will tell whether I will deliver on that promise, Patricia reflects on her return to ChGK.