Denny North, a Mensa member from Northern California, challenged Peter Shikli, the CEO of MegaChess, to a chess game in 2005.

But it wasn't to be any old chess game. Denny researched the Guinness Book of World Records and found the largest official chess game used a king barely 3 feet tall. "We can beat that," proposed Denny.

"If we're to be the world's largest manufacturer and distributor of the world's largest chess sets," decided Peter, "we have to beat that record.

So it was that forms were filled out and the two learned the exacting nature of an official Guinness record attempt. With the press and prominent witnesses in attendance, the big day happened on September 5, 2005.

Denny and Peter squared off with a teak MegaChess set with a king carefully measured to be 47 inches tall.

The game was evenly matched until two 9-year-old girls in the audience started kibitzing in unison. One of the perks of being official witnesses was that kibitzing was allowed. They had spotted a move, and with pigtails flapping, they insisted Peter take Denny's bishop.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," recalls Peter, but before the dust settled, Denny had taken a bishop and a knight in revenge. It went downhill from there for Peter until he ceded the largest chess game in the world to Denny.

Some months later, with the Guinness certificates on the wall, the two began plotting their next record attempt with an even larger MegaChess set. Stay tuned.