CHECK YOUR BRAINS. Chess makes you smarter. The United States Chess Federation has quadrupled its membership since 1990, thanks to more widespread use of the game for classroom learning and for interscholastic competition.

As for next year's elementary chess championships in Pittsburgh, [chess dad Gregory] Reese [of Milwaukee's southwest suburbs] said he plans to take more kids. He'll spend the year improving the current players' strategies and recruiting more students, especially girls, who are traditionally under-represented in chess clubs. "This is where soccer was 20 years ago," observed [Bob] Patterson-Sumwalt [who founded the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation.] "People are just starting to figure out what chess does for kids."

There's even something called the First Move^(TM) curriculum, which, in a commentary upon the times, has been calibrated to the No Child Left Behind content standards.