MINOT (AP) - Chess is more than moving a pawn or a bishop across a chess board. It requires strategy - mental strategy and sometimes, an actual game-face.

"I smile the whole time," said Tyler Kast, a sixth-grader at Minot's Jim Hill Middle School and a member of the school's chess club.

Tyler's insouciant grin makes his opponents sweat and wonder what move he's going to make next.

Fellow chess club member Luke Heilman, also a sixth-grader, prefers an impassive "make my day" expression a la Clint Eastwood. His blank stare makes his opponents think and rethink their own moves.

Tyler and Luke and other chess club members recently demonstrated their psych-out styles and taught the rules of the game to a class of second-graders at Perkett Elementary School.

Club adviser Jane Malsom hopes the game will catch on with children across the Minot school district.

"We want to teach them young," she said.

Jim Hill Middle School currently is the only school in the Minot district with a chess club. The club meets Mondays after school and travels to a state chess meet in the spring. The students also play games against other members of the club at Jim Hill during the school year.

Malsom applied for a grant that paid for T-shirts and travel costs for the team. She hopes to persuade the school board to make chess a school district-sanctioned extracurricular activity. That would mean the district would pay for the cost of traveling to the tournament, and chess clubs might sprout up at the two other middle schools and Minot High School.

Malsom said she hopes her chess club players will return to the school a couple of times this year to work with younger children learning chess.

Studies have shown playing chess can help develop a child's reasoning and logic skills. It's also a game that people can play all their lives and use to "exercise" their brains when they get older.

Tyler and Luke learned how to play the game from their fathers. Other chess club members play the game on the computer or online, facing opponents from around the world.

Malsom left chess games at Perkett Elementary School so second-graders could practice with them for a week. The youngsters said they found it fun, but challenging.

"It's hard," said second-grader Taylor Strand, who said he had never played chess before. "I want to learn it."

Another second-grader, Paige Argent, said she isn't sure if she'll play the game at home, but she would enjoy another lesson.