While most of the competitors around them had already finished their matches, Samuel Lewis and Donald Poston still sat face to face across a table , with nearly the exact same pieces left on the board.

Each player had a king and a rook. Samuel, an 11-year-old Kearny Elementary student, had three black pawns. Donald, a 9-year-old student at Aspen Elementary in Los Alamos, had four white pawns.

After the players took each other's rooks, they both started to march their remaining pawns toward the opposite side of the board, hoping to promote the humble pieces to queens.

Donald got there first and eventually used his king and queen to corner Samuel's king. Samuel was forced to play defense, but in the end there was no place to run. Donald placed him in checkmate and immediately reached across the table for a game-ending handshake.

The boys were just two of the more than 40 kids who played Tuesday in the Northern Schools Chess League Kickoff Meet at the Elks Lodge.

"It's a strategy game, and I like things that challenge my mind," Samuel said.

The sixth-grader started playing in first grade, he said, because his older brothers played. Now he's the best player on the Kearny team.

Donald's introduction to the game was more of an accident.

"He got in trouble in kindergarten," said Donald's dad, Dave Poston. As punishment, Donald was forbidden to play any video games except chess on the computer. "He got really good, really fast," Poston said. Now they travel to tournaments around the state, and even some out of state.

For some parents and players, Tuesday night was their first meet. Roslynd Ellvinger was there to watch her son Samual play. "He's always played chess with his dad," she said, but this is his first year with the team. "He just had a natural interest in it."

Unlike at athletic events, where they're allowed to cheer, parents at Tuesday's meet were quiet spectators and most sat in chairs against a wall. That was OK with Elizabeth Coleman, whose son was playing. "I think it's fine to be on the sidelines and just support them," she said.

Andy Nowak, the league's organizer, has been involved with chess in Northern New Mexico for 30 years. He started with high-school students in Los Alamos and eventually moved on to middle- and elementary-school kids.

But it's been more than 15 years since he's been involved with elementary schools, he said, and decided to get back into it because there was no league for elementary students.

He has scheduled three more meets and a league final. "I'm pretty happy to see it started again," he said Tuesday, "and I'm hoping to see it grow."

For more information about the Northern Schools Chess League, call Nowak at 988-1570.