Chess, as a sport, has never attracted heavy television coverage. The focused intensity of former NASA engineers and fashion-starved mensa kids does not project the kind of sex appeal provided by a pair of 34C’s bouncing their way through, well, any kind of environment you can imagine. Chess is not in the movement; it is the spaces in between, the slowly honed strategy emerging from the mists of muscle-less rigor, the quick, agile hand darting across the serious white and brown squares of the playing field.

But this does not make it any less enjoyable. Spend enough time in a chess environment and not only you will stop calling the knight a “horsie” but you will begin to appreciate this quiet, rarely glimpsed realm. Nerds, it should be said, have the grace and tranquility you rarely find in high powered professionals. Nerds not only know how to survive the apocalypse, they have the exact coordinates of its starting locale. As they sweep their bishops and rooks gingerly across the chess board, you know that somewhere in their brain lurks the secret to your future survival.

Focus on your opening, sure, but never underestimate the fun of a drawn-out endgame, rooks and pawns racing each other to get to the back rank. First-time chess goers may want to cover their eyes for the first checkmate, as its intensity may frighten the unaccustomed.

Remember: chess is not a blood sport, just a simulacrum.