(CROSSVILLE, TN) (Crossville, TN) “Beauty and the Geek”© TV celebrity, Joe Block, is scheduled to appear at the National High School Championship tournament in Milwaukee on Saturday, April 22. The U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) will be holding their 38th annual National High School Chess Championship at Milwaukee’s Midwest Airlines Center, corner of 4th and Wisconsin, from April 21 to 23, and expect over 1300 young chess enthusiasts to compete for national titles.

Joe Block, a life-long chess player, and a recent finalist on the reality TV show “Beauty and the Geek,”© is a 24-year-old graduate student in mechanical engineering at Northwestern University in Chicago. The show, aired earlier this spring on WB Network, dubbed him “Speed Chess Champion.” Joe says that is inaccurate; he just loves to play blitz chess. Be sure to read the column about Joe on page 7 in the April edition of “Chess Life.”

Joe was Chess Club president at the University of Chicago in 2001-2002. He was on the UC chess team when they placed/won in the Amateur Championship and Pan-American Championship. In the past, he has won money for placing at the Chicago Open in the U1400.

He spends a lot of time playing chess in the pavilion at the North Avenue Beach in Chicago. But, as Joe admits, people just jog or rollerblade by, and don’t even seem to know that chess exists.

Like most chess players, Joe is multi-dimensional. He’s the drummer in the “melodic rock” band “Gnome Attic,” which is playing in the Milwaukee area the weekend of the tournament.

Joe will give a talk on Saturday, April 22 at 12:30 in Room 202C on his experiences on the show and what he learned from the “beauty” who was his partner. He’ll also be available to play blitz chess in the bookstore for anyone up to the challenge. With a respectable USCF rating of 1590, Joe often beats higher rated players at blitz.

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The United States Chess Federation (USCF), founded in 1939, serves as the governing body for chess in the United States and is now headquartered in Crossville, Tennessee. USCF is devoted to extending the role of chess in American society. It promotes the study and knowledge of the game of chess, for its own sake as an art and enjoyment, and as a means for the improvement of society. The USCF is a not-for-profit membership organization with over 80,000 members. For additional information on the USCF see: http://www.uschess.org.