[silversurfer]

[ QUOTE ]
I was the top chess-player at my H.S. (even though I'm not really very good).

I wasn't even close to being the smartest person at my H.S.

I don't even think I was in the upper 50% in intelligence amongst my 5 or 6 chess teammates. I actually may have been dead last.
(we had some really smart guys on our chess team...I just happened to be better at chess than all the geniuses for whatever reason)

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here, MicroBob. I was the best chess player in mine as well (I would guess I had a rating of 1700-1800, then again, there were only 10 or so who played on a regular basis out of 700), but finished in the middle of my class. Then again, I was (and still am) pretty damned lazy (the guy who posted about drifting into his job unshaven made me chuckle).

Keep in mind as well: there are also varying types of intellect (can't remember the guy who wrote about this, you can easily find him on Wikipedia), so someone who might excel at pattern recognition (and thus do well at poker) might have trouble spelling their middle name.