By MICHAEL QUINN/Reported by Wendy Cole

"Sometimes it feels like a sport, sometimes it feels like art, sometimes it feels like a job," says Hungarian chess grand master JUDIT POLGAR. And sometimes it must feel like homework; last year at 15 she became the youngest grand master ever, checkmating U.S. ace Bobby Fischer's record by more than a month. Now in Manhattan for the U.S. Chess Festival, the leading female competitor will also play the kids of Harlem's Raging Rooks -- simultaneously -- during a charity "chessathon." World chess champ Gary Kasparov has mocked the idea that a woman will ever stand in his place. Like they say in New York, Gary: Watch ya' back!