While the first moves were being made at the World Schools Team Championship, a second conversation was taking place a short distance away. At the Cariari Country Club in Heredia, ministers of education and sport, government officials, federation presidents and school leaders from across the Americas gathered for “Smart Moves Americas: Governments That Think Ahead”, the ISCF and CCA conference on chess as public policy. Costa Rica was a natural place to hold the conversation. In 2022 the country passed Law No. 10187, establishing chess instruction in public schools as a matter of national significance, and the current Chess in Education 2026 initiative has taken that statute into practice with a pilot programme in ten government schools, supported by FIDE, the CCA and the Minis