I don't know if chess is getting more popular, but more and more celebrities are playing chess. Here are some observations.
Terry Anderson plays chess, but he does not like his pieces captured.
Isaac Asimov liked to play 4-dimensional chess with his robot chess computer.
P.T. Barnun didn't like the big chess tournaments. It was too much a circus atmosphere.
Frank Baum liked to play chess with odds. He was the wizard of odds.
Beethoven composed a lot of chess problems.
Menachum Begin played lots of chess. He preferred the Israeli Defense.
Larry Bird plays chess. His favorite opening is 1.f4.
David Blaine used to play a lot of chess, but now seems to have disappeared.
Humphrey Bogart played chess. When Bogart was a kid, Sam Loyd showed him a few chess puzzles and interesting games. After seeing a good game, Bogey would say, "Play it again, Sam."
Bono plays chess well. U 2 can play as well as he.
Marlon Brando played chess. When he offered a draw, he made an offer you couldn't refuse.
Eng and Chang Bunker were good simultaneous chess players. The also played a lot of Siamese chess.
Aaron Burr dueled with Alexander Hamilton in a game of chess.
Al Capone played chess. He liked the Sicilian Defense and the Italian Opening.
Casanova loved the game.
Wilt Chamberlain played chess. His favorite opening was the Center Game.
Ray Charles was good at blindfold chess.
Jacques Chirac plays chess. He favors the French.
Winston Churchill played a lot of blitz chess during World War II. He played the English Defense.
Christopher Columbus discovered chess in his later years.
Macaulay Culkin played chess at home alone.
General George Custer played chess, but did not like the Indian Defenses.
In all probability, Abraham de Moivre played chess.
Chess was too hard for Alburt Einstein. He couldn't figure it out.
Heidi Fleiss likes to mate and keeps a black book of all her chess players.
Francisco Franco played chess. He liked the Spanish Opening.
Benjamin Franklin played a lot of lightning chess.
Sigmond Freud dreamed a lot about playing chess.
Al Gore said he invented chess. I once played him a game of chess and he was way ahead in material count, and he still lost.
Don't play Billy Graham in chess. He is good. You don't have a prayer.
Anthony Hopkins plays chess. He prefers the Fried Liver Attack.
Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi played chess. Their favorite opening was the Frankenstein-Dracula variation in the Vienna.
Robert E. Lee once played Ulysses S. Grant on one of those civil war sets, but lost.
Ron Guidry was on the cover and made a pitch for chess in an earlier issue of Chess Life magazine.
For a brief moment in time, Stephen Hawking played chess.
It is uncertain if Werner Heisenberg played chess.
John Hinckley once took a shot at chess. He tried to impress Jody Foster.
Harry Houdini played chess and escaped from so many bad positions.
Don Johnson said that his only vice was chess.
Kreskin is amazing at chess.
Lennox Lewis likes to play in knockout chess tournaments. He usually lasts a couple of rounds.
Madonna plays chess, but she likes to hold on to her material.
Marcel Marceau plays chess, but never talks about it.
Steve Martin is a wild an crazy guy when he plays chess.
John McEnroe plays chess, but badly. He once played a game against Michael Chang, lost, then jumped on the table, yelling, "Why must I lose to this idiot."
Dmitri Mendeleev periodically played chess.
Yehudi Menuhin fiddled at the game.
Story Musgrave thought chess was out of this world.
Richard Nixon played chess, but he always resigned, saying, "Pardon me."
Chuck Norris gets his kicks from chess.
The Pope plays chess. He prefers his bishops.
Rembrandt played chess and liked to draw his games.
William Shakespeare played chess around the Globe.
Josef Stalin played chess. He preferred the Russian Defense.
Ray Walston was my favorite chessplayer.