A fascinating exploration of the history and evolution of chess and the obsessive hold that it exerts on its followers. From travelling to the tiny Russian chess-obsessed province of Kalmykia to challenge its eccentric dictator to a match, touring New York's legendary chess district, crashing the Princeton Math department game party, to playing chess with a convicted murderer in prison, Hallman transforms an entertaining weaving of travelogue, journalism, and chess history into a compulsively readable narrative.