A person, an intellectual person, who constantly concentrates all the power of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, all without losing his sanity.

A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenges the world chess champion to a match. At first, they falter, until they receive help through whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd – a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's celebrated novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic portrayal of obsession and the price of genius.