Counterplay

Set in the twenty-first century, this study treats chess as a lived world with its own pleasures and difficulties. The author proposes what he calls an "anthropology of passion" and uses it to examine how the game is experienced by the people who take it up.

Rather than observing from a distance, the book moves into the culture surrounding the game. Brief episodes, close attention to small particulars, and sketches of individual players are woven together with analytical reflection. The aim is to explain chess from the inside and to convey what unfolds in the minds of seasoned players when they sit across from one another at the board.

Its central concerns include play, beauty, competition, addiction, imaginative forms of cognition, and the way players engage with one another. Together these themes show how chess shapes the lives of those who are drawn to it, and how the game's intrigues operate beneath its surface.