What begins as a rendezvous between chess and film aficionados becomes an experimental enactment of the game of chess on the board of the real world. Guided by Bobby Fischer's 1972 match against Boris Spassky, Solana Rothschild - heir to the Rothschild empire - engages billionaire William Bates in a real-world chess game of politics, espionage and international finance. While the players manipulate pieces on the board, the world observes a conspiracy by the intelligence community to take virtual control of the American government.