A senior Soviet chessmaster and his former star pupil, now a dissident living in exile, square off in a highly publicized chess tournament. Both become pawns in a much larger game, however.

Ostracized at her posh new uptown school and shaken by the death of her beloved grandmother, a ten year-old downtown girl finds an unlikely mentor in the form of an irascible chess-master, who uses the game to teach Max lessons in resilience, perseverance, and how to embrace inevitable change.

"Set over the course of a weekend tournament for chess software programmers thirty-some years ago, return to a nostalgic moment when the contest between technology and the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs. Get to know the eccentric geniuses possessed of the vision to teach a metal box to defeat man, literally, at his own game, laying the groundwork for artificial intelligence now and in the future." --

Fresh (1994): "Michael (or Fresh as he's well known) is a 12-year-old drug pusher who lives in a crowded housing project with his cousins and aunt. His father has become a street bum, but still meets with Fresh on occasion to play chess. Fresh is rather quiet in a crazy world. Fresh's sister is a junkie who sleeps with the dealers who Fresh sells for. As the story progresses Fresh realizes that he doesn't want to sell drugs anymore, he wants out....