The book examines seven games: checkers, the idea of which as a children's game veils its fascinating depth; chess is a classic and widespread military-strategic game; go is a sophisticated and complex oriental environmental game; Backgammon is the best and most merciless game that uses dice; poker is the most popular card game in our century; Scrabble is a classic word game; Bridge is the pinnacle of strategic card games. Each of them has its own unique character. The author is looking for answers to two key questions: “What is a game?” and “Why are we playing?” He describes the history of gaming, talks about prominent players and specific matches, and shows how the advent of computers changed the nature of the game.