In one of the top masterpieces of Soviet satire a brilliant con artist, to win a bit of money, convinces a local small-town chess club that he is a traveling maestro and organizes a tournament. He first gathers the fees from the awe-struck yokel-enthusiasts and then plays “twelve identical matches” without understanding much of what he is actually doing, this being the second chess game of his lifetime, but placing the figures more or less correctly, with the terrified locals reading too much into his banal moves. Very soon, however, he good-naturedly utterly loses all twelve simultaneous games, to the amazement of the town. Buy then, however, he has gained the time he needed and escapes with the money. He is not a good player, but he is a winning one.