The essay offers a reading of the place of non-human machines in the game discourse, focusing on computer chess’s real as well as literary and film history. Chess, as the Drosophila melanogaster of artificial intelligence, a special case facilitating the study of the entire field, allows for going beyond the primary area of interest – computer science – and entering the realm of the text, where new languages of storytelling and new contexts present themselves. The paper discusses a multifaceted, posthumanist analysis of the game as a medium of non-anthropocentric and empowering narratives of the Other. It also sheds new light on the ongoing paradigm shift in human categories and human-technology relations.