The United States team that will compete in the World Team Chess Championship next month in Armenia stands no real chance of winning. It is not sending its three best players, and even if it were, it would not have enough talent to compete with the stacked teams from Russia and China.

But one does not have to be born in a country to represent it in international competition, and so an official program and a clandestine effort are underway to recruit top players from other countries to switch their allegiance to the United States.

Such transfers have happened in the past, but never in an organized manner. If the new efforts are successful, the American team may be radically altered by the time the Chess Olympiad, the most prestigious team competition in chess, is held next year in Azerbaijan. By then, the United States could even be the favorite to win the gold medal, something it has not done in decades.

The most important contribution to remaking the team may be an endeavor that has the whiff of a Cold War-era plot: a private overture to a top foreign grandmaster, tens of thousands of dollars in payments to secure his eligibility, and a rich American benefactor intent on overtaking the Russians and the Chinese in the game he loves. Similar campaigns to obtain the national allegiance of top prospects are not uncommon in the Olympic movement and international soccer, but they are virtually unprecedented in the more cerebral world of top-level chess.