With today's publication, The Checker Maven completes eight years of publication without a single missed edition.

We've mentioned before that our new business plan calls for fifteen years of publication rather than the ten years contemplated in our original plan. We hope to be blessed to continue to reach our annual milestones, and we thank all of our many readers for making us the most widely read Anglo-American checkers publication on earth.

Anniversary celebrations at The Checker Maven often involve the publication of a new work of checker fiction, but this year instead we're able to release the long-awaited reissue of Grover and Wiswell's Let's Play Checkers. Continue on to the article below for all the details.

Veteran player and problem composer Bill Salot is sponsoring the second in a series of checker problem composition contests. The first competition produced a pair of very fine problems. You can get all the details of the new contest and a look at the entries in the previous contest here.

You're sure to enjoy these elegantly-crafted problems, but why not make a try at it in your own right? If you don't know where to begin, take a look at some of your own games; surely in one or more of them, either you or your opponent made some nice play that could well be the basis of a problem. It's an entertaining exercise and a great way to learn more about checkers.

We congratulate Mr. Salot on his efforts in promoting the art of checker problem composition.

We have been experiencing ongoing database problems and "Read More" links were out of service this morning. We've fixed this and apologize for the inconvenience.

Our long-term solution is a complete rebuild of our database. That's in progress but it's a big job. In the meanwhile, please bear with us and do let us know if something isn't quite right.

Between January 2 and January 6, 2012, The Checker Maven site will be doing a major software update. While we anticipate only minimal downtime, things do happen and we ask for your patience and understanding if the site does happen to experience a longer than anticipated outage.

Followup: As of January 3, 2012, the update has been completed. Please do let us know if there is anything that doesn't seem to work correctly.

The Checker Maven is now seven years old, and as we say every year, we never thought we'd make it this far. It's only thanks to you, our readers, that we've enjoyed success and acceptance far beyond our wildest dreams.

We've mentioned before that our original business plan called for ten years of publication. We're happy to say that we've extended the plan to encompass fifteen years of weekly columns. It will be a challenge, and we hesitate to predict the future, but it's something that we're more than glad to take on.

If we make it to the end of our newly projected run, then in the year 2019 we'll be looking for someone else to take over. But that's a long ways off, and right now we're too busy with new ideas for your weekly checker entertainment. Here's to many more columns to come!

Alex Moiseyev retained his 3-move World Championship title with a narrow win over Italian challenger Michele Borghetti in a match characterized by sportsmanship, great play, and much excitement. The final score was 7-6 with 27 draws.

Links to full details can be found on the American Checker Federation website (linked in the left-hand column). We are all grateful to John Acker for streaming the entire match live over the internet, providing hours of checker entertainment to many fans around the world.

Thanks to the fantastic work of John Acker, the current 3-move World Championship match between defending champion Alex Moiseyev of the United States, and challenger Michele Borghetti of Italy, is being streamed live from Cleveland, Ohio. Click on the ACF link on the left side of the page for further information. This is an event that is absolutely not to be missed!

Our offices are open again and we're returning to business as usual. We're glad to be back!

Our offices are closed until at least mid-summer; we'll be checking email from time to time but may not be able to respond as quickly as usual to your correspondence. Of course, our Saturday morning publication will continue without interruption, so you can count on a fresh new column every weekend, the same as always. Just look below for our latest article.

Our automated system was mis-programmed and published two articles today, including next month's installment of Checker School. It's our readers' lucky day, so enjoy the extra article while your editoral team scrambles to write another for the month of May!