Man overboard! It's an emergency situation and we'd best hope someone trained and experienced in water rescue is on hand.

Something similar occurs in our game of checkers. One of our men goes overboard, we're down a piece, and we're looking to find a way to get a draw.

That's the situation for White in the diagram below. But there is a way to pull off a draw, if you can see it. We'd call this a "not quite" speed problem. It isn't too difficult but you can easily go wrong.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Draw

W:WK10,13,K14,K15:B5,K16,K22,K28,K30

Are you trained and experienced in man down (man overboard) situations? You won't have to go too far overboard to solve this one; but a life preserver is always at hand. Just click on Read More to see the solution.

Solution

15-19---A 16x23 14-9 5x14 10x19 Drawn.

A---Don't be tempted by this alternative way of evening the piece count: 14-9 5x14 10x26 30x23 15-19 23-18 19x12 but now 18-14 12-8 28-24 8-11 24-19 11-7 19-15 7-2 15-10 Black Wins.

Thanks to regular contributors Lloyd and Josh Gordon for this nice problem.