It was Saturday, December 17, 1955 and in Bismarck, North Dakota the Coffee and Cake Checker Club was having the last of its weekly meetings prior to a two-week holiday break.

The club, under the informal leadership of Sal Westerman, met at the Beacon Cafe in the Provident Life Building, where proprietess Deana Nagel made and sold the best baked goods in the region. There was a good turnout today; Young Blaine was there along with Sam, Wayne, Delmer, Dan, Old Frank (who was hardly the oldest one there; in fact only Young Blaine was under the age of 50), seldom-seen Ron, Kevin the Spooler, and Louie the Flash. That made for quite a crowd and it spilled over into the second large booth at the back of the cafe.

The talk was about Young Blaine, who during the previous holiday season had become engaged to his girlfriend in Minot. The engagement was now about a year old and Young Blaine was getting teased (Young Blaine was always getting teased) about not yet having set a wedding date.

"Don't make her wait too long," Louie the Flash--- himself a confirmed bachelor--- was saying. "She'll drop you if you don't get a move on."

"As if you'd know," said Wayne, who had been married for many years.

"It's been a year since you gave her that ring," Dan observed. "What are you going to do to top that this year? You not only ought to set the date, you need to give her something nice besides."

"Aw, come on guys, give me a break," Young Blaine protested. "I'm still a junior engineer at the power company and I don't make a big salary. It's like I've been telling Moira lately, we can set a date as soon as I get my first promotion. That won't take more than another year."

"Another year?" Delmer exclaimed. "When you told Moira that how did she take it?"

"She got kind of quiet for a while," Young Blaine said, "and then she was kind of grumpy for a few days. I didn't really get it."

The rest of the boys could be seen to shake their heads, and then Deana, who never missed anything, spoke up from behind her counter. "I don't want to be mean about it," she said, "but if I were your girlfriend, you'd get a real clear ultimatum from me and you'd have about sixty seconds to deal with it. Come on Blaine, you know darn well what to do. Go buy her another piece of expensive jewelry--- buy it on time if you have to--- and then ask her to set the date. And make it real clear that she can choose any date she wants and you'll be delighted to go along with it."

"Wow," Young Blaine said, "I'm getting it from all sides. Not my day, I guess."

"No, young fellow," Deana went on, "it is your day. We're giving you good advice which is going to save you a lot of grief and heartache."

At that point Sal decided to step in. "Okay, boys," he said, "we're here for checkers so let's get down to today's business. I have a nice problem for you, one that will take you into the holidays in good cheer until we meet again in January."

So saying, Sal set up the following position on a checkerboard in each of the big booths.

"Now, my wife Sylvia and I could use some nice treats today, so maybe you won't get this one and you'll be buying for us," he said, referring to the tradition that if the boys could solve Sal's problem Sal would treat everyone, while if they couldn't solve it, the boys would buy for Sal and Sylvia.

Meanwhile Young Blaine looked relieved to be off the hook at least for the moment, as the boys were very quickly deep into the checker problem. They didn't even hear Deana announce that today she had freshly baked cinnamon raisin bars.

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Were the boys and Deana giving Young Blaine good advice, even if it was unsolicited and perhaps unwanted? We'll leave that up to you to decide, just as we'll for the moment leave it up to you to solve today's problem. Don't wait a year or more for a possible job promotion; see how you do, after which we advise you to click on Read More to view the solution. You will have to provide your own treats and coffee, though, and it's only fair to warn you that this problem is tricky and devious in the extreme.

Solution

Sal hadn't actually told the boys that he had presented a very tough problem with many ways to go wrong. After an hour he called 'time' and Wayne said that they couldn't solve it.

"We tried a lot of things, but they all seemed to go wrong," Wayne lamented. "Where did you get this from? The devil himself?"

Sal laughed. "Not exactly," he said, "it's by Young Ed Atkinson with some modification by Young Bill Salot. Ed originally called it Seven Echoes but Bill added on more variations and renamed it Options Galore. Ed lists 16 ways to go wrong and only one way to win it."

Sal took a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. "Take a look," he said, and then spent half an hour going through the solution and all the variations.

*18 14---A, 9-18, *10 15---B, 25-21---C, *15 31, White Wins multiple ways.

A ---

Not 2 6 or 10 6 or 10 14, Black Wins multiple ways.

Not 2 7 or 3 7 or 10 7 or 10 15, *19-24, 7 16, *27-31, 20 27, *32-21, Black Wins.

Not 3 8 or 12 8, *27-24, 20 27, *32 21, Black Wins.

Not 12 16, *19-24, 16 7, *27-31, 20 27, *32-21, Black Wins.

Not 17 13 or 17 14 or 17 22, Black Draws multiple ways.

Not 17 21, 19-24 or 27-31, Black Draws.

Not 18 22, 25-18, 10 15 (10 14 or 17 14, Black Draws multiple ways), 9-13 or 19-24, Black Draws.

Not 18 15, 11-18, 10 14 or 10 15, 17 14 or 17 22, Black Draws multiple ways.

B---Not 17 22, *11-15, 22 29, 18-22 or 19-24, Black Draws.

C---25-22, *15 31, White Wins multiple ways.

After he finished, Deana, who again was paying close attention, arrived with a big tray of cinnamon raisin bars. "I'll be right back with more coffee," she said. "You boys look like you could use some."

By then it was three o'clock. The boys enjoyed their treats and played skittles and talked checkers until almost closing time at five PM. There were many wishes of Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas as everyone took their leave until the club would meet again in the New Year.

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We hope you enjoyed this amazing problem, which indeed was originally composed by the late grandmaster composer, Ed Atkinson, and significantly enhanced by Bill Salot. Our thanks go to Mr. Salot for sending this one to us.