It was the first Saturday after Labor Day Weekend, 1955, and for Sal Westerman, that meant his Coffee and Cake Checker Club would resume its weekly meetings.

The Club met at the Beacon Cafe, in the Provident Life Building in Bismarck, North Dakota, at 1 PM each Saturday from just after Labor Day until just before Memorial Day, with only short breaks for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

Now, summers in North Dakota were fine times, but Sal sorely missed his checker friends, and he was happy to see fall roll around. It was a fine day in early autumn and Sal made sure he arrived at the Cafe at a couple of minutes before one o'clock, so he could greet the returning members.

Of course he first said hello to Deana, the proprietess and one of the best bakers anywhere. "How did the championships go?" Sal asked her, referring to a very big baking contest in North Dakota's easternmost city, Fargo.

"I won three blue ribbons and two red," Deana said with a big smile, "so I scored in all of the categories I entered."

"Not surprised to hear it," Sal said, but just then in came Larry and Delmer, closely followed by Wayne, Tom, Kevin (a.k.a. "Spooler"), Ron, Dan, and young Blaine. Bill also arrived; he was seen only a few times a year but made it on this opening day.

Coffee cups were filled and the "boys" as Sal called them, even though Blaine was the only one under age 50 and most were well beyond that, took seats in the large booths at the back of the cafe.

Talk started with summer activities. A few members had gone to the family farms to help out during the busy summer months. Others had just enjoyed time at home with occasional fishing and camping trips. Young Blaine had to work, of course, but he and his fiancee did take a week off to go climbing in Wyoming. Spooler had played in a tournament in the Minneapolis area, although he would only say that he didn't do all that well.

Of course everyone knew about Sal's checker booth at the fair, and Sal talked a little about his adventures in Jamestown.

But soon it was time to get down to business. Checker business.

"It's been a long summer without Deana's treats," Tom said, "so show us what you have for us today, Sal; we're all anxious for you to buy!"

"We shall see," replied Sal. The tradition was that Sal would always bring along a checker problem and buy treats for the boys if they solved it; otherwise the boys would buy for Sal and his wife Sylvia as well as themselves.

"I've got chocolate chip brownies today!" Deana called out from behind her counter. "Not to be missed!"

Meanwhile, Sal laid out the following position on a couple of the waiting checkerboards. "There you go," he said, "and I'll give you 45 minutes, seeing as how we've spent a lot of time already in chatting."

There were a couple of brief groans but it didn't take long for the boys to get down to that aforementioned checker business.

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We don't know if you did or didn't do much in the way of checkers over the summer, or if you missed going to your favorite club, cafe, or coffee shop, but whatever the case, join the boys in opening the new season at the Beacon by trying out this problem, and then clicking on Read More to see the solution.

Solution and Conclusion

Sal actually gave the boys almost a full hour. "Time's up," he said at last. "How did you do?"

"No luck," said Wayne. "We just didn't seem to get it. We'll buy, Sal, just show us the solution.

"You bet," he said. As if on cue, Deana arrived with a huge plate of her chocolate chip brownies and a full pot of coffee.

Sal demonstrated the following play.

9-14 4-8---A 11x4 10-7 14x21 7-11 30-25!---B 22x29 21-17 29-25 19-15! 11x18 17-22 White Wins.

A---Black's best try although the game can be prolonged with 17-21.

B---The only move to win. Several other moves only draw and 21-17 actually loses although White is a piece up, an unusual ending: 21-17 22x13 30-26 13-17 26-23 17-14 4-8 11x4 19-15 4-8 23-19 8-12 15-11 14-10 Black Wins.

"Nice problem, Sal," said Dan. "A little on the hard side, but nice just the same."

The boys all enjoyed their treats and eagerly played skittles and talked checkers right up until the Beacon's 5 PM closing time. Everyone went home in a happy mood, but none more so than Sal, who had another full season of checkers to look forward to.

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We hope you enjoyed today's problem, which is called Gotcha Anyway and was composed by greatly missed grandmaster problemist the late Ed Atkinson. When he emailed this one to us, Ed remarked, "This odd problem was found in an old notebook with a note that read 'name this.' It is a give and take problem as was Donnybrook, published earlier."