Shown above is what is now a pub called The Clock Warehouse in Shardlow, Derbyshire, England. The pub is said to be dog-friendly. We're not quite sure what that means. We would rather have heard that the pub was checker (draughts) friendly.

Today, we consider a problem by a checkerist named Shardlow who didn't come from England, but from Marshall, Minnesota. What was his connection, if any, with the town in England? Most likely there is none, though we'll probably never know.

Mr. F. C. Shardlow published a number of problems in various newspapers; the one below appeared in The Winnipeg Free Press in 1938. All we were able to turn up about the author was that his full name was Frederick Cromwell Shardlow, that he was born in 1874, passed on in 1948, and had a wife and two daughters. We didn't find anything additional about his checker career, although he obviously must have been quite good.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Win

W:WK15,K20:B8,10,16

A checker friendly problem? We think so. Try to solve it, and then give a friendly click of the mouse on Read More to see the solution.

Solution

15x6---A 16-19 6-10 19-23 20-24 23-26 24-19 26-30---B 19-16---C 30-26---D 16-11 8x15 10x19 26-22 19-23 White Wins.

A---It's tempting to quickly play the blunderous 20-4? but then 10-19 gets a very basic draw.

B---26-31 19-23 8-12 10-15 12-16 15-18 16-20 18-22 20-24 23-27 24-28 27-32 White Wins. A nice finish.

C---The composer left the problem here as a White Win.

D---30-25 same idea.