Clever, Montana, is a real place (although the photo above is just an AI rendition and not the real thing), a fast-growing small town of about 3,000 with the motto "It just gets better every day." The town is well over 100 years old and it's pretty likely to have some sort of checker playing history. Do folks still play checkers in Clever? We emailed a town official but we never got a reply, so we can't say for sure.

There's certainly a place for cleverness in the game of checkers, and today's problem, a "not quite" speed problem, relies on a clever first move.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Draw

W:W13,15,17,18,19,23,26,27,30:B1,6,8,9,10,12,16,20,21.

Are you clever enough to solve it? We think you are, but when you're done, the clever thing to do would be to click on Read More to check your solution.

Solution

27-24---A,B 20x27 18-14 9x18 23x7 16x23---C 26x19 to a draw.

A---A very clever move and not at all obvious.

B---The immediate 18-14 loses: 18-14 9x18 23x7 16x32 7-2 but now White can't chase the man on 2 because of 6-9? 13x6 1x19. Black now wins no matter what White does.

C---The point of the first move: to use Black's man as a backstop. Black can't jump through to 32 as in Note B and White recovers his man, obtaining a draw.

Thanks to regular contributors Lloyd and Josh Gordon for this problem. It's an actual position from one of their nightly games.