Public Domain

With today's column, The Checker Maven celebrates its 20th anniversary of publication.

We never thought we'd publish for so long, and we now stand, at least in terms of longevity if nothing else, alongside some of the great publications of days gone by. Certainly in recent times only a handful of publications have been around longer.

Our original plan was for 10 years. We increased that to 15 and then we said we'd carry on as long as we could. Your editor's recent successful eye surgery encourages us to continue even beyond the 20 year mark (we had been doubtful due to deteriorating vision). Old age of course is catching up with us, but who knows whether or not there might be a few more years of publication yet to come. As of this moment, we plan to carry on.

In our heyday we had as many as 7,000 weekly readers. As checkers has continued to slip out of the public eye, our circulation has dropped substantially but we still boast around 2,000 weekly readers. Not bad, actually!

With our stories and our own brand of humor, with our no compromise intellectual attitude towards the game and its players, we have tried to make checkers fun and interesting, and we'd like to believe that over the years we've done our part in attempting to popularize the game and demonstrate its many attributes.

Of course without you, our reader, none of this ever would have happened and we are grateful to each and every one of you.

So to celebrate we'll reach into our dwindling store of problems by the late lamented grandmaster problemist Ed Atkinson. Ed was our correspondent for many years and we think it is fitting for this column to honor him. Here is a problem which Ed, in his inimitable fashion, titled Seldom Scene.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Win

W:B1,19,K14,K30:W15,16,26,K2,K20

Stay on the scene and solve the problem, after which you can click on Read More to see the snappy solution.

Solution

15-10 30-23---A 10-6 1-10 2-6 10-15 6-10 14-7 16-11 17-16 20-27 White Wins.

A---14-7 2-11 30-23 11-15 White Wins.

And now, onward and upward into the next 20 years? You never know!

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