Once before, we thought we had run out of plays on the word "stroke" but the Checker Maven staff managed to come through. This week, they've done it again, although warning that it would probably be the last acceptable instance of "stroke" wordplay.

We're not at all sure that we would cover our office walls with the color selected by the woman in the photo above, but you get the idea, and for all we know, she might be an expert checker player in addition to modeling brush strokes.

Today's stroke problem is indeed no brush-over; it's complex and requires the best in visualization skills.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Win

W:WK2,6,K10,11,15,K18,19,20,21,31:B1,3,4,12,13,23,K24,25,27,K29.

Don't paint yourself into a corner, and after a good brush with this problem, click on Read More to see the solution.

Solution

31-26 23-30 21-17 13-22 11-8 4-11 15-8 24-15 10-19 1-10 19-16 12-19 20-16 3-12 18-23 19-26 2-6 12-19 6-31 White Wins.

Note that the world-class KingsRow computer engine finds a different solution starting with 21-17. Computer programs often don't completely "understand" stroke problems, especially when they end in a spectacular block such as in this one. However, if the starting move 31-26 is input manually, KingsRow will then find the rest of the above solution after a little calculation time.