The picture above shows seven deadly traps. An author with imagination could easily write a number of interesting and perhaps scary tales about this array.

Are there seven traps to avoid in the game of checkers? Willie Ryan has already shown us dozens, and there are countless more. Even many stories would never be enough to tell the tale of all of them.

As we continue to move toward a conclusion of our Tricks Traps & Shots of the Checkerboard series, which has run for many years now, we have one more position to present from Willie's A Trap With A Tale section.

Here's the run-up, with brief commentary by your Editor, using KingsRow with the 10-piece endgame database.

Out of book, inferior, and might lose. 21-17 or 28-24 would have been fine.

Worse yet. 24-20 was better but White is definitely lost.

Maintains a slight advantage but throws away the win. 25-29 was indicated, believe it or not.

25-29 was still indicated. The game is now a probable draw.

WHITE

BLACK
Black to Play and Win

B:WK5,11,15,20,30,31:B2,4,8,18,K22,K32

White has blundered and Black now can win. First, can you find the win? Second, can you go back and correct White's losing move? It's actually not all that difficult. Work it out and then click on Read More to turn a long Tale into a short one, by revealing the solution.

Solution

The correct White move to draw was 23. ... 30-26. (Note: correspondent Lloyd Gordon pointed out that 20-16 would also draw.) But Black now wins as follows (Willie's solution, which differs only in slight details from the computer solution).

Willie leaves the position here as a Black win, which is quite straightforward.

Black wins easily.