We didn't think they could do it, but our intrepid Research Department managed to come up with another meaning for the word stroke, to wit: at a stroke, with the meaning of "all at once," such as, "we solved a dozen checker problems at a stroke."

That would be quite a feat, indeed, and of course you just know we're going to present a stroke problem to kick off the month of June.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Win

W:W23,22,K21,18,16,15,11,10,7:BK30,K29,27,26,K20,19,9,3,1.

Can you solve this one "at a stroke" or will it take you longer? Are your powers of visualization up to the challenge? If you find the position difficult, we refer you to the quote at the beginning of the article.

When you've determined the correct moves, clicking on Read More will bring you to the solution--- at a stroke.

Solution

21-25 30x21 22-17 21x14 7-2 14x7 2-6 1x10 11x2 20x11 23x7 10x19 2-6 3x10 6x22 White Wins.

After 9-13 18-15 Black must lose a man and the game.

By the way, we weren't able to locate the original German source of the Goethe quotation given above. Are there any German speakers out there who might know?

And if you found today's problem impossible, here is another Goethe quote for you: "Unmöglich ist alles, bis es einer tut."