How good are you at geometry? Does the problem above look easy to you? To us, it looked easy in principle, and we didn't need more than a minute or two to come up with a set of equations to represent the relationships in the diagram. Then we went to solve the equations for the desired variable 'x'. That too was just the work of a couple of minutes ... until we ran into what we'll call "a little snag."

Hopefully today's checker problem will be the work of a few seconds (not even minutes), just a brief summer interlude, with no hidden snag. Let's have a look.

BLACK

WHITE
White to Play and Win

W:WK31,26,19:B21,13,K10.

You've probably already solved it, but we'll extend an extra incentive to click on Read More: We'll also give the answer to the math problem.

Solution

19-15 10x19 26-23 19x26 31x22 13-17 22x13 21-25 13-17 25-30 17-22 White Wins.

The math problem? It's known in the literature as "Langley's Adventitious Angles" and dates back to 1922. The angle in question works out to 30 degrees, and someone's sketch of a solution is shown below. We won't try to explain it here, but if you're truly curious, you can easily find more online.