student from thus spake a.k.
Recall that in the Baron's latest wager, Sir R-----'s goal was to traverse a three by three checkerboard in steps determined by casts of a four sided die, each at a cost of two coins. Moving from left to right upon the first rank and advancing to the second upon its third file, thereafter from right to left and advancing upon the first file and finally from left to right again, he should have prevailed for a prize of twenty five coins had he landed upon the top right place. Frustrating his progress, however, were the rules that landing upon a black square dropped him back down to the first rank and that overshooting the last file upon the last rank required that he should move in reverse by as many places with which he had done so.