"Cheeky Checkers"

'Cheeky Checkers' is an image of a game of checkers with 
a pretty sneaky game board:  In the middle of the board 
is a step going down to the other side... Down?  Is that 
possible?  Afterall, if you look carefully, the board 
is flat around the sides!

I spent ages trying to think of an 'illusion' image - 
Most ideas were too ambitious, getting into some pretty 
tricky modelling of buildings and contorted structures... 
This one may look simple But it does its job, and often 
simplicity is better then complexity!

(LW5.50e, 640x480, Medium Antialias (9 passes), 
PII-300w/96Mb - 6.13 minutes render time)