Jan

30

Marion Tinsley, checkers master

January 30, 2022 |

Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.
- Marion Tinsley

Marion Franklin Tinsley (February 3, 1927 – April 3, 1995) was an American mathematician and checkers player. He is considered to be the greatest checkers player who ever lived. Tinsley was world champion 1955–1958 and 1975–1991 and never lost a world championship match, and lost only seven games (two of them to the Chinook computer program) from 1950 until his death in 1995. He withdrew from championship play during the years 1958–1975, relinquishing the title during that time. It was said that Tinsley was "to checkers what Leonardo da Vinci was to science, what Michelangelo was to art and what Beethoven was to music."

in honor of Marion Tinsley and the game of checkers, I pulled out yet another book of proverbs of Tom Wiswell, who is the Marion Tinsley of problems: the book is called Maxims, Mysteries, and Memories. It so far is unpublished but it will live on.

Here are some new Wiswell proverbs that are good for markets: "don't try to be brilliant, just try to survive." I think I succeeded. "there is never an end to the fine endings in checkers; like old man river, they just keep rolling along." and Tom's favorite: "Moves that disturb your position the least, disturb your opponent the most."

"Defeat is what happens to you while you are making other plans." Wiswell from Maxims with proposed associate editor and shout out to Susan Niederhoffer. have you tested that — from Wiswell: "Checkers seems to guarantee a long life - it is the board of health." Tom writing about Larry Evans and Sammy Reshevsky.

I repeat: checkers moves are very close to all the logic moves that go into the circuitry of computers for truth tables and arithmetic calculations. as such it is the best training for a youngster.

Vic's twitter feed

Laurence Glazier offers:

How Checkers Was Solved
The story of a duel between two men, one who dies, and the nature of the quest to build artificial intelligence

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

Sometimes when I trade I like to think I see signs of computer trading…such as multiple players running the same algo and doing something stupid. Probably just hubris on my part. In the old days I would like to think "now here is a bunch of retail guys calling their broker" and the broker sloppily entering orders, or some big fund in trouble and exiting a big holding like Worldcom. The tape talks. Why can't a computer figure it out. Its just a problem of size and bandwidth.

Big Al suggests:

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution


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