10 ms·
It might be worth mentioning a famous abdication which caused a lot of consternation, albeit in another game. I love this story but may have gotten some detail
by SeanLuke 4y ago
It might be worth mentioning a famous abdication which caused a lot of consternation, albeit in another game. I love this story but may have gotten some details wrong.
Marion Tinsley was world checkers champion from 1955-1958, then took a break, then again from 1975-1991, when he resigned in protest (at age 64). He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley.
In 1990 Tinsley decided to play Chinook, the best checkers computer program in the world. Chinook had placed second at the US Nationals so it had the right to enter the world championships, but the US and British checkers federations refused to allow it.
So Tinsley resigned his title. Tinsley then played Chinook in an unofficial match (which he won).
This power play really stuck it to the federations: nobody wanted to be named the new world champion knowing Tinsley was fully capable of crushing them. Eventually everyone came to an agreement to let Tinsley be the "champion emeritus".
Tinsley played Chinook four years later, at age 68, still probably the best player in the world. But in the middle of the match he complained of stomach pains and withdrew after only six games (of 20), all drawn. Tinsley's pains were real: he later died of pancreatic cancer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arbitrage 4y agoFantastic write-up. Thank you so much.
- moffkalast 4y agoChinook was obviously playing the long con. Knowing Tinsley's weakness was his humanity, so it continued to draw until his frail human body succumbed to the forces of nature, thus winning once and for all.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoSkynet doesn't have to do anything, it just needs to be patient. ...and self-replicating so it ensures its own survival long term of course, but that's a problem yet to be solved.
- danuker 4y agoIf you have a few hours to kill, here is a game the situation reminds me of: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
- tmjwid 4y agoIt is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.
- solardev 4y agoWhoosh
- moffkalast 4y agoNah, he's quoting a TNG episode where Data does the exact same thing.
- solardev 4y agoAh,oops, my whoosh!
- allenrb 4y agoData may have said it in TNG, but pretty sure this originated with the 1983 film “WarGames” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames).
- fknorangesite 4y agoIt was Picard to Data: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4A-Ml8YHyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4A-Ml8YHyM The WarGames "the only winning move is not to play" quote is about mutually assured destruction; a rather different lesson than the one Data learns in 'Peak Performance'.
- Ansil849 4y agoThe only winning move is not to play.
- cortesoft 4y agoAre you saying he busted him up?
- 4y ago
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago“If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.”
- lupire 4y ago"I'm not standing still; I am lying in wait."
- ihateolives 4y agoWhere do I sign up for your daily checker facts newsletter? :)
- moffkalast 4y agoThat's a drake meme if I ever saw one. No -> Fact checkers Yes -> Checker facts
- mattnewton 4y agoSurely you want fact checked checker facts?
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoI’m not the fact checker I’m the fact checker’s son. I’ll be checking facts till the fact checker’s done.
- kif 4y agoOnly checkers fact-checker checked checkers facts.
- moffkalast 4y agoCheckmate
- ProAm 4y ago
- fdeage 4y ago> He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley. Very interesting comment. This sentence about dominance in a field made me think of Stu Ungar, who dominated Gin Rummy so completely that he had to switch to Poker (where he became a 3-time world champion) to meet interesting adversaries. I couldn't find an exact reference for the following quote, but still: "Some day, I suppose it's possible for someone to be a better No Limit Hold'em player than me. I doubt it, but it could happen. But, I swear to you, I don't see how anyone could ever play gin better than me."
- toolslive 4y agoAbout being dominant. What about Raymond Ceulemans ? From the wikipedia page: Billiards player, having won - 35 World Championship titles (23 in three-cushion + 12 in other carom disciplines) - 48 European titles (23 in three-cushion) and - 61 national titles.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y agoFascinating character. I ended up reading the whole Wikipedia article [1] because of your comment. Sounds like he was very skilled and continuously getting better -- which is of course impressive. At the same time, his overall life story turns out to be tragic. Two choice quotes from the article really jumped out for me: > Ungar told ESPN TV... that the 1980 WSOP was the first time he had ever played a Texas hold'em tournament. Poker legend Doyle Brunson remarked that it was the first time he had seen a player improve as the tournament went on. > Ungar is regarded by many poker analysts and insiders as one of the greatest pure-talent players ever to play the game. But on the topic of his life, Stu’s long term friend Mike Sexton said “In the game of life, Stu Ungar was a loser.” [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Ungar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Ungar
- RockyMcNuts 4y agothere's a (so-so) movie - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338467/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338467/ when the show Billions did a poker game they used a famous Stu Ungar hand https://somuchpoker.com/calling-with-ten-high-stu-ungar-vs-mansur-matloubi-1990/ https://somuchpoker.com/calling-with-ten-high-stu-ungar-vs-m... (but OMG that game was so cringey for so many reasons, you don't get to call time and go talk to your therapist in the middle of a hand)
- stolenmerch 4y agoI just read this story in Jordan Ellenberg's book, "Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else" as part of the section on decision trees, evaluating state, etc. Tinsley is the GOAT.
- jonahbenton 4y agoOh, intriguing title. How is the book?
- stolenmerch 4y agoIt's probably too basic for anyone who's taken even college-level math courses, but I thought it was an engaging summer read that got my imagination going. Easy to read but also required some work. It was fun to imagine examples of everyday life as geometric objects -- but you probably have to be in the mood for that to enjoy it.
- fijiaarone 4y agoIs it a junior high math textbook, or does it convey any other information?
- bohadi 4y agoIt turns out Checkers was solved, for perfect play, in 2007 if anyone was wondering. https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/publications/solving_checkers.html https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/publications/solving...
- OskarS 4y agoBy Chinook, actually. The computer science Jonathan Schaeffer became obsessed with solving checkers, because it was the only way to prove that Chinook could've beaten Tinsley in a fair game (as Tinsley passed away before Chinook could defeat him on the board).
- Arocalexi 4y agoAll the links are broken on that webpage.
- OskarS 4y agoI love this story so much. This The Atlantic article telling the full tale is a favorite of mine [1] It's hard to overstate how incredibly dominant Tinsley was. In his entire career, he never lost a match, and only ever lost 7 games (two to Chinook). That is out of maybe tens of thousands of games. He was a mathematician by training and taught at a historically black university. He was also deeply religious and a lay minister at a black church. He famously described the difference between chess and checkers like this: “Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.” I could just quote the entire article, but I'll just leave it at this passage: > The two men sat in his office and began the matches, Schaeffer moving for Chinook and entering changes in the game into the system. The first nine games were all draws. In the tenth game, Chinook was cruising along, searching 16 to 17 moves deep into the future. And it made a move where it thought it had a small advantage. “Tinsley immediately said, ‘You’re gonna regret that.’” Schaeffer said. “And at the time, I was thinking, what the heck does he know, what could possibly go wrong?” But, in fact, from that point forward, Tinsley began to pull ahead... > The computer scientist became fixated on that moment. After the match, he ran simulations to examine what had gone wrong. And he discovered that, in fact, from that move to the end of the game, if both sides played perfectly, he would lose every time. But what he discovered next blew his mind. To see that, a computer or a human would have to look 64 moves ahead. Tinsley was simply one of the most remarkable human minds of the 20th century. I'm happy he finally got a challenger that was worthy of him (as no other humans could even come close), but it also seems fitting that he was never officially defeated in a real checkers match. Rest in peace. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/marion-tinsley-checkers/534111/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/mario...
- Scarblac 4y agoDid he ever talk about international draughts? It is essentially checkers on a 10 x 10 board, rather than the 8 x 8 that checkers is played on. I wonder how much more resistance he would have had in draughts.
- jhbadger 4y agoIf you like that you might like Jonathan Schaeffer's (the creator of Chinook) book "One Jump Ahead" in which he discusses Chinook and Tinsley in great detail.
- panda-giddiness 4y agoYou skipped the best part of the story! > We [Chinook and the lead programmer] played an exhibition match against Marion Tinsley in 1991. And the computer told me to make this one particular move. When I made it, Tinsley immediately said, "You're going to regret that." > Not being a checkers player, I thought, "what does he know, my computer is looking 20 moves ahead." But a few moves later, the computer said that Tinsley had the advantage and a few moves after that I resigned. More details on this epic match from Wikipedia: > The lead programmer Jonathan Schaeffer looked back into the database and discovered that Tinsley picked the only strategy that could have defeated Chinook from that point and Tinsley was able to see the win 64 moves into the future. --- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/short-history-ai-schooling-humans-games https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/short-history-ai-sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Tinsley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Tinsley
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> and Tinsley was able to see the win 64 moves into the future. It's more likely that Tinsley was able to see a winning position much closer to the present than that, without bothering about the details of how exactly the winning position 6 turns in the future converted into an actual win 64 moves in the future.
- cupofpython 4y agothe point is that his winning position was a 64 move convert and he was correct. Lots of players believe they will end up in a winning position, but overlook something while "not bothering with the details". it's less about how much he calculated in that moment and more about the accuracy of his confidence and the work he had to have put in alongside his talent prior to that moment to achieve that confidence and back it up.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> it's less about how much he calculated in that moment and more about the accuracy of his confidence and the work he had to have put in That is a matter of opinion. Looking a certain number of "moves ahead" is an important metric in game engines and also something that human players will tell you that (1) they are consciously doing and that (2) is important to them. So it's worth discussing on its own terms.
- agumonkey 4y agoHe died in Humble.
- lpolovets 4y agoJonathan Schaeffer, who led programming on Chinook, wrote a book about the history of Chinook, the matches with Marion Tinsley, and checkers in general. I read it a while back and thought it was excellent, although it seems like cheap book editions are hard to find now. https://www.amazon.com/One-Jump-Ahead-Computer-Perfection-ebook/dp/B002C1AN3Y/ https://www.amazon.com/One-Jump-Ahead-Computer-Perfection-eb...
- aaronmcs 4y agoThere is a great book that the main author of Chinook wrote about this. It's called One Jump Ahead[0] and it is a great combination of technical info about the development of Chinook as well as a kind of mini-history of competitive checkers. Strongly recommend! [0] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-76576-1 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-76576-1
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 4y agoYes I read the book decades ago and it was indeed excellent. IIRC, the technical details are probably too light for the HN crowd, but it was the biographical stories that had interested me. For an even shorter, and lighter, read on checkers engine, I recommend Blondie24[0]. [0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558607838 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558607838
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fffrrrr 4y agoThis is really a riveting book. You don't need any interest in checks or computer science to enjoy it.
- gralx 4y ago> ... it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley. I've got another one: famous hold 'em poker player Stu Ungar never lost a game of gin rummy. Utterly dominant.
- treis 4y agoSounds like an urban legend. Gin rummy has too much luck for someone to have a perfect record.
- gralx 4y agoThe list of sound defeats is kind of a who's who from back in the day: Black, Hawk, Robison, Klein, Leo the Jap, Price, Stein.
- fijiaarone 4y agoNot nearly as much luck as poker, especially Texas hold ‘em which is almost pure luck with very little room for strategy or calculation.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoHold em has a lot more of a skill factor than the losers of a game want to admit, bit a lot more of a luck factor than the winners do.
- wfme 4y ago> Ungar destroyed anyone who challenged him in a gin match, including a professional widely regarded as the best gin player of Ungar's generation, Harry "Yonkie" Stein. Ungar beat Stein 86 games to none in a high-stakes game of Hollywood Gin, after which Stein dropped out of sight in gin circles and eventually stopped playing professionally.[0] 86 wins in a row against one of the best opponents at the time has to indicate that skill can overcome much of the luck involved. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Ungar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Ungar
- mavelikara 4y ago> indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley. Not a "he", but Heather McKay won 16 consecutive British Open squash titles. Squash got a World Open only in 1976, and she won the first two editions. In a career spanning 1960-1981, she was only defeated twice and both times were early in her career.
- thmorriss 4y agothat is a cool story, thanks for sharing