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Champion Marion Tinsley
Checkers Game
from 1927 to 1995
Most checkers experts consider Marion Tinsley
to be the greatest checker player in the
history of this great mind sport. When his
total game record in all levels of competition
is reviewed, it is easy to see how such a
statement could so readily and so emphatically
be made.
Checkers Game Champion Marion Tinsley was
born in Irontown, Ohio, on February 3, 1927.
Like many of his checkers counterparts and
Grandmasters of the game, Tinsley became
interested in the checkerboard early in life.
It is said that Marion Tinsley was a rather
mediocre checkers game player as a child,
but then at the age of 14, Marion Tinsley
soon became enthralled with the study of
the game. While looking for a book on mathematics
as he was researching a math problem, Tinsley
stumbled across two checkers books at the
Ohio State University library; one was by
Millard Hopper, and the other source was
James Lee’s famous ‘Guide
to the Game of Checkers’. These
books truly fascinated the young mind and
spawned both a deep interest in the game
as well as an active checkers career that
would span forty-five years of the master’s
life.
Tinsley possessed an amazing memory and
unusual analytical skills, which certainly
contributed to his checkers game wins early
in his career. His phenomenal record indicates
that he won virtually every Ohio State and
Cedar Point champion checkers tournament
in which he participated at an early age.
In 1947 Marion Tinsley became the United
States Junior Checkers Champion by defeating
Maurice Chamblee in a match played at Cedar
Point, Ohio. The end result was that checkers
champion Marion Tinsley scored three wins,
lost two games and played twenty-five draws.
Then at the age of 21, Dr. Marion Tinsley
entered the 1st ACF National 3-Move Restriction
Championship Tournament held at Brownwood,
Texas, in 1948. During this tournament checkers
match, champion Marion Tinsley did not lose
a single game. Marion won the tournament
and became the U.S. Masters Division Champion.
Right from early in his checkers career,
Champion Marion Tinsley displayed a tenacious
streak at the checkerboard as he showed himself
to be a fierce competitor who acknowledged
that he hated to lose more than he loved
to win.
He developed a virtual obsession for a checkers
game, where its appeal never ceased to captivate
him.
“Checkers
can get quite a hold on you,” he
once said. “Its
beauty is just over-whelming ~ the mathematics,
the elegance, the precision. It’s capable
of wrapping you all up.”
This great checkers champion Grandmaster
was sometimes listed as “Dr.
Marion Tinsley” because despite
his love of the mind sport, he still took
time to complete his studies. He acquired
a Doctorate in mathematics and worked as
a Professor of Mathematics at the Florida
State University in Tallahassee and at the
A & M University in Florida.
Champion Marion Tinsley was known to have
spent many hours studying the game of checkers
in his youth but he also stated at one time
that he had spent approximately ten thousand
hours studying checkers while in graduate
school. Now that is true dedication to a
sport and it’s
also a major reflection on his love of the
checkerboard. It is obvious that his inherent
skills in math and his photographic memory
have more than greatly attributed to his
phenomenal success in checkers games.
Although the national and international
competitive checkers arena were his true
forte, checkers game champion Marion Tinsley
also competed with Professor Fraser of Montreal
in a mixed match of ten games of GAYP (Go-As-You-Please),
ten games of the Two-Move Restriction checkers
style, ten games of the Three-Move Restriction
style, and ten games of the 11 Man Ballot.
However, this match was no contest for Marion
Tinsley, as he easily won the match with
a score of fourteen wins, no losses, and
twenty-six draws. This match alone depicted
the versatility of checkers skill that Marion
Tinsley possessed and just how strong a player
he presented across the checker board.
Champion Marion Tinsley also contested nine
World Championships during his amazing checkers
career. He played one match against Newell
Banks in Detroit, Michigan. This tournament
was played in the Two-Move Restriction style
and Tinsley successfully took the title with
a score of three wins, one loss, and the
remaining games as draws. The loss in this
match was one of the very few that Marion
Tinsley had throughout his long checkers
career.
In 1954, champion Marion Tinsley played in
the 19th ACF National 3-Move Championship
held in Lakeside, Ohio. Again, Marion won
the match and became the U.S. National 3-Move
checkers champion in the Masters Division.
In the same year, the ACF (American Checker
Federation) recognized Tinsley’s checker
achievement as World Champion and he later
confirmed this title by accepting a challenge
from the formidable checker master, Walter
Hellman of Gary, Indiana. The match was played
at Lakeside, Ohio, and ended with a significant
win for Marion Tinsley with a score of three
wins, no losses and thirty-five draws. Then
in 1956, he was challenged for the title
again and the match was held at Peoria, Illinois.
Needless to say, Tinsley retained his World
Championship title.
That same year, Marion Tinsley was a checkers
challenger in the 20th U.S. National 3-Move
Tournament that was hosted in Galveston,
Texas. Once again, Marion easily displayed
his tenacity in the game as well as his remarkable
board skills by defeating his opponents to
become the U.S. 3-Move Masters Champion again.
In 1958, Marion Tinsley defeated Grandmaster,
Derek Oldbury, in the World Championship
Match by the overwhelming score of nine wins,
one loss, and twenty-four draws. However,
it was at the same time that Marion Tinsley
decided to temporarily retire from competitive
play because his enjoyment of checkers had
seriously waned as a result the lack of
serious competition in the field of this
great mind sport.
Over the years, since his youth, Tinsley
had begun to acquire a reputation for being
unbeatable, so his opponents would usually
simply play for a draw. Trying to win the
checkers game was really beyond their realm
of thinking because it was just too difficult
a process to consider. So Marion Tinsley
became bored playing against these opponents
as there was no real deep challenge to the
game anymore. Therefore, Marion stepped away
from the checkers arena for a hiatus of about
twelve years from 1958 until about 1970.
He relinquished his World title during that
time.
Then in 1970, he was back at the checkerboard
in the ACF 27th U.S. National 3-Move Tournament
held in Houston, Texas. No surprise here.
Checkers game champion Marion Tinsley had
not lost his innate game skills, as he would
have obviously continued to study the moves
in many different games during his absence.
He won the tournament and once more held
the title of U.S. 3-Move Champion in the
Masters Division.
He also played in the 1974 National 3-Move
Tournament hosted in Philadelphia, and won
the tourney to become the U.S. 3-Move Masters
Champion for that year.
In 1975, Dr. Marion Tinsley played Elbert Lane
Lowder for the World Championship Title in checkers,
and defeated the master player with an outstanding
score of fifteen wins, no losses, and ten draws. This
match was clear evidence to the mastery behind the
checker play of Tinsley.
The St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg,
Florida, wrote the following article on Marion
Tinsley’s win, and this excerpt is
taken from the article:
“…Behind the eyeglasses,
the bookish face and the shy smile, looms
an awesome computer brain that has made
champion Marion Tinsley the terror of
the
wood-pushers...Tinsley, 48, at least made the tourney interesting
before locking it up...”
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