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Subject: Re: beyond 3000+

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 07:55:24 10/07/03

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On October 07, 2003 at 08:53:42, martin fierz wrote:

>
>>I could envision a chess player that is as strong at chess as Marion Tinsley
>>was at checkers.  If a player only loses a couple of games over a 20 year
>>period, he's going to most likely have a 3000+ rating, again assuming that
>>he matches Tinsley's overall performance and not drawing _every_ game.
>
>IMO chess players are better at chess than checkers players at checkers. i don't
>want to say anything against tinsley, but checkers is *far* from the level of
>professionalism that chess has achieved. you have hundreds or maybe even
>thousands of intelligent people studying chess hard, many hours a day, for
>years. how many like that do you have in checkers? not one. no non-professional
>chess player is anywhere near the top.

I don't disagree with that at all.  My point was that Tinsley had an
absolutely remarkable record over 40 years of playing.

If someone were to suddenly show up with a "super-machine" that could
beat Kasparov 3 of every 4 games, then they would end up over 3000 with
no real problem, since Kasparov is over 2800.

And then if someone else builds yet another super-machine that can whup the
first super-machine 3 of every 4 games, they would crack 3200.  And so
on.

>what made tinsley unique (besides his talent) is that he was really dedicated to
>that game, and studied it like no other. but he still studied less than any
>average chess professional does chess today.

I don't know that I buy that.  I knew him for many years and he studied a
_lot_.  And he also played chess, as I have reported in the past, but he
was maybe a 2000 player there.

> checkers players have no database
>tools like chessbase. tinsley had no strong programs to analyze with. checkers
>literature is virtually non-existent compared to the massive body of chess
>literature.
>another point about tinsley and his very rare losses is that he was a very
>cautious player, who would rather win a match with 1 win and 19 draws than with
>9 wins, 1 loss and 10 draws. checkers is very drawish. you cannot compare the
>small number of his losses in checkers to chess.


I wasn't trying to compare chess to checkers at all.  Just explaining how
a player could reach 3000+.


>
>cheers
>  martin



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