
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 8, 1995                   TAG: 9504100082
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TOP HUMAN CHECKERS PLAYER DIES

Marion Tinsley, the perennial world checkers champion who was widely regarded as the best player the world has known, died Monday, five years after he ran out of worthy human opponents and had to win his last titles by beating ever more powerful computers. He was 68 and lived in Conyers, Ga.

Tinsley died of cancer, relatives said.

Tinsley, a retired Florida State University mathematics professor who had lost only nine games since first winning the world championship in 1955, abandoned his world title in August at the world championship final in Boston.

Illness forced him to withdraw from the championship match after playing six games against an enhanced version of the Chinook computer program that he had beaten in three previous title matches.

- The New York Times

by CNB