Charles Clendell Walker (born 1934) is a former Mississippi state checkers champion and minister. He founded the International Checker Hall of Fame in Petal, Mississippi in 1979. [1] Walker is also known in checkers history for his record-setting victories in simultaneous checkers matches. In a January 1992 match that lasted over eight hours, he played 229 checkers games simultaneously. He won 227 contests, lost one and tied one. [2] [3] In 1994, he set a Guinness World Record while playing 306 checkers games simultaneously and losing only one. [4] [5]
Walker started playing checkers at a young age: "At age 7, his family was flooded out of its home. To pass time in the emergency shelter, he played checkers. Later he discovered his father-in-law was shy. He broke the ice by playing checkers with him on the front porch, and getting beaten." [6] The game became his lifelong passion that defined much of his life, both public and private. [7]
In the 1990s, Charles Walker helped organize and publicize several World Man-Machine Checkers Championship matches of the checkers computer called Chinook against several human players. [8] [9]
Walker was a long-term friend, admirer, and promoter of World Checkers champion Marion Tinsley, whom Walker described as "the greatest checkers player who ever lived," and "probably the greatest who ever will live". [10]
Walker served as a Secretary of The American Checker Federation, was the Editor of Checkers Magazine [11] and also served as President of World Checker Draught Federation. [12]
Walker ran a successful insurance business and was described in the media as "an insurance millionaire" [13] and an "insurance tycoon". [14]
Walker was arrested by ICE agents on January 7, 2005 in an undercover sting operation and charged with attempted money laundering of "$6 million in represented drug smuggling proceeds". [15] Charles Walker pleaded guilty on June 30, 2005. [15] [16] His sentencing had to be postponed twice, [17] in particular because of Hurricane Katrina, but he was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2006. [18] In January 2005, after his arrest, Walker announced that the International Checkers Hall of Fame was to be closed, and that he would resign his post as President of the World Checker Draught Federation. [19] The International Checkers Hall of Fame was kept open until Walker's sentencing, but the building was destroyed by fire on September 29, 2007. [20] [21]
Ellas McDaniel, known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, George Thorogood, and The Clash.
Marion Franklin Tinsley 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 from 1950 until his death in 1995. He withdrew from championship play during the years 1958–1975, relinquishing the title during that time. Derek Oldbury, sometimes considered the second-best player of all time, thought that Tinsley was "to checkers what Leonardo da Vinci was to science, what Michelangelo was to art and what Beethoven was to music."
Walter F. Hellman was the longest reigning world American checkers champion.
Petal is a city in Forrest County, Mississippi, along the Leaf River. It is part of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,454 in the 2010 census, increasing to 11,010 in the 2020 census.
Jonathan Herbert Schaeffer is a Canadian researcher and professor at the University of Alberta and the former Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence.
English draughts or checkers, also called straight checkers or simply draughts, is a form of the strategy board game checkers. It is played on an 8×8 checkerboard with 12 pieces per side. The pieces move and capture diagonally forward, until they reach the opposite end of the board, when they are crowned and can thereafter move and capture both backward and forward.
Robert Anthony John Hewitt is a former professional tennis player from Australia. In 1967, after marrying a South African, he became a South African citizen. He has won 15 major titles and a career Grand Slam in both men's and mixed doubles.
Chinook is a computer program that plays checkers. It was developed between the years 1989 to 2007 at the University of Alberta, by a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer and consisting of Rob Lake, Paul Lu, Martin Bryant, and Norman Treloar. The program's algorithms include an opening book which is a library of opening moves from games played by checkers grandmasters; a deep search algorithm; a good move evaluation function; and an end-game database for all positions with eight pieces or fewer. All of Chinook's knowledge was programmed by its creators, rather than learned using an artificial intelligence system.
Ron "Suki" King is an English checkers player from Saint George, Barbados. He has won twelve world championship titles at the game and is considered one of the strongest players of the game. King has been honored by his homeland being named Barbados's Sportsman of the Year in both 1991 and 1992. He has been called the Muhammad Ali of the checkers world for his trash-talking.
Charles Robert Coe was an American amateur golfer who is considered by many to be one of the greatest American amateurs in history. A two-time U.S. Amateur winner, Coe never turned professional either because, as he stated in 1998, "When I was growing up, golf was a gentleman's game," or because his wife said, "if I thought I was going to raise three children out of a suitcase, I was crazy". He had a successful career in the oil business.
The International Checker Hall of Fame (ICHF) operated from 1979 to September 29, 2007, when a fire burned over 20,000 square feet with smoke and water damage on the 15,000 balance. The ICHF was founded by Charles Walker, who was many times MS State Checker Champion. The ICHF was located in a Tudor architecture style mansion in Petal, Mississippi; it housed a large collection of checkers memorabilia. The hall of fame, which had been home to a statue of checkers-great Marion Tinsley, contained a checkers book library and museum, as well as the two largest checkerboards and was host to a number of State and International checker tournaments.
Nick Vitucci is a former professional ice hockey goaltender. He was the head coach of the ECHL's Toledo Walleye from 2009 to 2014. In 2008, Vitucci was inducted into the ECHL Hall of Fame.
The ECHL Hall of Fame is an ice hockey museum dedicated to honoring members that have played in the ECHL. It was created by the league in 2008. The ECHL Board of Governors created the ECHL Hall of Fame to recognize the achievements of players, coaches, and personnel who dedicated their careers to the league. Hall of Fame members are selected in four categories: Player, Developmental Player, Builder, and Referee/Linesman. Players must have concluded their career as an active player for a minimum of three playing seasons, though not continuous or full seasons. Developmental Players must have begun their career in the ECHL and went on to a distinguished career in the NHL, playing a minimum of 260 regular season games in the NHL, AHL and ECHL. Builders may be active or inactive whereas Referee/Linesman must have concluded their active officiating career for a minimum of three playing seasons.
Michele Borghetti is an Italian grandmaster of international draughts, Italian draughts and English draughts. In English draughts he was world champion in both 3-move and GAYP variations.
Mohammed Mahee Ferdhaus Jalil is a Bangladeshi-born British businessman, founder of Channel S, owner of Prestige Auto Group and television presenter.
John Ray Webster is an American competitive checkers player, veterinarian, farmer, retired military officer, and musician. A national checkers champion and grand-master, Webster won the United States Blitz GAYP title at the American Checker Federation National Championship in 2011. He has won the North Carolina Checkers Championship eleven times and represented the United States, as a member of the United States International Checkers Team, in the World Checkers/Draughts Championship in England in 1989 and Las Vegas in 2005. In 2011 he represented the United States at the World Qualifier Checkers Tournament in Italy.
Joan Caws was a British English draughts player. Caws was a multiple-times English champion, a 1979 British champion and the first Women's World champion, having successfully defended the title in 1987 and 1989.
James Jefferson Webster III, also known as Jeff Webster, is an American competitive checkers player and musician. Webster was the National Youth Checkers Champion in 1981 and the World Youth Checkers Champion in 1982.
Kimmo Leinonen is a Finnish ice hockey executive and writer. He was the director of public relations and marketing for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) from 1995 to 2007, and held similar positions for SM-liiga and Ilves. He served as general secretary of the 2012 and 2013 Ice Hockey World Championships co-hosted in Finland and Sweden. He also coached junior ice hockey for Ilves, managed the Ilves Naiset who won three Naisten SM-sarja championships, was a scout for the New York Rangers, and a sports commentator for hockey broadcasts in Finland.