> 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."
Fascinating 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.”
After reading that Wikipedia article I'm reminded of a episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent that was almost certainly inspired by Ungar's life: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0799186/ . The character appears in two episodes, although the second one isn't that great.
> "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."
An approximately optimal strategy for Limit Heads Up was determined: http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ is a Limit solution.
Machines don't play No Limit perfectly, but they're good enough to have beaten the best humans available when they last tried, so I expect if Stu had lived long enough they'd beat Stu too.
Interestingly Gin Rummy is not seen as a major AI research target. I found some undergraduates playing with relatively simple AI approaches for Gin Rummy as basically a getting your feet wet exercise, but this is apparently not in the context of "Here's what the grown-ups did" but rather "Nobody is exploring this, so whatever you do is actually novel". So there's a real opportunity if somebody is interested.
About 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.
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."