meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The John Batchelor Show

1/4: Seven Games: A Human History by Oliver Roeder (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2022

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Photo: No known restrictions on publication.
Ostend 1907 Chess Tournament
@Batchelorshow

4/4: Seven Games: A Human History by Oliver Roeder (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Games-History-Oliver-Roeder/dp/1324003774

Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable.

Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games―and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Do you want a superpower watching Rewatch Meersfit?

0:03.3

Lava noise jump suit, watch and rewatch Meersfit like young offenders, watch and rewatch Meersfit.

0:10.0

Are you thinking this is great but where can I watch Meersfit? Watch now on all four credits for UK's biggest free streaming service?

0:17.1

Now we've told you what to do, watch and rewatch Meersfit, watch and rewatch, we'll do.

0:21.7

Watch, watch and rewatch, rewatch, for free.

0:24.5

Oh bugging.

0:25.7

Compare it channel 4.com-sus-barified.

0:33.2

I'm John Bachelors. I am with Oliver Raider, his new book is Seven Games, a human history.

0:38.8

We turn to checkers because checkers always struck me as a young person, easier than chess.

0:45.2

For example, all the pieces look the same so I could stack them up and all you do is get to the back and

0:51.0

something magical would happen, the back row. But turns out there is someone we all need to remember when we play checkers.

0:58.0

His name was Tinsley, he's gone now, he's born in 1927, he left us in 1995. Who was he, Oliver?

1:05.7

Marian Tinsley was the best checkers player there's ever been and indeed I would argue the best

1:14.0

competitor at any competitive pursuit in the history of the world.

1:18.4

There was a 40-year stretch of competitive checkers play where Tinsley played thousands of games

1:25.1

and lost exactly three times. So this was sort of his prowess at the checkers board.

1:30.5

And in real life he was a minister and a math professor and it was sort of checkers and his

1:37.3

Christian faith that sort of occupied his life and an equal measure it seems. And insights into

1:44.4

the game of checkers would come to him out of the clear blue sky, he said, just like his insights

1:50.3

into scripture. So this is the man and this man Marian Tinsley caught the attention of

1:59.0

man in Jonathan Schaeffer who was a computer scientist at the University of Alberta who got it

2:04.3

into his mind that he wanted to conquer the game of checkers and he wanted to beat the great Tinsley.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.