Charles Walker

Who is Charles Walker?

Charles Clendell Walker is a former Mississippi state checkers champion and minister. He founded the International Checker Hall of Fame in Petal, Mississippi in 1979. 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. In 1994, he set a Guinness World Record while playing 306 checkers games simultaneously and losing only one.

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." The game became his lifelong passion that defined much of his life, both public and private.

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.

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".