www.Daily Speculations. com

[Alan Millhone]

Hello everyone:

In the last few days Mr. Niederhoffer and myself have had several discussions on Checker/ACF related topics. He has done much over the past few years for Checkers,youth and the ACF. He told me I could post his letter to me. I wrote him a personal note and decided to post it as well. Neither of us have anything to hide and might as well be open on all we think and discuss. Remember the following are comments to each other and of a personal nature. Comments are always welcome . On his fine site you will note a new format where you can reply to a posting which his former web set up did not allow. I told him this change could create a few problems and his reply to me: " Might be better to have a few bad debts and increase the business". Anyway Mr. Niederhoffer is one of our top supporters and I am glad to have him in our ACF.
===============================================

Dear Mr. Niederhoffer:

In the beginning I visited your site on occasion and was baffled (still am at times) at all I see there. Later I made it a 'short cut' to visit and to read Tommie Wiswell's proverbs:-) Now I check it our several times a day to see if any updates/new articles have been posted for my reading and enjoyment. Checkers and the ACF has allowed me to meet and become friends with people from all corners of the Earth. " DAILY SPECULATIONS" has broadened my World even more and allowed me to know you. I am truly blessed by all of this. Thru your nuturing of myself I feel I have evolved into a much better person and have a better grasp of many things that were once foreign to me. I owe you much Sir. I am forever in your debt and will do anything I can for you in any capacity to the best of my ability.
Sincerely:
Alan

===============================================
(Below is his reply to me)


Yes, thanks. I am looking forward to meeting you and the other checker players. It is good to get our of the world of the board now and then, and I believe it improves the checker game also. Tom always told me that he thought the book of proverbs that he was writing for me, (I got about 20,000 of them) was the best book he had ever written of the 25 he wrote, and I believe he thought that because he sensed the universal validity of the principles of checkers to decisions that are built up from the elementary yes-no decisions of forward and back of checkers. Your post and Moiseyevs were very interesting, and yours followed Oldburys ideas about playing a waiting game, and Tommie would agree with it. I believe you and I as not world champs would agree however that tactics doesn't make much sense against the world's best. I played Tommie and Jules Leopold about a thousand games, and I never saw them fall into a tactical trap, and that's what Moiseyev of course was building on with his Jacob's Ladder thing. I'll never forget when I fisrt tried to impress Susan with my checker ability and I played a bum at Union Square, the only one that played American Checkers, and everyone gathered around and raucously shouted at me, " Ha , Ha, he got you in Jacob's ladder".

I played checkers on Microsoft for a while under 'putspread' and I enjoyed meeting a few champs who were much better than me, who are doubtless members of the ACF as some were very very good. I like to counter old fourteen wit ha fast 9 to 13 on the third move, when I am moving first, and I'll never forget I was playing a good player rated about 2200, and I had asked him so as to not waste his time to tell me if I had ever lost a game with him so I wouldn't waste his time, and he told me on my fourth move, " you lost ", he was right.

I started trading again in 1998 and had to give up checkers again because I couldn't get a good game on the Microsoft sites as the good players did not want to play with me because they didn't know if I would waste their time, and the bad players wasted my time because they refused to resign when they were down a checker.

I am looking forward to taking a few lessons when I attend the next Nationals and meeting a few more nice guys to bring me back to the old days when I watched my Father play the various Scotties at the West 4th. Street Sea Breeze Park (now Coney Island Aquarium) where unfortunately now they play Russian chess with those horrible and ungainly, undifferentiated pieces now.

I am looking forward to meeting you also, and putting the finishing touches on the game site for members who wish self improvement and enjoyment in the near future also. You do an admirable job of squaring the circle in trying to resurge the great game, which so many kids are now playing and just needs the right mojo to get going again.

Sincerely:
VIC

P.S. Feel free to post this letter on the acf site, vic

===============================================

Sincerely:
Alan Millhone, President
American Checker Federation
===============================================

Checkers--- " THE MENTAL SPORT ALTERNATIVE TO VIDEO GAMES "

===============================================