Iser Kuperman 21 apr. 1922- 6 mar. 2006
Iser Kuperman is called a legendary person. In all history of checkerplaying ,nobody, even not some federation of a country, nobody made so much contribution in development and theory of playing this game. His series of tremendous successes in competition of checkers continues till this time. He was one of the strongest Grand Masters in the world in his 83 year: he was born on 21 April 1922. Iser Kuperman started playing checkers at 13 years of age; he played in that time more then 3000 tournaments and 7x received the title of worldchampion. In April 1958 after winning the tournament in Rotterdam ,the World Checkers Federation introduced the title of international Grand Master and Iser Kuperman received as first person this title. Iser Kuperman published more then 40 books on theory and strategy of checkers. They were published in Russian- English- French- Holland- Spanish- Portugeese languages and also in Braille. In total about one million books have been sold. Iser also wrote stories related to checkers and chess which have been published in various periodicles. In America has been published the large novel about his life "Fate of a champion" in Russian and English languages ; now this book is a rarity. During his interview he mentioned: "I have published many combinations and now they are used by my opponents and is it for me more and more difficult to beat them". The last 25 years Iser is living in Boston, USA and he told some funny stories : "I was once visiting the physician in the polyclinic - Mrs Kaplan - and I asked her: are you from the same family Kaplan who tried to kill V. Lenin ? It is a big honour to be your patient ". At that moment a nurse came in the cabinet and asked: "Doctor, what shall I do. I gave a mixture to my patient and after that I noticed that on the bottle was announced "Shake before use". I did not do that, what must I do now ?. And I immediately made advise "Take the patient and put him upside-down". Dr. Kaplan told : "Shut up, Mr. Kuperman and take off your dress and lay down on the couch". I asked her: "And what about you doctor ?". Dr. Kaplan answered:
"You make me ready for an attemt on your life too !".
She threw me out of the cabinet and told my wife "Take that patient with you for he is a hooligan". I have also problems with my wife. I ask her:
"Please draw on my back with a pencil 8 vertical lines". She asked "-And then ?"
"Now draw 8 horizontal lines "
She asked: "And then?" "Now write horizontal a-b-c-d etc. and vertical 1-2-3 etc.
"And then ?" "now scratch me on field E5"
Last 8 March, when she was cleaning dishes in the kittchen, I told her: "Darling,
today is International Womens day, so stop your job and let's go to the sitting room".
"Oh, my dear", Inna asked gladly -"you are ready to clean the dishes yourself ?"
"No, you will clean it tomorrow !"
She was not amused and I had to go out for buying a nice bouquet flowers to make her happy again.
(Interview with newspaper Zabugorie by I.van Wijngaarden 1 apr.2005jx)