Grandmaster Vladimir Kaplan

Vladimir Mikhaylovich Kaplan was born on January 11, 1925 in the city of Gomel, USSR, in 1936 his family moved to Kiev, Ukraine. After the end of the World War II, where he was wounded four times, he graduated from Kiev's State University and in 1950 won USSR Russian Checkers championship. A few years later he moved on to the 10x10 game where he became European Champion and International Grandmaster. He ran a checkers school in Kiev (where I was a student and later on a coach) and wrote many books and countless articles.

Upon immigration to USA in 1977 he won several national titles, both in Pool and International checkers.
He won all the tournaments he was in, losing just one game out of five hundred.

His first book on Pool Checkers titled "Tournament Checkers" came out in 1980, followed by a series of other books: other writings

Tournament Checkers 1980
The Art of American Pool Checkers 1983
The Tactics of American Pool Checkers. Typical Sacrifices Book 1 1984
Play Checkers and Win 1988
Strive to be Superior at American Checkers 1994
American Checkers. The Middle of the Game 1996
The Key to a Success at American checkers   Master the middle of the game  Book 2 1999

Vladimir Kaplan died in 2000 upon returning from Columbus, Ohio APCA tournament won by Ion Dosca from Moldova. In Columbus he told me he was not feeling well and that "The Key" was his last book.