in memoriam

Kolman was born in Vladimir, Russia, where his father was exiled from Odessa during Stalin's times. Shortly after his birth, Kolman's father was arrested again and sent to the camps. The mother with two children returned to Odessa, but soon they had to flee from the Nazi occupation to the Urals. Returning after the war, they lived in extreme poverty, but despite hunger and deprivation in these difficult years, first chess and then checkers became a joy for him. Kolman generally loved all intellectual games, but checkers occupied a special place and became his main hobby for the rest of his life. 

After graduating from college, he got a job in Tambov, and then attended  Kuibyshev Civil Engineering Institute. After graduation, he worked in Ufa.  All this time he continued to practice checkers and showed good results.  In 1961, he fulfilled the norms of the Master of Sport of the USSR, becoming the Champion of the Russian Federation in international checkers.

Despite his great successes, he did not have a chance to play checkers professionally. At his mother’s request, he returned to Odessa, where he soon got his own family he had to provide for. A job for the regional construction company required constant travel - there was not much time left for sport. Nevertheless, he tried to compete as much as he could, at least a couple of times a year. He also led checkers division in Odessa branch of the sports club "Burevestnik" and trained young athletes, many of whom later became national masters themselves.

At some point in his adult life, his hobby became endgame positions. The careful work of testing multiple options had to be done manually in the pre-computer era. He never parted with a small magnetic board and a notepad, and spent all his free time checking and correcting the next endgame puzzle. Having gained experience, he began to submit his works to competitions, where over time they started to receive awards. This hobby completely captured him. It was a tedious work full of both disappointments when after several weeks of testing and polishing, he suddenly found a side solution, or has learned that the same idea had already been played by someone else, and immense joy when the puzzle turned out to be successful! 

In 1992, the family immigrated to the United States, where Kolman, despite his advanced age, managed to get retrained and, thanks to his perseverance and efforts, found professional engineering work. As soon as the opportunity arose, he began to take part in the annual US Championships and in 2004 became a US champion. Supporting the development of the sport of checkers in the United States, he actively participated in the work of the American Federation of 100-square checkers, and in 2007 he was elected vice president of the new board.

After retiring in 2007, he planned to continue working on the development of checkers in America, dreamed of creating youth training sections and publishing a monthly magazine. He managed to make some achievements: his book he dedicated to checkers endgames “The Journey to the Endgame” containing over 100 of his compositions, was published in 2008, and on his initiative, the first open championship in the history of USA (“US Open”) was held, which later became regular. Kolman played in several more tournaments and became the winner of the open tournament in Curaçao in 2007. He was full of energy and planned to do more for draughts in USA when an insidious illness took him away from us.

Still, we believe that his spirit is behind all ICAONA efforts, especially our yearly open competitions, and he will be here invisibly together with all participants, arbiters and spectators to admire the beauty of his favorite game and congratulate the winners - as only he knew how to rejoice in the victories of others!