Josef Kupper

Josef Kupper (* 10 March 1932 in Lucerne; † 5 June 2017 in Zurich) was a Swiss actuary and professor at ETH Zurich. Until his retirement, he was Deputy CEO of Rentenanstalt (now Swiss Life). He was also a successful chess player (International Master) and chess composer.

Chess                                                                                                                                                                                    Josef Kupper played internationally, for example at the 1954 Chess Olympiad in Amsterdam - where he achieved the second-best individual result at the top board with 10 points from 14 games - in Munich in 1958, in Tel Aviv in 1964 and in Lugano in 1968, scoring 35 points for the Swiss team in 57 games. Kupper took part in the Clare Benedict Cup twelve times, winning it with the Swiss selection in Neuchâtel in 1958.

He was also successful at national level and became Swiss chess champion three times (1954, 1957 and 1962). In 1955, he was awarded the title of International Master by the FIDE. Kupper won the Swiss Team Championship several times with the Schachgesellschaft Zürich and also took part in the 1975/76 European Club Cup with them.

Chess composition

Kupper also excelled as a composer of chess problems and wrote several hundred chess puzzles, especially after his retirement in 1997. He composed in all genres - direct mates, selfmates or helpmates. He ran the chess column of the Basel "National-Zeitung" for decades. He also took part in the World Solving Championship in 2004 and won the Swiss Solving Championship in 2002. In 2007, he was awarded the title of FIDE Master in Problem Solving.

Books
Probability theory models in non-life insurance.
Battle for the World Chess Championship, Reykjavik, 1972: Boris Spasski - Robert Fischer. Published by National-Zeitung, 1972.
60 years of the joy of artistic chess. 2008.

Source: wikipedia.de

Die Schwalbe (Issue 286, August 2017) wrote about him:

"The Swiss professor of mathematics Josef Kupper (10.3.1932-5.6.2017) enjoyed a long, successful and varied chess career. In the 1950s and 60s, he was national champion three times and represented Switzerland several times at chess olympiads; in Amsterdam in 1954, he achieved the second-best result at the top board with 10 points from 14 games. After his retirement in 1997, he turned increasingly to problem chess - as an organiser who headed the Swiss Art Chess Association, as a composer of more than 800 problems and also as a solver - and also took part in a number of WCC congresses. Kupper died on 5 June at the age of 85 after a long illness. - As we have only just learned, our French friends have suffered two bitter losses: Louis Azemard passed away on 8 March 2016 at the age of 80 after a long illness. He was also a maths professor and ran a column on chess mathematics in Rex multiplex. He was also the author of the famous, clearly solvable letter/number problem HANS + PETER + REHM = SCHACH, which HPR chose as the title of his problem book published by Editions Fee-Nix. Roland Lecomte also passed away on 9 October last year at the age of 91. The professional journalist had been involved with problem chess since 1948, edited Europe Echecs from 1976 to 1984, was an international adjudicator and worked as the director of an early FIDE album."