Vitaly Halberstadt was a French chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player, problemist and, above all, a noted endgame study

Endgame study

An endgame study, or just study, is a composed chess position—that is, one that has been made up rather than one from an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find a way for one side to win or draw, as stipulated, against any moves the other side...

 composer.

Born in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (currently Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

), he emigrated to France. In 1925, he shared 1st with Abraham Baratz

Abraham Baratz

Abraham Baratz was a Romanian–French chess master.In 1924, Baratz took 2nd, behind Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, in Paris. In 1925, he tied for 1st with Vitaly Halberstadt in the 1st Paris City Chess Championship. In 1925, he took 3rd in Paris . In January 1926, he won ahead of Dawid Janowski in Hyères...

 in the 1st Paris City Chess Championship

Paris City Chess Championship

The first Paris City Chess Championship was held in 1925....

, tied for 5-6th in the 2nd Paris-ch 1926 (Leon Schwartzmann

Leon Schwartzmann

Leon Schwartzmann was a Polish–French chess master.He was born in Warsaw, Poland into a Jewish family, and studied in Sankt Petersburg. In 1911, he tied for 5-6th in St Petersburg...

 won), tied for 5-6th at Hyères 1926 (Baratz won), shared 1st with Peter Potemkine

Peter Potemkine

Peter Potemkin was a Russian chess master.He took 7th at St. Petersburg 1904 , took 5th at St Petersburg 1907 Peter Potemkin (Potemkine, Potyomkin) (1886–1926) was a Russian chess master.He took 7th at St. Petersburg 1904 (Mikhail Chigorin won), took 5th at St Petersburg 1907 Peter Potemkin...

 at Paris 1926, tied for 5-7th in the 3rd Paris-ch 1927 (Baratz won), tied for 10-11th in the 4th Paris-ch 1928 (Baratz won), tied for 1st-3rd with Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

 and J.J. O'Hanlon

John O'Hanlon

John O'Hanlon was an Irish chess master.He won nine times Irish Chess Championship, first title in 1913 and the last in 1940...

 at Hyères

Hyères

Hyères , Provençal Occitan: Ieras in classical norm or Iero in Mistralian norm) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France....

 1928, took 8th in the 6th Paris-ch 1930 (Josef Cukierman

Josef Cukierman

Josef Cukierman was a Polish-born French chess master.- Biography :Cukierman was born near Bialystok, in 1900. He won the second Moscow City Championship . In early 1920s, Cukierman lived in Białystok, Poland, where he won a chess club championship in 1926...

 won), took 6th in the 7th Paris-ch 1931 (Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

Eugene Alexandrovich Znosko-Borovsky was a Russian chess master, music and drama critic, teacher and author. Born in Saint Petersburg, he settled in Paris in 1920, and lived there for the rest of his life.-Biography:...

 won), took 3rd in the 8th Paris-ch 1932 (Oscar Blum

Oscar Blum

Oscar Blum was a Lithuanian–French chess master.He won, ahead of Nicolas Rossolimo and Vitaly Halberstadt, in the 8th Paris City Chess Championship in 1932. Dr Oscar Blum played at Folkestone 1933. He participated not in the 5th Chess Olympiad but in the General Congress, finishing second, half a...

 won), and took 9th at Paris 1938 (L'Echiquier, Baldur Hoenlinger won).

In 1932, he published with Marcel Duchamp "L'Opposition et les cases conjugées sont réconciliées", a chess manual dedicated to several special end-game problems, for which Duchamp designed the layout and cover.
Halberstadt is also an author of "Curiosités tactiques des finales" (1954).

External links