Vitaly Halberstadt

Ukrainian-French chess player (1903–1967)

Vitaly Halberstadt

Vitaly Halberstadt (20 March 1903, Odessa – 25 October 1967, Paris) was a French chess player, theorist, problemist, and a noted endgame study composer.[1]

Born in Odessa, in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), he emigrated to France after the Russian Civil War.

## Chess games

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Chess games during Halberstadt's career[2] Year  | Placement  | Competition or location  | Victor of year

|
|
|

1925  | 1st place (shared with Abraham Baratz)  | Paris City Chess Championship | Halberstadt and Baratz
1926  | 2nd place  | Leon Schwartzmann
5-6th places  | Hyères | Abraham Baratz
1st place (shared with Peter Potemkine)  | Paris | Halberstadt and Potemkine
1927  | 5-7th places  | Paris City Chess Championship | Abraham Baratz
1928  | 10-11th places
1st-3rd places (tied with Marcel Duchamp and J.J. O'Hanlon)  | Hyères | Halberstadt, Duchamp and O'Hanlon
1930  | 8th place  | Paris City Chess Championship | Josef Cukierman
1931  | 6th place  | Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
1932  | 3rd place  | Oscar Blum
1938  | 9th  | Paris (L'Echiquier)  | Baldur Hoenlinger

## Publications

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In 1932, Halberstadt 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.[3] In this book, Duchamp and Halberstadt addressed the complication of the so-called "heterodox opposition", which is a precisely organized endgame that involved two kings and a handful of pawns.[4] This concept has established a figure of immobilized reversibility between two subjective positions and two players.[4] Within a condition where only two kings remain,[5] the duo described the move in the following manner:

> The king 'may act in such a way as to suggest he has completely lost interest in winning the game. Then the other king, if he is a true sovereign, can give the appearance of being even less interested.' Until one of them provokes the other into a blunder.[6]

Halberstadt was also the author of "Curiosités tactiques des finales" (1954).

## References

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1. ^ "Halberstadt". heritageechecsfra.free.fr.
2. ^ "Amsterdam (NED-ch10th) 1938". Archived from the original on 2010-12-15. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
3. ^ Art, Philadelphia Museum of. "Philadelphia Museum of Art - Archives : Finding Aids". www.philamuseum.org.
4. ^ a b Joselit, David (2001). Infinite Regress: Marcel Duchamp, 1910-1941. Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 174\. ISBN 9780262600385.
5. ^ Witham, Larry (2013). Picasso and the Chess Player: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and the Battle for the Soul of Modern Art. Hanover: UPNE. p. 327\. ISBN 9781611682533.
6. ^ McEvilley, Thomas (1999). Sculpture in the Age of Doubt. New York: Allworth Press. pp. 56. ISBN 1581150237.

## External links

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* Vitaly Halberstadt player profile and games at Chessgames.com

Authority control databases

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