[1] He was a brother of Evgeny and Leonid Kubbel (one of the best-known chess composers); their father was born in Latvia, of Baltic German descent.

In Moscow in 1920, he tied for fifth through seventh place at the first Soviet Chess Championship, won by Alexander Alekhine.

He took fifth place at the Leningrad City Chess Championship in 1924 (won by Grigory Levenfish), tied for 11-13th at the fourth Soviet championship at Leningrad 1925 (won by Efim Bogoljubow),[2] and tied for eighth and ninth place at the 1928 Leningrad City championship (won by Ilya Rabinovich).

[3] On 21 November 1937 he was arrested and charged under Article 58 1a (treason) of the RSFSR penal code.

According to Huffington Post chess columnist Lubomir Kavalek, this was for sending his compositions to foreign newspapers.