Harold van der Heijden is a Dutch composer of chess

endgame studies In the game of chess, an endgame study, or just study, is a type of chess problem that starts with a composed position—i.e. one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—where the goal is to find the essentially unique way for ...

. He was born in

Veghel Veghel () is a town and a former municipality in Southern Netherlands. On 1 January 2017 Veghel, together with Schijndel and Sint-Oedenrode, merged into a new municipality called Meierijstad. This created the largest municipality of the provi ...

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, on 18 December 1960. By profession, after finishing his PhD in 2009, he is head of the Research and Development laboratory of a veterinary institute. His collection of endgame studies is considered to be the largest and the most comprehensive in the world (counting over 83,000 studies as of September 2014). This collection is helpful for judges in anticipation checking. He was consulted by judges of many tourneys and also organized and/or judged several endgame study tourneys himself. In 2001 he was awarded by the

Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions The World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) is the highest body governing the official activities in the chess composition. It was known as the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions (PCCC) from its inception in 1956 until Oct ...

(PCCC) the title of International Judge for Chess Composition for endgame studies and in 2012 the FM title for chess composition. He has published well over 130 of his own studies. With his 101 studies participating in tourneys, he won 28 prizes, 31 honourable mentions and 17 commendations (as of September 2014). He was appointed by the

(PCCC) as Section Director of the

FIDE Album The FIDE Albums are publications of the world chess governing body, FIDE, via the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions (PCCC), containing the best chess problems and studies of a certain period (usually three years in length). ...

for the endgame study section starting with the 1998-2000 Album until the 2007-2009 Album. He was editor (1989) and later chief editor (1993) of the magazine EBUR of the Dutch endgame circle ARVES. EBUR merged in 2007 with the famous international endgame study magazine EG founded by John Roycroft in 1965. He was also editor of this magazine since 1991 and took over chief editorship from John Roycroft with the merger of the magazines.

Books

* Harold van der Heijden (1996): ''Pawn Promotion to Bishop or Rook in the Endgame Study'', New in Chess, Alkmaar * Harrie Grondijs & Harold van der Heijden (2008): ''Inleiding tot de Eindspelstudie'', RUEB, Rijswijk.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20101009074352/http://home.concepts.nl/~he16442/ * http://hhdbv.nl/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Heijden, Harold Van Der 1960 births Living people Chess composers International Judges of Chess Compositions People from Veghel