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 composed position—that is, one that has been made up rather than played in an actual game—presented as a sort of puzzle, in which the aim of the solver is to find the essentially uniqu ...
. He was born in
Veghel
Veghel () is a town and a former municipality in the southern Netherlands. On 1 January 2017 Veghel, together with Schijndel and Sint-Oedenrode, merged into a new municipality called Meierijstad creating the largest municipality of the provi ...
,
The Netherlands
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, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
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, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, 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 probably the largest collection 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
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) as Section Director of the
FIDE Album 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
Arthur John Roycroft (born 25 July 1929, London) is an English chess endgame study composer and author.
Chess career
In 1959 he was awarded the title International Judge of Chess Compositions. In 1965 he founded '' EG'', the first long-running j ...
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