Harold van der Heijden is a Dutch composer of chess endgame studies. He was born in Veghel, The Netherlands, on 18 December 1960. By profession, after obtaining a PhD in 2009, he is senior researcher and head of the Research and Development laboratory (and manages 25 research technicians) of a veterinary company.

His collection of endgame studies is considered to be the largest and the most comprehensive in the world (his currently available version has 93,839 endgame studies – see link below). 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 (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 160 of his own studies. With his 128 studies participating in tourneys, he won 37 prizes, 44 honourable mentions and 23 commendations. He was appointed by the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions (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 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.

Be sure to have a look here: www.hhdbvi.nl