There will be errors in MESON – those I have copied from books, magazines and the card collections I have access to, those I have copied from the other free online databases and those I have perpetrated myself. If you find an error, do contact me about it, quoting the problem ids (PIDs).

Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Interesting to see this database, which I had read about. In the UK a #chess study enthusiast called Richard Harman built up a collection of endgame studies on index cards, indexed by material and features. He was regularly consulted by judges for 'anticipations' of new studies.1Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Richard died in 1986 and his Harman Database is now in my house. I kept it up-to-date for a few years but it was superseded many years ago by Harold van der Heijden's electronic database.1Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020Card indices of #ChessProblem s exist around the World. The White-Hume Collection was split up years ago but some of it still exists. The Albrecht Collection in Germany is now on computer database and kept by Udo Degener.

Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 5, 2020As for the Pirnie collection, not counted it, but I am slowly going through it for my online #ChessProblem database: http://bstephen.me.uk/meson/meson.pl?opt=top… . Also going through several boxes of the White-Hume Collection which I have.

Brian Stephenson@bstephen2·Aug 4, 2020The Pirnie Collection of #ChessProblem s is index cards in Clark's shoe boxes and is held in my house. The late JP Toft created a huge card database of #ChessProblem s in Scandinavia and is now held in a public library.

As his work developed over the following decades, Kasparian produced many studies of great depth and analytical refinement. He was a strong player (the champion of Armenia ten times and a competitor in four USSR championships) and it shows in his compositions. In introducing his collection of 400 studies, published in 1987, he described his work in the following terms. "I have paid the greatest attention to the themes of positional draw, mate, stalemate, and systematic manoeuvre. This is no accident, but entirely natural: in contemporary study composition these themes are often being elaborated, they are promising, fruitful and, perhaps, inexhaustible." Yes, his themes may be the familiar ones, but the originality and subtlety of the play give his compositions a variety that seems as inexhaustible as the game itself.