Home of the Meson Chess Problem Database and the BDS Ladder

Welcome to my website

Welcome to the revamped BDS Website. My name is Brian Stephenson and I am a retired IT professional. I read a lot and listen to the radio nearly all the time, being a big fan of audio drama. I play chess (badly) in my local league when my club is desperate to field a full team. I have been composing and publishing chess problems since 1977. I have begun to post my compositions here. They are far from all posted yet, but I am slowly adding them. Select the Chess Problems menu item above to view them. I have been writing about Chess Endgame Studies in Chess since 2006 and, with Roland Ott, in Schweizerische Schachzeitung since 2014. Select the Endgame Studies menu item to view these articles.

My MESON Chess Problem Database has been free and online since 2006 and currently contains more than 244,000 items. Select the MESONmenu item to access it. The BDS Ladder is a chess problem solving competition. New solvers can join at any time and all are welcome. If you are already solving or wish to take a look at it select the BDS Ladder menu item.

I have an interest in programming and building websites. Select the IT menu item to learn more about the software that I use. I have just started a blog where I intend to write about chess, audio drama, books and anything else that interests me. Select the Blog menu item to view it. I am occasionally involved in the production of audio drama. Select the Audio Drama menu item to learn more. I have a small selection of photos taken by myself and others during my visits to various chess events. View them by selecting the Photos menu item.

If you want to contact me, you can do so using the Contact menu option above.

BDS


Developed and maintained by Brian Stephenson.
Implemented with HTML5, MySQL, Perl (with, inter alia, CGI::Simple, HTML::Template & XML::LibXML) & CSS/Javascript (jQuery, Bootstrap & DataTables).