BCA – Bringing Chess To Visually Impaired People

From Saturday 25th January to Saturday 1st February 2025, over thirty BCA members gathered at the Lauriston Hotel, Weston-super-Mare for the 31st Chess Theme Break.  It’s a very popular event as it combines a holiday with chess coaching, a tournament and a variety of evening entertainment.  We had twelve chess trainees, eight coaches and twelve friends…

From 25th January to 1st February 2025, the BCA was in Weston-super-Mare for our Chess Theme Break. Members who are stronger players coached those with less experience. We also had a tournament and a few games against members of Weston Chess Club. Everyone enjoyed their chess immensely! The audio in this clip is from BBC…

In October thirty-eight BCA members travelled to Kents Hill Park Training and Conference Centre, Milton Keynes for our 2024 Autumn Tournament.  It was a new venue for us! This time we did not have any visitors from overseas, but we were pleased to welcome Joe Paton to his first BCA event.  He did not take…

The BCA Summer Cup is a five round Swiss event, with games played remotely and two weeks allowed for each round.  After experimenting with various formats for remote events during the Covid pandemic, we settled on this one in 2022 and the Summer Cup has now become an established event in the BCA calendar. The…

Many congratulations to Voldi Gailans for winning the 2024 ECF Award for Contribution to Accessible Chess!  At our recent weekend congress in Milton Keynes, Voldi (left) was presented with his ECF trophy by BCA Chairman, Bill Armstrong, who had submitted the nomination in favour of Voldi.  There was huge applause from all present, and Voldi…

This year’s BCA British Championship was held from the 22nd to the 29th of June at The Old Swan, a familiar venue to the BCA for some time now.  The BCA is very grateful for the generous support of The Sylvia and Colin Shepherd Charitable Trust, who very kindly gave a donation towards the cost of…

Gary Hogan was selected to represent the UK at the IBCA Individual European Championship in Ploesti, Romania, from the 15th to the 25th of June 2024.  He travelled out early with his wife Alyona and daughter Natasha, and together they enjoyed visiting Bucharest before travelling on to the tournament venue, where they met Gary’s coach,…

This tournament was held in memory of Peter Gibbs, who passed away last summer.   It was fitting that the event took place in Leicestershire – the county in which Peter had lived for many years.  Celia Gibbs joined us for the weekend. The exact venue was the Leicester Hilton Hotel and this was the first…

BCA Publicity Officer, Abi Baker, recently interviewed three people who were at the 30th Chess Theme Break.  Eleanor Tew and Irene Elbourn had attended as trainees and Tony Elbourn had volunteered as a coach.  Play the video below to find out what they thought about the week! The BCA is very grateful to Freya Smith…

In January 2024 members gathered at the Lauriston Hotel in Weston-super-Mare for our 30th Chess Theme Break! There was a drinks reception to celebrate three decades of this remarkable event and we were joined by Councillor Ciaran Cronnelly, the Mayor of the town. It was wonderful that Celia Gibbs, who ran the Chess Theme Break…

Excerpts from a report written by James Connors A year on from the BCA’s 90th anniversary, it was a warm welcome back to Solihull with 21 players and three guide dogs prepared to occupy the chess room and battle it out over five rounds at the board across the weekend.  We also welcomed many other…

Gary Hogan writes: A few months after surprisingly finishing joint second with Steve Burnell in my first tournament in Harrogate, April 2023, I received an email inviting me to represent the BCA at the 2023 IBCA World Individual Chess Championship for the Blind and Visually Impaired from 8th – 18th October 2023, Rhodes, Greece. I…

The aim of the Summer Cup is to help BCA members keep their chess skills sharp from the comfort of their own homes over the summer months.  It’s an ideal event for people who cannot attend our OTB tournaments for one reason or another!  In this five round Swiss tournament, two weeks are allowed for…

Braille Chess Association – Chairman’s Cup The BCA held a tournament in the Marsham Court Hotel from Saturday 15th July to Friday 22nd July.  23 players took part, most of them visually impaired.  During the week, 7 rounds of chess were played and in the evenings the group enjoyed entertainment such as a quiz, some…

Members gathered at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate for our AGM Weekend Congress from the 14th to the 16th of April, 2023.  We held our AGM on the Saturday evening.  It was our first hybrid meeting, with members attending online as well as in person.  The Annual Best Game Trophy for 2022 was presented…

Nearly thirty players, guides, family members and friends gathered in Weston-super-Mare from 28th January to 4th February 2023 for a chess themed holiday!  The week started with a few days of coaching, during which six of our more experienced players trained ten other members in small groups.  There were also some “How Good is Your…

In October 2022 we celebrated our 90th anniversary of our chess association.  The centre piece of our weekend was the anniversary but there was also competitive chess that needs reporting. We had a wonderful turnout of 27 players with Olle Engström (Sweden), Eamonn Casey (Ireland).  Neda Koohnavard (Iran) and Bittor Ibanez (Spain) making both sections…