Braille Chess Association (also for non-Braillists!)

We offer tuition and coaching from beginner to advanced level. We sell good quality adapted chess sets and chess clocks and give advice on chess software suitable for blind people. We offer practical help and advice to any school, college, group or association of visually impaired players wishing to form a chess club. This may include tuition and coaching or help with the provision of adapted chess equipment. We run an audio library of chess literature in a variety of accessible formats and we have an email user group where members exchange information and opinions.

We organise three over the board chess tournaments each year in various UK locations: weekend events each spring and autumn, and a week long event in the summer. We run a week long chess coaching holiday with a mini tournament. We host email tournaments and remote tournaments on Skype/Zoom/phone. We run correspondence events in which members send moves to each other in Braille or by email. We enter teams of blind and partially sighted players and individuals in overseas tournaments ranging from relatively informal events right up to World Championships!

The BCA is a very friendly organisation and although chess will always be our main focus there is also a strong social aspect to our events. Many of our members have been pals for decades and we're always delighted to welcome newcomers to our group. At our longer events we often have entertainment in the evenings such as music, a quiz or a murder mystery!