To celebrate National Braille Week 2009 an international Braille Chess Tournament was organised by the UK Braille Chess Association in partnership with Royal Blind.

The event took place from Friday 2^nd January 2009 to Monday 5 January 2009 and was organised to celebrate National Braille Week 2009 and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. The event took place in the Best Western Edinburgh Capital Hotel and included teams from Sweden, Turkey, The Netherlands, France, Belgium and UK playing in a five round tournament.

To support the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, all competitors played with Braille chess sets, Braille chess clocks and record the moves of their games in Braille. The closing ceremony took place during the Sunday evening.

The UK Braille Chess association is seeking to spread it's membership as widely as possible througout the UK. Enquiries should be sent to:

Stan Lovell
28 Gosforth avenue,
Redcar TS10 3LL
Tel: 01642 775668
Email: stan.lovell@tiscali.co.uk