Sport Features

St. Aidan's College in Durham was selected by the Braille Chess Association (BCA) to play host to the fourth IBCA European Individual Chess Championship 2007.

After many rounds of castling, queening and carefully planning each move the tournament was won by Jaroslav Olsar of the Czech Republic scoring eight points out of nine.

Played by partially sighted and blind people, the contenders would play against each other and build up points. But how does playing a board game with little or no sight actually work? We spoke to Stan Lovell who is one of the tournament organisers:

"The black pieces have a pin on the top to identify from the white pieces and the black squares are raised slightly above the white.

"The blind players are allowed to feel the pieces, so the touch and move rule does not apply."

Players from all over Europe flocked to Durham to take part and brought, family and friends along too. Many people from surrounding regions also visited to see the players in action.

Stan Lovell explained how the tournament came to Durham and how well it went:

"We were looking at venues all over the country ... we came [to Durham] and had a look and saw that it offers all the facilities we wanted in very good conditions."

"There are 76 players from 25 countries and about 140 people staying at the college and we've had quite a lot of visitors ... they were interested in something like this going on in their area."

However, for one man it was a trip back up north.

"I learned [how to play chess] when I was young, carried on playing, became a British champion and a London champion. I've played quite a lot of international tournaments, but this is my first time at a blind international.

"I'm partially sighted as a result of a stroke which has been difficult for me ... I realise I'm not as strong as I would have been a few years back but I'm hoping to improve."

It's not just a man's world

With a low number of female participants in the tournament, Colin is encouraging more to get involved:

"If there's only one girl in the tournament, they tend to easily give up on it.

"If women play chess and get to know other girls, they could get close to each other and become better players."

And the winner is...

The event was won by Jaroslav Olsar of the Czech Republic, with eight points from nine. Second was Uri Meshkov, Russia with seven-and-a-half and third Sergej Grigorchuk, Ukraine with seven. Leading UK players were Colin Crouch and Chris Ross each with six.