The Blind Chess Olympiad is an international
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
competition for the
blind in which
teams from all over the world compete against each other.
The event takes place every four years, and is sponsored by the
International Braille Chess Association
The International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) is organization for blind and visually impaired chess players. The IBCA is a FIDE-affiliated chess organization as well as a part of the International Blind Sports Federation. The International ...
.
The Blind Chess Olympiad is the largest sporting event in the international field of chess for the visually impaired.
History
The forerunner to the Blind Chess Olympiads was a blind
chess tournament
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition amo ...
held in
Rheinbreitbach
Rheinbreitbach is a municipality in the district of Neuwied, in north of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. Administratively it belongs to the municipality (''Verbandsgemeinde'') of Unkel. The town is an officially ...
, Germany, in 1958. The winner of the event was
Reginald Walter Bonham, who would found the International Braille Chess Association. The first official Blind Chess Olympiad was held in 1961 in
Meschede
Meschede () is a town in the Hochsauerland district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the district Hochsauerlandkreis.
Education
One of the five branches of South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences (also: Fachh ...
, Germany. Eight teams competed to play 122 games in
round-robin format with Team
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
as the resulting winner.
[Blind Chess Olympiads History](_blank)
Retrieved September 7, 2009
Retrieved September 7, 2009 For the third Blind Chess Olympiad in 1968, held in
Weymouth, England, 20 teams competed. Russia won the event with Yugoslavia in second place. The Polish team arrived by train in the early hours of the morning bringing with them the body of their sighted translator who had died en route (Reference: Organizer, John Graham).
By the 2008 13th Blind Chess Olympiad in
Heraklion
Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban A ...
,
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
, 34 teams participated, making the Blind Chess Olympiad the most significant sporting event in the international field of chess for the blind to date.
[XIII Olympiad for Blind and Visually Impaired Chess Players](_blank)
Retrieved September 7, 2009
Retrieved September 7, 2009
Results
See also
* Chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways.
"International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be co ...
s
References
External links
Olympiads results at IBCA website
{{Chess Olympiads
Chess Olympiads
Parasports competitions
Blind sports