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The British Chess Variant Society

The British Chess Variant Society was formed on Saturday, January 4, 1997, and was dissolved September 25, 2010.

The founders of the society were mainly among those involved with the periodical Variant Chess: president David B. Pritchard had a column in the journal (and is well known in chess variant circles for his Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, and in wider circles for several other books on chess and other games); treasurer Peter Wood was the former editor of Variant Chess; the other early board members were George P. Jelliss and John D. Beasley (secretary of the BCVS).

Variant Chess (which began earlier) became the periodical of the organization, but also continued to be the nice and informative journal on chess variants as it was before. The issues have been preserved, see the page for the publication.

The British Chess Variants Society started to organize UK variant Championships (by postal play) for several chess variants - these were open only to members that lived in the U.K.

George Jelliss has created and is maintaining The Variant Chess Website (Link.)

The address of the Secretary is/was:

  J. D. Beasley
  7 St James Road
  Harpenden, Herts AL5 4NX
  United Kingdom

Written by: Hans Bodlaender
25 June, 2000: Jeff Mallett notified us of a new subscription/billing address.
9 May, 2018: updated to reflect the closing of the Society.
WWW page created: June 25, 2000.