Blog

We create inclusive events to build communities that meet and have fun while playing chess. We believe in the benefits of leisure time.

June 2026

In April we found a new home at the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre on the Southbank in Central London. This is a precious space for our community with a full programme of events, workshops, groups. We have met on Sundays in the afternoon. We love sober, gentle venues with noticeboards packed with flyers and activities from all over London and beyond. A big gorgeous colourful room without much pressure to do anything else more than being together for an exciting game of chess and a better chat.

April 2026

In November, we started programming Queer Chess Clubs at Pulse and Pickle cafe in Walthamstow in East London. This is a migrant-led community vegan cafe with a love of live music and arts. A few months later, we were sold out for the first time, reaching our chessboards and pieces max. capacity. Participants come with chess stories in their pockets. Many of them haven’t played since childhood, some young players have only played online, several mothers and caregivers have found time to enjoy themselves through the game, and others are curious to learn the chess rules for the first time. There is a repeated pattern here. We are all excited to play again.

Colourful illustration of threee chess pieces in a carnival mood with queer and weird shapes all around.

Hooray!

September 2025

Chess For All expands! We want to run the type of chess clubs that we would love to attend. Inclusive, fun, creative and welcoming. We launched our website in September 2025 and will be running regular workshops and events over the next years, in London and beyond.

Pink poster announcing a Feminist Library event by the Spanish Book Club on March 19 from 12 PM to 6 PM, featuring workshops on various feminist topics, an archive, and online activities.

March 2022

Taller El Ajedrez es Para Todxs

As part of the Women Herstory Month 2022, we met for a bilingual Spanish/English chess workshop to carry on building our feminist community, learn about our herstory in chess, have fun together! As always in Feminist Library.

Poster design by Helena Exquis

A group of chess players gathered around a table, sketching and chatting, with colourful abstract patterns in the background.

Wow!

2022

The year of Woman in Chess at the International Chess Federation

A yellow-orange circular badge with a drawing of multiple pawns grouped together.

A round badge or button with a yellow background and black border, featuring the text 'Queen Chess Club' written in black.

A colorful drawing of a trophy with a gold cup and blue base, inscribed with "Champions Forever."

Pink circular button with a drawing of two bishop pieces.

June 2018

Play games all your life

Anti-University Festival

We hosted the event at Our Place in Hackney.

We stated that playing games is a human right. That everybody should have people and spaces to play with. Even more players from unrepresented groups. We explored chess rules and history as an inspiration at the beginning of the workshop. At the end of the session, we spent time exploring the possibilities of new games coming from our imagination.”

A colourful, abstract drawing of a chessboard on a table with chess pieces around it, set against a blue background with scattered paint splatters and small decorative chess pieces.

We learnt the basic moves and made a collective drawing of a portrait of the next woman or non-binary chess champion of the world. A better chess narratives are absolutely possible. Let’s imagine, improvise, open the doors of new possibilities..

Chess and imagination workshop

Learning Transformation Technique at Create-Ahh

Drefach, Wales

May 2018

A group of people playing chess around a table with a colorful tablecloth, inside a room with sunlight coming through a window. A drawing of a woman's face with curly hair and the text 'Number 1 Chess Champion' is on the table.

A hand-drawn portrait of a woman with curly hair, a nose ring, and a confident expression, on a piece of paper with the words 'Number 1 Chess Champion' written below.

Since 2016

Chess for Women workshops

Casual Chess Cafe is run by Amanda Ross who has been organising the most inspiring casual chess clubs in Central London. This year a group of volunteers, we are included too, are facilitating a weekly friendly chess event in Russell Square on Wednesday lunchtimes.

Two vases with pink and yellow tulips on a wooden table, a chess book from Judit Polgar, chess pieces, a pink notebook, and some scattered items in the background.

A chess set arranged on a checkered black and gray tile floor, with the white pieces on one side and the black pieces on the other, viewed from above with shadows cast to the left.

Women playing casual chess at a cafe table.

Our Inspiration

White Chess Set, 1966.

Images from Music of the Mind exhibition at Tate Morden 2024.

Yoko Ono

Broken glass pieces with vintage index cards containing handwritten dates and text, arranged on a white surface with shadows cast over them.

Colourful illustration of a chessboard with two characters, one labelled Vera Menchik as World Champion and another Sonja Graf as Free Agent, celebrating the Women's World Chess Championship 1939 in Buenos Aires.

1939

Vera Menchik and Sonja Graf were great players who enjoyed the freedom of playing chess. Both were very committed to anti-facist struggles, sexual freedom, etc. Today we remember them and continue to pave the way for games to be tools for feminist transformations.