Chess Governing Bodies
The Tshwane Chess website is the home page of the Tshwane Chess Union. Pretoria Chess Club is one of the member clubs of the Tshwane Chess Union. The union is one of the strongest in South Africa. Players in the Tshwane region can register as members of the union.
Registrations for all the tournaments that are held within the region are done through their website. The also maintain the Tshwane Chess Handbook, with the rules and regulations for all matters pertaining to chess in the region and maintain the Tshwane Chess Merit List.
CHESSA is the governing body for all chess activities at the national level in South Africa.
CHESSA maintains a database of all the players in South Africa and manage the CHESSA ratings of players. They also maintain the Grand Prix List and manage events of interest to players who participate at national and international level.
FIDE is the World Chess Federation. They organise chess at the international level and maintain international FIDE ratings.
Chess Equipment
House of Chess is the biggest supplier of chess equipment in South Africa. They have a wide collection of chess equipment, clocks, books and other items on sale through their online e-commerce platform.
They are located in Robindale in Randburg and also couriers to all locations within South Africa.
Chess Connection is a local supplier of chess equipment and books. They are located in Centurion in Pretoria. Contact them for solid advice on what chess equipment to purchase.
Play Online Chess
Chess.com is the largest online chess community in the world. The also offer online chess puzzles and video tutorials.
Chess24 has a large community of online chess players. The also offer online video courses and puzzles by some of the world’s best Grandmasters and International masters.
A really great feature of the website is that they broadcast live tournaments on the site. This is sometime accompanied by commentary from some of the world’s best chess players.
Lichess focuses solely on playing online chess and has built a great chess community around it. Advocates of Lichess say that it is the fastest chess playing platform of all.
Other Chess Clubs in Pretoria
Centurion Chess Club meets at Hoërskool Centurion on Wednesday evenings from 18:00 to 20:00.
Waterkloof Chess Club meets at Hoërskool Waterkloof on Thursday evenings from 18:00 to 20:00.