The Cambridge Junior Chess & Go Club was founded in its current form in 1994.

Originally it was jointly organised by the Cambridge City Chess Club and the Cambridge University Go Society but in 2013 the City Chess Club decided they could no longer be involved. Nowadays the club is mostly organised by parents (and grandparents, and the parents of former members). But we also still get some help from the Go club.

Our club is not just for playing Chess - as well as Chess we play Go and we also sometimes play other traditional board games, in particular Oware, Shogi and Chinese Chess.

Chess is the best known and most widely played traditional board game and the most important game in our club. It's played by millions of people worldwide, in every country of the world. It's a great game to play because there are many clubs and tournaments around so when you become a chess players you a joining a big community of enthusiastic players. There are many chess servers, websites and books and chess has a very rich and interesting history.

The other one of the two main games in our club is Go, and we consider Chess & Go to be the greatest traditional strategic board games. Go is widely played in East Asia with millions of players and hundreds of professionals. Nowadays there are also many clubs and tournaments throughout the world. In the UK there are about 80 clubs and there are tournaments most weekends. The UK youth team is one of the strongest in Europe. One great feature of Go is the traditional handicap system which allows players of different strengths to play together on even terms.

We also play some other traditional board games. We think that playing a variety of different games can be fun, and it gives an appreciation of the diversity of games that exist throughout the world. Also, while studying one game in depth can be very rewarding, learning new games also helps to develop important skills. We have chosen to play Shogi and Chinese Chess as they are other important members of the chess family of games and learning them helps to understand how chess developed and spread. We play Oware as an example of the mancala family of games which are found in many countries.

All these games are fun! But they can also help with logical thinking, social skills, patience, concentration, problem solving, spatial skills, resilience and many other things which can be useful in the rest of life.

We are not the only club in the area where children play chess. If our club times/venues are not convenient for you, or if you are looking for a club that is focused on chess only, see our list of other local clubs on this site.