I got an interesting call from a friend last night. Knowing I was in to chess, he wanted my opinion. He works in an internet cafe that's specifically designed for people with physical and learning disabilities. One of his clients is blind, and asked him the other day if he could use the computers to play chess, and how this would be done. My friend, being a conscientious chap, did some research and found a company in Australia that produced chess software for the blind and partially sighted.

Now you can imagine, this raised all sorts of questions with me. I know that strong players can play blindfold chess, and hold the details of the position in their head, but this is extremely difficult. I've been playing the game for about 5 years now, and I can't do it, not even to a reasonbable degree of accuracy. What hope does someone have when they are a beginner? Apparently, the software uses vocal cues to describe what square you are on, what piece is occupying it, and what pieces are attacking and defending it, and from where. Given the information in this format, I think I would struggle to maintain an accurate idea of what's happening to a single square, let alone a whole board!

My friend is sending me a copy of the software today, so I'll have a look at it. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Is it possible for a blind person to learn the game of chess? That would be amazing.

ED.

That's unusual, I think it will take a long time for the blind person to learn it because they have never seen a chess piece.

I guess it would still be a game... If you had two beginners playing, the winner would be not only who could play the better chess, but who could remember the details of the board better. I know the software gives warnings of illegal moves.

Usually blind players use a special board, on which they can touch the pieces to feel the position (picture: http://leeharps.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/Chess-Board2.jpg -- the black pieces have tiny points on top. Also http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidfarrant/3243667274/).

Perhaps they can use such a board next to the computer, and only need to know what the last move is, and how to enter a new one?

It all depends on the individuals ability to visualize.  The key to visualizing is the cut the board into quarters, and remember each quarter in short term memory.  Then concentrate on the quadrant you want to change.  It gets a little tricky when your pieces are moving from on quadrant to another.  At least that is how I do it.

 Perhaps someone who has been blind all their life will naturally be better at this kind of memory visualisation, having spent their whole life using their memory to navigate around their home/place of work/local area etc. Maybe this honed skill would be useful in chess...

It is not tough to play "blind" chess, I can play one board blind after playing chess seriously for six months.

 That's impressive. Is this typical? Can most players do this?

It took me around six months.  Then again my chess coach emphasesd this aspect of the game.  Back to the topic when I was playing scholastic chess one of the schools we played against had a blind player.  Using a special board it took her 6 month to obtain a 1000 uscf rating.

Maybe the guy wasn't always blind. I did see a movie years ago, I never found out what it was called, about an alcoholic who ends up in jail and plays Chess just with the notation, no pieces, no board, its all in his head. He discovers he's good at it and from there he goes on to leave jail, win a Chess tournament yadda yadda. It made an impression on me then. I've never tried it but if I lost my sight I sure as hell wouldn't want to lose my Chess along with it. 

Every year we play against the Braille Club in the League here, (Well till a year or two ago anyway)

We normally play on two boards, One normal, amd one special board, where the pieces have pegs that fit into holes in the board. The blind player examines the board by touch, moves on his board and speaks his move. You then duplicate the move on your own board. On your turn, you move on your own board, and speak your move, which he then duplicates.

If no braille clocks are available, it is considered good form to keep him updated about the time.

How they would translate this to computer play, I have no idea.

I have lost every game I ever played against a blind person. They played on the special touchy-feely board and didn't miss a thing. Since there are dedicated chess computers that are like normal 3-D chess sets, it should be possible to adapt one of these for the blind. Then the trick would be the interface between the Internet and the dedicated chess computer.

I think Ray Charles played chess and had a 1400 rating, (I'll need to verify this.) He wasn't born blind, I don't think, so he may have had a slight advantage over someone who is born blind.

Ray Charles did in fact play chess and was quite good at it, although I haven't been able to verify the ranking. He went blind at the age of 6.

Here's a link to one of Ray Charles' games: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1266243

There have been blind masters.