Hi,

My wife is blind and has expressed an interest in learning/playing chess. Are there any accessible features in www.chess.com to allow blind people to play chess? She has a screen reader called Dolphin Supernova (if that helps). If not, are there any plans to make chess accessible to blind people on www.chess.com? If not, can I suggest that you do?

Also, if www.chess.com cannot help, does anyone know of some free chess software for blind people that I can download? Thank you. Ervin.

I'm no expert on this, but I think if she's not a chessplayer already, it's going to be very hard to learn to vizualize the board just like that.

It's probably much better to start out playing games on a physical board. There are special boards for blind people that let you feel the board without knocking pieces over. I remember playing a blind guy, long ago, on such a board at a chess club in Barcelona. There was a small hole on each square and each piece had a small pin that fit those. Occassionally I forgot to announce my moves, and he would just feel the board quickly, determining what move had been made. He beat me.

Hi Ervin,

I don't know if you've visited:

http://www.braillechess.org.uk/ or 

http://www.americanblindchess.org/

Both include links to accessible software, as well as other resources.

Wishing you both all the best.

that board just sounds cool. 

Thank you for your help so far. I was thinking about buying a board as described and I will check out the web sites mentioned. Cheers!

and let us know how is going .

Great question and very helpful responses! 

Those boards also have raised squares for one color and recessed for the other, I'm not sure which is which color, but it helps players tell exactly where a piece moved to.

I purchased the board and it arrived today. We have started our first game. She is doing OK. I am still on the lookout for software that has an audio component for her. I also have to visit the web-sites mentioned by Richard (thanks Richard - hope you are doing well) I have yet to try www.chess.com and other software with her screen reader. I will keep you posted.

Ray Charles used to play chess, and if I'm not mistaken, he held a ranking, and was fairly good. One thing that helped him was that he had sight during his childhood, so it was easier for him to visualize the board, pieces and moves.