How Can Blind People Play Chess?
Hey everyone! Have you ever wondered how a blind person can play chess? I am sure you have 
. In this post, I will show you how do they play, I’ll take you through my game against a blind opponent, and I will explain how the match unfolded and what I learned from the experience.
I have no words. The experience was simply awesome. I played a 90-minute + 30-second increment chess game against a blind 1700-rated guy. I felt exhausted afterward.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Firstly, I will tell you HOW this is even possible. Their board is specially designed to provide tactile feedback. The dark squares are raised a little above the light ones, so one can easily distinguish them by touch. Each square also has a small hole to anchor the base of the chess pieces, so the player moves their hands across the board to "see" the position of the game.
They do not use normal pieces. The pieces themselves can be made distinguishable by feeling. The black pieces have a metal sphere on the top, while the white pieces are smooth. The blind player could thus identify each set without too much bother. Similarly, the Braille on the edges of the chessboard reflects the coordinates of an official chessboard. This way, the player could indicate the squares properly and announce the moves clearly. The players communicate pretty well (at least in our case).
Both players call their moves out loud, in standard chess notation, like "knight to f3" or "queen to d5." You play on a regular chessboard, and the blind player duplicates the game on his tactile board, moving every piece. Instead of writing down the moves, he records the game with a recording device.
The blind player has headphones connected to the clock, which informs him of the remaining time at any instance he requests. This keeps him closely connected to the clock and makes decisions within the set limits, like any other chess player. But most impressive is the way they can visualize the game. To play with such a person is a humbling experience; it really shows that chess is a game of the mind and that no physical limitations can hold it back.
I played as black. I was very impressed, and still am today...
Great game, right? At least that is what I thought after nearly 4 hours of play 🫠. I finally managed to win. It was very hard and tiring, though. In the ONCE team, another player I had known before was playing too. Let's keep reading...
Actually, this is not my first time playing a blind player. I once played Miguel Arnedo, in a sub-14 informal blitz tournament at Ajedrez Con Cabeza, one of the most famous chess clubs in Madrid. I was having a great tournament as I was one of the oldest players. Last round. Table one against this unknown (for me) blind scary kid. I do not remember the game. Although it was nearly 3 years ago (you may or may not be able to calculate my age), I can recall that it was a Sicilian. I was playing white and wasn't too familiar with chess notation, so it was quite hard. He was playing the 5+2 game incredibly fast and I ended up allowing a pawn avalanche that cost me the game.
In the thumbnail, you can see him playing table soccer (don't ask me how) with his sister Alma. I also know her (and have played her) as she has played in my team for a year or two. Her brother is quite strong, but she is a good player too.
Let's get back to the present. As I said before, he was playing that day in the same team as my opponent. We ended up losing as a team 5-1, but the experience for all of us was great.
Playing against a blind chess player was one of those experiences that makes you question everything you thought you knew about the game. Here I was, thinking I had an advantage because, you know, I could see the board. Turns out, that didn’t help much when my opponent was casually playing me while also managing a million extra challenges.
Think about it—while I just had to move pieces and suffer through my own bad decisions, he had to continuously touch the board to keep track of the position, dictate and confirm every move, and use a recording device instead of writing notation. And on top of all that, he had to explain to me (I guess he does it 90% of the time), a confused first-timer, how this whole system even works. The level of patience is insane.
And yet, despite all these extra hurdles, he played better than most opponents I’ve faced. It really makes you wonder if relying too much on visuals actually holds some of us back. At the end of the day, chess is about pattern recognition, calculation, and deep positional understanding—not about having perfect vision. If this game taught me anything, it’s that seeing the board and actually understanding it are two completely different things. And trust me, in this match, only one of us really saw what was happening, and he did not win the game.
