Blind (fold) chess. 

“Blindfold chess” is a common practice among chess players. A person plays without seeing the board and announces their moves verbally. For visually impaired people it’s a given fact rather than an additional challenge. The chess games for visually impaired happen like that, although the pieces on board can be touched in the process. 

As the sportspeople cannot see the board they have to keep the game in mind all the time. Raising the player’s skill requires developing memory and spatial thinking. It is achieved through constant training and solving chess problems. 

The chess community is in constant communication: they spend their time together, play online and help each other to get to the competitions. 

Chess for the visually impaired mostly exists because of certain enthusiasts. The government provided grants cannot fully cover neither the organization of tournaments nor the team management.

Due to the military crisis in Ukraine, Russian visually impaired chess players were banned from international competitions by the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA). For many of them, participating in competitions was the only opportunity to travel outside the country and explore the world.

According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people worldwide suffer from some form of visual impairment. In Russia, the number of blind and visually impaired people exceeds 210 thousand.