I learned about this approximately third-hand, so apologies if I get any of the facts wrong.
Recently a player who frequently plays in my events played (in a tournament I was not involved in) a player who is almost totally blind and deaf. Apparently to offer this player a draw, you had to speak into a microphone that he carried. This player didn’t use a special blind set, but instead would touch the pieces on the board to determine where they were. He also apparently made a couple of illegal moves (rooks moving diagonally) in time pressure, and picked up the clock to hold it very close to his face to see how much time was remaining.
Needless to say, this rattled his opponent somewhat, although I don’t know the result of their game. My question is what should have been done, and more importantly what should be done if this blind player shows up at one of my tournaments?
I’ve played blind players before in tournaments, but they had a clock without the front glass so they could feel the hands, and a separate board with the special pieces and the squares at different heights.
I’ve also played rated games against a player who had a high intensity light so he could see the pieces (our board was separated from the rest of the boards so as not to distract other games.)
I’m willing to accomodate as much as possible, but I wouldn’t allow the nearly blind player to pick up the clock (he should get the special clock if needed) and if he makes an illegal move, then he faces the consequences (or if he picks up the wrong piece).
Al Sandrin was an amazing blind player. He would play with no special accommodations at all – standard tournament set, he would never touch the pieces to remind himself where they were, etc. All I had to do was announce my move (either algebraic or descriptive was acceptable to Sandrin) as I played it. (I would occasionally tell him how much clock time was remaining, also.)
He had such a good feel for the size of the squares, that if the piece he moved had been mis-adjusted slightly on its original square, it would still be mis-adjusted on its new square, in exactly the same direction and by exactly the same amount.
Blind players tend to use a special set (the one I saw had pegs to keep the pieces on their squares) that they can run their hands over. Do the rules describe this type of accommodation?
I would be opposed to disrupting the normal play of a game by having him run his hands over the “real” board; he could knock things over etc.
ADA requires a “reasonable accommodation”. There is no possible reasonable accommodation for a blind person to play football, so they don’t. The set described above is a reasonable and customary accommodation for blind chess players. I think an accommodation is reasonable if it doesn’t greatly impact the sighted opponent.
If the blind player hopes to play in tournaments, he should get this set for himself and get used to it. I don’t see why he would want the tournament to provide him with something new and unfamiliar.
No big fear of a lawsuit here as long as things are done in good faith. I can’t imagine a judge awarding a big judgment against USCF, a charitable organization, as long as some accommodation is available. Allowing him to use his own set to touch with his hands is such an accommodation. It accommodates him by changing the rules of chess for his benefit.
That is rule 35F1. Rule 35F covers many aspects of accommodations for a blind player and the opponent (and suggests using them as a guideline for other disabilities).