I came across this event from Moscow and it struck me as odd. Blind, visually impaired, but why a separate deaf championship?
I don’t know why that tournament was held; however, a member of a club we used to have is deaf and has wanted to have a USCF deaf championship for some time now. I offered to help him organize it but what he and his mom really wanted was someone else to fund, organize and direct the thing. I suspect there is a human need to hang around others that are like ourself with the same interests. That player is now an adult that plays occasionaly but is much more interested in the doors that opened for him when he got his Phd.
Often when our deaf player essayed a game his mom would accuse her son’s opponent of cheating by discussing the game with others (hmm…a lot like those players that talk to each other in another language?!). She got real annoyed when those same opponents started to accuse her and her son of cheating when they used sign language with each other while the game was going on. As the TD I simply told everyone they could not communicate with anyone else while the game was in progress. Perhaps a lot of those issues disappear at a deaf only tournament.
I suspect that like the blind chess community that the deaf chess community is often real close to each other in a social way, much like an extended family.
I’m pretty sure I remember reading about a tournament for the deaf in this country. It was decades ago. It was in some issue of Chess Life. L. Russell Chauvenet was alive back then, and he played in it, so of course he won.
Who was in the tournament you read about in Moscow? Does it say anything about the strength of the players?
A local player in Lincoln Nebraska has competed in both the US Deaf Championships and in international deaf competitions. (Lincoln has been the site of the US Deaf Championships at least once, too.)
If the USCF isn’t spending any resources organizing these events or sending players to them, what’s the issue here? These events are a good social activity for the deaf community, some of whom have developmental issues related to their condition.
There is no issue here, which is why we’re discussing this in the All Things Chess Forum. I find it interesting that such events are held; they must indeed have a good deal to do with deaf culture as there is really no reason why a deaf person can not or should not play in any regular tournament. It reminds me of how parts of the deaf community have reacted against cochlear implants as they are seen by some as a threat to the survival of deaf culture.
I was going to add something similar about the cochlear implants; I took Linguistics a year ago and one of the things we looked at was deaf culture. We watched a video about a family making the decision for or against a cochlear implant, and the majority of the “against” was the fact that the child would be a tad out of place in deaf culture. One could argue though that a deaf tournament is beneficial as it can be hard to talk to others at tournaments (ruling issues and whatnot) without someone who knows sign language (or someone who can read lips).