Almost five years ago, I undertook a daring project as a volunteer: the creation of high-performance chess boards specially adapted to allow blind and visually impaired people to play chess with ease.
“A big thank you to all my customers, without whom I could not have done this. - JL Gamba”
INNOVATIVE CHESSBOARD
For people in a situation of
VISUAL DISABILITY
We innovate together
A project:
In collaboration with:
Using chess as a tool for social inclusion
In France currently 207,000 blind people are counted 36 million in the world WHO predicts by 2050 a tripling of these populations.
For a very large number of them, this means exclusion from all associations and, for some, isolation from civil society.
In chess, the rules
are the same for all
For the blind, the existing equipment is poorly adapted. The blind person will have to memorize a great deal of information. Consequently, few of them will continue the initiation.
Théo Ambrosino: at 12, he is crowned vice-champion of Occitanie-Est
The mental performance achieved by a chess player deprived of sight in whole or in part is incredible.They are able to perform 5-hour games with a very high level of play, and this on unsuitable equipment.
Many technological innovations are made every day to improve our daily lives, but rarely for people with disabilities.
It is possible through the game of chess to demonstrate that collectively we can engage in an innovation project for a minority, and allow to be an example of social inclusion.
Discover
Theo Ambrosino
Vice-champion of France 2022
5th at the 2022 World Championship
blind and visually impaired
Theo is our champion!!! An extraordinary kid who gives us lessons in strength and overcoming by becoming a world chess elite in his category this year.
Théo is visually impaired, he is 16 years old and has been playing chess at a high level since he was very young.
At 9 years old, he is the youngest participant in the French chess championship for the visually impaired and at 12, the best young player, he is now a member of the French team.
Théo was selected for the French team by the Chess Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (AEPA) to participate in the Olympics which took place in Rhodes in October 2021. Delighted with his selection, he invested himself in this tournament with enthusiasm, cumulating over 9 games a single defeat. According to the team captain, it was mainly thanks to Théo's performance that France qualified for the world championship as a team.
At the French Chess Championship for the Blind and Visually Impaired which took place in Biarritz from May 25 to 29, 2022, Théo, the youngest participant on the board was one of the outsiders. Showing that the value did not wait for the number of years, he won 2nd place with 5.5 points out of 7 and a performance of 1819, nearly 300 points above his ELO.
Théo: Our test pilot since day one.
Since 2018 Théo has been participating in the project by providing all his advice so that the chessboard is more suited to his needs.
Since last February he has been constantly using (in training and in competition) the definitive version of the backlit chessboard with a light calibration adapted to his level of blindness.
After a short period of adaptation we were able to observe that he was much less tired in the long game. Indeed the possibility of modulating the power of the luminous flux acts on the muscular effort of the eyes.
The total perception of the geometries, the diagonals by the optimization of the contrasts allows him a reading of the global board, impossible until then.
It is early to think that the equipment has (partly) enabled this performance, but the player's feelings are very encouraging!
We are very proud of Théo results.
Together we will continue our development work on chessboards adapted for the visually impaired.
The partners involved: Chess-France, the ISEN Toulon Engineering School, TVT Toulon Var Technology, the city of Toulon.
