USCF Mission / Chessplayers with disabilities Apart from the accessibility issues associated with travel, the
costs associated with travel and registration may be a barrier to participation: census figures say just 46 percent of people with disabil ities are employed, and those who do work earn less on average than nondisabled people. Alverson thinks a similar sponsorship deal could increase
the number of participants, though budging the employment numbers—is critical as well. Joan DuBois, who coordinates the blind tournaments, concurs. She also attributes the decreased registration numbers—“We are happy to get eight to 10 people”—on the in - creased cost of travel. Alverson also continues
cheating. There’s some open questions about whether that’s feasible or not, but that would certainly make things feasible for a lot of disabled people. They could certainly use their tablets and that’d make everything a lot easier, certainly a lot easier than setting up the physical board and making you reach across the physical board and move them.” Ata-Alp Süren, who’s 18 and just grad uated from high school in
to play in sighted chess tournaments, though she knows one blind player who quit chess altogether be - cause of a bad experi ence with a sighted tournament, and she has had occasional difficulty as well—generally with “inexpe ri enced” tour - na ment directors who haven’t often dealt with blind players. “When I play in sighted tournaments, it’s a bit of a challenge
“If you have a lifelong disability, you're busy planning. That planning
because tournament directors for some reason seem to think they don’t need to give information verbally,” Alverson said. Generally, though, she hasn’t had trouble getting the accommodation she needs to play in sighted tournaments, including allowing Elijah to come in to the tournaments and watch. Aigner said in his experience playing tournaments in northern
California and Nevada, he has rarely seen other disabled players competing. “In tournaments, I can
remember two times I played a person with an obvious disability. That is out of 1,500 games ap - prox imately,” said Michael Aigner. “There are very few disabled players out here in California. I suspect there are more disabled players playing on the Internet. Of course there’s no way for me to know it unless they put it in their notes some where, so in general, I wouldn’t even notice it.” He suggests techno-
Mission Viejo in southern California, uses a wheelchair to get around and said he sees other physically disabled players with some frequen cy. Most impressive to him was a game he witnessed at a tournament in Philadelphia this spring, where one player was apparently quadriplegic. “He had to tell his
ahead is a lot like chess.” ~JERRY PATTEE
opponent the moves, and his opponent would move for him, which was quite astonishing,” Süren said. Süren—who was born in
Turkey and started playing competitive chess at a club in Dusseldorf after his family moved to Germany—said the only
accommodation he generally asks for in tournaments is that he be able to press the clock and move the chess pieces with different hands, something every opponent he’s had has agreed to. “If further problems come out, I would ask a director to help out, but I’ve never had a problem,” Süren said. Rob Jones is a USCF senior tournament director (TD) in
The only accommodation
Ata-Alp Süren generally asks for in tournaments is that he be able to press the clock and move the chess pieces with different hands.
logical modifications could make tournament play more acces sible to more people. “It would be nice to see a few more disabled people in the game.
I guess maybe this will be the future,” he said. “I imagine there’s going to be a closer relationship between online play, computer play and tournaments. For example, maybe some time down the road instead of setting up a board, you and your opponent use a tablet or an iPad-type device and somehow play a game like that. I’m sure there would be concerns about cheating, computer
Denton, Texas who has seen a problem, but one that ultimately was successfully handled by the player himself: “I saw a blind person play at a Texas event. His opponent ran out of time, and did not, as a good sportsman should, inform him of this. I asked the chief TD if I should tell the blind person. The chief said no. After the game, won by the blind person, I was told that he knew his opponent was out of time, and on what move that occurred. How he knew, I have no idea, since the special buzzer on his clock did not work.” Paul Gomez was born
with a neuro muscular disorder that slowly atro - phies the muscles. Until
age 13, he was able to walk and function fairly normally, but after a bad case of pneumonia he has needed a respirator to help him breathe and a wheelchair to help him get around. He learned to play chess when he was six and played casually for most of his life, but during the past few years he’s begun to study the game more seriously. He’s not able to make it to many tournaments or to the chess
club in Syracuse, New York, where he lives, and Gomez said he’s
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