Blind Chess – Rahul Vaghela

Some say chess is a game of vision – you have to see five, ten, even fifteen moves ahead. But what if you played without ever seeing the board?
Watch as Rahul takes us inside his world, pushing boundaries, mastering the unseen, and introducing us to the tools that make independence far beyond sight possible.
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My name is Rahul.
I started playing chess when I was about ten years old.
Three years ago, I joined the Blind People’s Association, which provided me with professional training in chess.
To advance me further in chess, the association provided me with complete training through a special coach.
The tournaments held for sighted players, to improve our game, we regularly participate in them.
These are called Federating Tournaments.
This helps increase our rating, and by competing against experienced players, our game also improves.
Secondly, recently, in our category – in the ‘Junior’ category, for blind children, World championships are held for juniors. I was selected to represent India.
The Junior championship was held in September in Bangalore.
I ranked 9th, and my friend ranked 11th.
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How do you practice and prepare for tournaments?
Suppose just to pass time, if we were just playing casually with a friend, then we wouldn’t really need much, we’d just play like that.
But when we want to learn professionally, move forward, perform well and increase our rating, then for that, like I said earlier, the Blind People’s Association provided us with a Federated coach.
Our coach helps us improve our theory, especially openings, and also helps improve our strategic thinking, that can only happen through the coach.
And on our own, we also follow top Grandmasters.
Like now, phones have accessibility features, so we can easily watch all the games and pick up the ideas we need.
For example, D. Gukesh and Ding Liren are playing in the World Championship, and there’s so much we get to learn from that.
We also watch videos on YouTube.
Then, for Fazal, we have an anthology called ‘Fazal ka Mahasagar’.
There’s also a platform called Lichess, where – we need to apply whatever we’ve learned, right? – so we play on Lichess to get practice and check if we’re actually able to apply what we’ve learned.
We play on Lichess, and then there’s an app called Follow Chess where we watch games.
There are also so many YouTube channels that are doing great work for chess, and we get to learn from them.
Yes, I have a plan for 3 tournaments in the future.
One tournament is upcoming in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, which is a federated tournament.
Both my friend and I will be participating in it.
Our target is to increase our ratings and improve our game.
The selection process is a complete cycle.
First, you play at the state level.
If you get selected there, you will have the chance to play in the zonal tournament.
If you win the zonal, you will get the opportunity to compete at the national level.
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Can you share how you usually tell the time?
These earphones are connected to a clock that you can see here.
When we used to play in sighted tournaments or any other blind tournaments, earlier, we didn’t have any clue about the time on the clock.
But now, there has been a development.
In the sighted tournaments, if I have one minute left, I used to have to repeatedly ask the Arbiter or the Referee “how much time is left sir?”
This used to put me under pressure, and we all used to feel stressed because of it.
We have to manage time repeatedly, it’s not just about playing well and winning.
If we can’t manage time properly, we can still lose.
So we have to manage that as well.
This is a Talking clock, and this Talking clock helps make us independent because with the help of the earphones we wear, we can check the time ourselves.
Could you tell me the time it’s showing for your friend?
For him, it is showing 23 minutes…23 minutes, 20 seconds.
And yours?
Mine is 22:49.