Chess needs a board, a clock and two patient minds. At a tournament in Jammu this week, it also needed a helper who could move the pieces for a player who could not see them.
What happened
Vivek Chess Academy (VCA) in Jammu organised the Diwali Cup Chess Tournament 2026. Twenty-six players took part, four of them rated. It was a classical event, with each player getting one hour plus 30 seconds.
Among the players was Devanshu, who is visually impaired. According to the statement issued by the organisers, he used specialised adaptive equipment to understand the position and announce his moves, while an arbiter acted as the helper and moved the pieces on the board.
Who backed it
The tournament was sponsored by Meenal Gupta, president of the J&K Chess Association, who the statement says learnt chess at VCA from 2012 to 2019.
What we do not know
The report does not give results, winners or the arbiter's name, and we have not been able to confirm them, so we are not guessing. For young players in Jammu the point is simpler: a small academy tournament, open to rated and unrated players, ran a game that also made room for a player with a disability. Interested in playing? Ask the academy or the J&K Chess Association about the next event.
Source: Greater Kashmir, "26 players compete in Diwali Cup Chess Tournament in Jammu" (6 November 2026).
Photo: file photo of a chess set made for blind players (raised squares and pegged pieces) at an exhibition in Poznań, Poland; it is not the equipment used in Jammu. MOs810 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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