Introduction
All India Chess Federation For The Blind is launching “Talent Development Program” For top 30 selected players of India from 1st Jan 2010. The players have been selected on the bases of their performance at State, Zonal and National level in last three years. Out of 30, 10 players are juniors ((between 10 to 19 years). The objectives of the program are to improve the standard of Indian chess for the blind and Vision is to be in top 5 in 2012 Olympiad and Junior world chess championship 2011.
India has immense talent but lack of Sports infrastructure, the improvement in over all standards of the game is very slow. Keep in this mind, AICFB has initiated several programs to provide better infrastructure. All the programs has been targeted to minimized the dependency on non accessible technology, print literature, assistance from sighted and make the Visually challenged chess players independent in their chess study and their preparation for the tournament.
In 2006, AICFB launch Talk 64 the the first and only chess software available for the blind. This software is the brain child of our General Secretary Mr. Charudatta Jadhav and developed with the help of GTL Foundation.
In 2007, AICFB has started distributing chess books in DAISY format (Audio with navigational facilities). Till today, AICFB has distributed 11 such books and 112 are under production.
These programs helped visually impaired players to do their study independently and result of this that in last two years the number of FIDE rated players gone up from 6 to 18 and also our performance in Olympiad and world chess championships has improved.
To rise over all standards of chess for the blind in India and to be in top five in the world, AICFB has prepared a long term plan for Indian chess for the blind. Two important component of this plan is the ambitious programs like “Chess in Schools for the blind” and “Talent Development Program”.
Overview of the program:
Vision:
Winning the Medal in Junior world chess championship 2011 (junior team) and
To be in top 5 in Chess Olympiad 2012 held in India
Coach:
One of the best chess coach of India Mr. Sekhar Sahu (International Master) will be coaching these players.
Target set:
Juniors- Achieve the ELO rating between 1800 to 2000
Seniors- Achieve the ELO rating between 2000 to 2200
Duration of the Program:
- 100 sessions in 2 years
- 10 coaching camps of 3 to 4 days each (10 sessions in one camp)
- Approximately 2 months gap between two camps
Topics to be covered:
- End Game (20 sessions)
- Middle game (50 sessions)
- Openings (25 sessions)
- Other skills (5 sessions)
I.e. Preparation of the tournament, Stress management, managing the pressure and handling nerves (with Yoga), Nutrition
Methodology:
- Training -Class room base/through Audio conferencing
- Study material will be given in DAISY format (audio with navigational facilities)
- Theme base training, covering all the aspect of the game
- Assignments (Forth nightly) to be completed by the players
- Individual base plan will be design
- Target and plan will be design based on players strength, weakness and style of play
- To achieve the target each players should play minimum 3 to 4 FIDE rating tournament in a year
- Performance management, monitoring and tracking will be done with the help of IT system
- Certification will be given to the players after successfully completed the program
