8/18/2015 – In India a group of boys dream of becoming chess masters. But this is no ordinary
chess and these are no ordinary players. Algorithms is a documentary
on the thriving world of Blind Chess. Filmed over
three years, it travels with three talented boys to national
and world championships, documenting their struggles, anxieties and hopes.
Preview tonight in Mumbai, premiere on Friday.
new: ChessBase 16 - Mega package Edition 2022
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training!
Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Your key to fresh ideas, precise analyses and targeted training! Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. It is the program of choice for anyone who loves the game and wants to know more about it. Start your personal success story with ChessBase and enjoy the game even more.
Playing styles in chess are an important and thus often discussed topic. GM Dr. Karsten Müller and GM Luis Engel take up a model by GM Lars Bo Hansen based on 4 player types - namely ‘activists’, ‘pragmatics’, ‘theoreticians’ and so-called ‘reflectors’.
€29.90
Algorithms: a documentary on blind chess in India
Most people like to believe that chess is played by sight, which does play
an important role as it enables us to see the board. Most of us take our
eyes’ role for granted while playing the game. This is not true however.
Chess is a game of vision. Algorithms is a sport documentary that
tells the story of the little known, nevertheless thriving world of blind
chess in India. Filmed over three years across various cities of this country,
this 96-minute story enables the sighted to see how the blind visualize.
The 2012-released black-and-white documentary is all set to witness its
theatrical release across India on August 21.
The documentary poster
A still from Algorithms
It was a rainy July evening at the Mafatlal Towers in Mumbai – host
to an open chess tournament. A 19-year-old lad, rated around 2000, sat hunched
at his board, nervously trying to maintain his composure as his clock ticked
away. The position was around equal, but everything is fair in love, war
and time-trouble.
The day’s playing session was heading towards its end and the spectators
had taken a sudden interest in his game. The lad didn’t mind –
he was without sight. He couldn’t see. Not surprisingly, he was struggling
as he felt his way through the pieces on his braille chessboard, his hands
trembling, as the clock repeatedly went below the ten second mark, giving
out a customary beep every time it did so. In all instances, just in time,
he would announce his move.
His mother who sat nearby helping him with his scoresheet was almost having
a fit. His lower rated opponent offered him a draw and she almost screamed,
”…take it already!” “No” was his emphatic
reply.
After a 15 move long struggle, his opponent was staring at a lost position,
with his own time running out – forced into resignation.
Darpan Inani with his mother Vimla Inani at
Mumbai, 2013 [Photo: Sagar Shah]
Darpan Inani lost his sight at the age of four – a victim of the
Steven Johnson Syndrome. Nevertheless, he never lost his vision, for which
chess came as a fresh breath of life. In 2010, at the age of 16, Darpan
became the youngest National Blind Chess champion ever, the youngest unsighted
National Champion across all the sports in India’s history.
He is an idiosyncratic, confident and extremely positive young man, focused
on achieving what he desires, in chess as well as life. If you meet him,
you will also ‘see’ that Darpan has always possessed wisdom
that belies his age. He hopes to become an entrepreneur in the future.
“Basically there is no other sport except for chess wherein visually
impaired can compete on an equal footing with the sighted,” Darpan
says. “Other games like cricket, soccer, etc. are played by the ones
without sight as well, but they are always visually impaired vs. visually
impaired games. We cannot play football or similar sports with the sighted
players in its originality. Chess is the only sport which allows me to compete
at par with the sighted.”
This documentary also shows the significance of ‘touch’ –
it says that the modern materialistic society has forgotten its value. Dutch
GM Jan Donner once said that, “in the split second you touch the piece,
you’ll see more than you saw in the past 30 minutes you spent studying
the position.” The unsighted chess players rely on their ‘touch’
to feel their way forward.
Alternatively, as his mentor Charudatta Jadhav always says: “Four
moves in and we are all blind”. He is right, isn’t he? Four
moves into a position, a sighted is on par with the non-sighted.
Charudatta Jadhav (right) mentoring his wards
Labeling Jadhav with adjectives would fail to do justice to the man’s
value. He works at the TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) and has numerous
professional laurels to his name. He is also the one who set up the All
India Chess Federation for the Blind (AICFB). For Darpan and his fellow
chess players, Charudatta Jadhav is a pioneer who changed the way they live
their lives. Yes, he too is completely without sight.
Charaudatta, or as his pupils lovingly call him, Charu Sir, lives in Bombay
and is a champion player turned pioneer. He discovered the game of chess
soon after he went blind in his teenage years. It gave him confidence and
a purpose in life. Convinced of the power of this game, he has dedicated
his life to develop chess for the blind. He now dreams of having every visually
impaired and unsighted child in India play chess.
Charudatta Jadhav being felicitated by former
Indian President, the late Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
This documentary tells the story of how ‘Charu
Sir’ goes about converting his vision into reality
The story involves three talented boys, Darpan (middle; 15 years in 2009,
now he is 21), Sai Krishna (right; 12, now aged 18), Anant (left; 16, now
aged 22) and Charudatta Jadhav. Blind Chess includes totally blind as well
as visually impaired players. Darpan from Baroda (Gujarat, India) is completely
without sight, Sai Krishna from Chennai (Tamil Nadu, India) is losing his
sight, and Anant from Bhubaneshwar (Orissa, India) is totally without sight
as well. Then there is Charu Sir. He is the leading and linking figure between
the two world junior chess championships that form the narrative arch of
the film.
The film opens with the qualifying tournament in Bombay organized by Jadhav
in January 2009. His primary aim is to find a new generation of junior unsighted
chess players. He is almost evangelical about his task, and firmly believes
that in time an unsighted player will become a Grandmaster. The film focuses
on the three teenagers, documenting their trials and tribulations as they
train to hone their skills on the chequered board, at the same time grappling
with economic and emotional pressures.
The film takes us to different social and class milieus in different parts
of India. Passion and preparation for chess has to be balanced with the
demands of academic studies, for that alone can fetch a job in the future.
The documentary goes to their homes and narrates the poignant story each
family has to tell. It shows the anxious parents and the frustrated coach
of Anant, the small family of Sai including his blind elder sister, the
totally dedicated parents of Darpan. Over the three-years, the three boys
grow into young men. They develop their chess game as Charudatta analyses
their games, strategizes for them and motivates them on.
The teenagers compete in tournaments across Europe. Did Charu succeed in
his dream of converting his trio of young lads to champions of the world?
After a heart wrenching journey of hope and despair, thrills and throes,
the documentary ends where it began, in Bombay, with Jadhav beginning the
process all over again.
SaiKrishna S.T. from Chennai is partially sighted,
has regularly topped
his classes in school and dreams of becoming a journalist
Anant Kumar Nayak from Bhubaneshwar dreams
of serving in the Indian Admistrative Services
A still from the shooting of the film
These young men clearly know the role chess has played in their lives.
Darpan says, “Chess has helped me a lot as it is a very practical
game. It is about life – and in life, just as in chess, it boils down
to how you strategize and what do you envision for yourself in times to
come. Therefore, I think chess has contributed a lot to my decision-making
abilities. Besides, it has taught me to stay calm in the most panicky of
situations and think in a clear way. In addition, chess has given me a lot
of exposure to the world, which I guess would not have been possible, had
it been alone for studies, and if chess weren't there in my life”.
The role played by chess in helping Darpan visualize cannot be underestimated.
He has been a topper in a school with sighted children for most of his life!
Right now, he is in the final three years of the a course in the Institute
of Chartered Accountancy of India (ICAI), widely believed to be amongst
the toughest courses in this country.
Interestingly, apart from Darpan, both yours truly and our reporter Sagar
Shah have been students of the same institute in the past. Personally, I
know that the kind of problems and calculations involved in solving the
questions in the fields of finance, taxation, cost accounting, etc. are
mind-bogglingly complex, the answers often running 4-6 pages long. It becomes
almost impossible to hold all the figures, involving complicated transactions,
in your head, and in spite of using the calculator one is always forced
to resort to doing it on paper. To think that Darpan can do it, despite
lacking sight, with the use of a mere ‘talking calculator’ and
a scribe to write his exam, is simply astonishing. “Yeah, you need
to practice a lot to be able to perform all those complex calculations and
entries in taxation, costing, and accounts mentally. Therefore, my scribe
reads out the question for me, I remember the figures and then tell him
that X will be posted in this account or this adjustment needs to be affected
here and so on. Therefore, I solve all the problems in my head first. In
comparison to the sighted, I of course need to devote a bit of extra time
in preparing for these complex subjects, like if you require four hours
to prepare a chapter, I might require 4½ or five hours to study and
understand the same. It requires me to indulge in some strenuous and painstaking
preparations, but then it all works out in the end and the toil comes to
fruition.”
Darpan told us that he uses the Job Access with Speech (JAWS) software
to read his text and chess books. This software is a screen reader that
reads whatever text appears on the screen. His passion for chess is not
limited to playing tournaments. He even used to play blitz online! On being
asked how he managed to do that, he said that he made his mother play online,
and she would announce his opponent’s moves while he sat beside her
and dictated his replies.
Most chess players born in India in the past two decades will tell you
that they look up at Indian ace Vishy Anand as their role model. Darpan
is no different. He met Vishy in 2010 at a specially arranged encounter
– India’s best chess player with India’s best unsighted
chess player!
Darpan recounts, “Meeting Anand Sir is one of the best moments of
my life so far. I was deeply touched by his humility and his passion for
the game. We talked on general things – he inquired about my studies
and which stream I would opt for, as I had completed my tenth board exams
that year. Then he saw few of my games in my laptop, immediately understanding
my problems and advised me on how I should improve my analytical abilities.”
Vishy Anand inaugurated a special preview before
the theatrical release at PVR,
Chennai on August 9, 2015. He played a game with Charudatta Jadhav to mark
the occasion.
About the filmmakers
Having made many documentaries in the last five years both in UK and India,
Ian McDonald has earned a distinctive reputation for genre defying works.
Algorithms epitomizes his holistic approach in that he believes that direction,
camera and editing are all part of being a filmmaker in documentary. Getting
to know his subject over many years through his camera and taking a year
to carve out an understanding of that world, Ian has created a challenging
film that goes against the grain of popular notions of sport documentaries.
The husband-wife duo behind this work. Producer Geetha J. is keen on yoking
theory and practice, and has done pioneering work in the media, academia
and film activism. Her move to filmmaking heralded an era of digital expression
by women in Kerala (a state in Southern India). Her experience as an independent
producer includes six documentaries in UK as well as six short films in
India, apart from many years in the television industry. Attentive to the
creative sweep as well as the nitty-gritty details, Geetha has been a hands-on
producer, nurturing a nascent idea into what Algorithms is today.
Algortihms releases in theaters in India is 21 August 2015.
Priyadarshan BanjanPriyadarshan Banjan is a 23-year-old club player from India. He works as an editor for ChessBase News and ChessBase India. He is a chess fanatic and an avid fan of Vishy Anand. He also maintains a blog on a variety of topics.
The new Komodo Dragon 3 engine has gained 100 Elo points in playing strength over its predecessor when using a processor core in blitz. That's a huge improvement for a program that already reached at
an Elo level of over 3500!
It's a great idea to take Grunfeld and King’s Indian players out of their comfort-zone right from the start! Let’s go 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 first and now play 3.h4!?
Videos: Nico Zwirs tests the dynamic 5...b5 in the Vienna Variation of the Queen's Gambit. Ivan Sokolov introduces 6.g3 as a surprise weapon in the Sicilian Four Knights Variation. "Lucky bag": 60 analyses by Anish Giri, David Navara and many more.
The best way to improve at chess is to carefully study master games, stop at certain positions and think about candidate moves. Doing this on your own can be difficult and tiresome, but on this viddeo course, you will be guided by worldrenowned trainers!
Throughout this video course, we will study how to master sacrifices and the initiative in several aspects: opposite-coloured bishops, the bishop pair, the exchange sacrifice, launching an attack, and the good moment to sacrifice will be covered.
Throughout this video course, we will study how to master sacrifices and the initiative in several aspects: opposite-coloured bishops, the bishop pair, the exchange sacrifice, launching an attack, and the good moment to sacrifice will be covered.
€29.90
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.
Pop-up for detailed settings
We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies, analysis cookies and marketing cookies. You can decide which cookies to use by selecting the appropriate options below. Please note that your selection may affect the functionality of the service. Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Technically required cookies
Technically required cookies: so that you can navigate and use the basic functions and store preferences.
Analysis Cookies
To help us determine how visitors interact with our website to improve the user experience.
Marketing-Cookies
To help us offer and evaluate relevant content and interesting and appropriate advertisement.