Question: Iwasaki Haruto, a number of people, really victorious, negative, visual, handicapped, and harmful.
Taken from: Daily News.
Author: Shinada Yu.
Translation and finishing: make excuses to be quiet Cousins come on.
I hope that when I play chess, even if I am visually impaired, I want to play as normally as an able-bodied person." Haruto Iwasaki, who now has the strength of an amateur high-level player, became the first visually impaired person in the history of the academy in 2021. However, due to physical reasons, he withdrew from the life of a resident student. Now that we are trying to continue to play in amateur tournaments in the future, and we are happily facing the board every day, and this time we interviewed Haruto Iwasaki about his goals for the future.
Haruto Iwasaki was diagnosed with pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 1, and his vision in his right eye was almost non-existent, and his vision in his left eye was only 001, although you can see things vaguely, you can't read a book or play on a normal chessboard.
When I was in the second grade of elementary school, I learned to Xi play Go through the game "aigo", a chessboard for the visually impaired, and I was attracted by the charm of the game that allows it to fall freely, so I fell in love with it. When I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, I came to the Finger Fan Go Salon, where there were strong players, and it didn't take long for me to reach the strength of the amateur high level. At that time, the idea of becoming a professional chess player was born.
Then in April 2021, he became the first visually impaired person in history to become a college student. Although it was necessary to use "aigo", it was also on the road to becoming a professional chess player.
However, in December 2021, he contracted leukemia again and had to be hospitalized for a long time. Although he was successfully discharged from the hospital in October 2022 and immediately returned to the hospital, his mother Ryoko Iwasaki said: "After being discharged from the hospital, he had no physical strength at all, and it was difficult to even walk."
After the decline in physical fitness, the life of the students was very difficult, and Iwasaki Haruto's grades once reached Group B, but soon fell to Group D, and found that his favorite game of Go had become his own suffering, so he gave up on the students in July this year. "To be honest, it's still fun to play chess in the salon".
Although his fitness has recovered, Harusto Iwasaki said, "I don't want to be a professional chess player anymore." Even so, as long as he didn't go to class or the hospital, he would go to the salon almost every day to play chess. "I still like to play Go, and now the popularity of AIGO is still very low, and I hope that I can get better popularity by participating in various competitions and then winning chess."
AIGO's black and white pieces are distinguished by protrusions, and the pieces are made so that they can be embedded in the board so that they do not mess up when touching the board. It looks very different from a normal chessboard, but Mitsuharu Kakishima of the Japan Association of Go for the Visually Impaired said that the game experience of AIGO is almost the same as that of a regular chessboard. The author has also used this chessboard to play games, and it is not inconvenient for able-bodied people to use this chessboard.
Although the Japanese Chess Academy always has aigo, it is almost impossible to see this board in ordinary Go games. For this reason, every time Iwasaki Haruto participates in a competition, he brings aigo and a chess clock with a sound.
It's heavy, but I'll be able to participate in the race. But there are times when the tournament side will refuse to allow us to use AIGO," said Iwasaki, "I understand that they don't want to use something that they have never used before, but I think that if they know what AIGO is, it will be okay in the future."
Haru Iwasaki has this kind of self-confidence, which comes from various previous experiences. "There is still a difference between ordinary people and able-bodied people, but this is not the case with Go. Although it was not easy to lose when I was a graduate student, I made a lot of friends at that time, and I was very happy with the game after the training."
His partner at the Go salon and his teacher Nobuta Narihito Shichidan, after Haruto Iwasaki withdrew from the academy, still took great care of him.
The game he played was a game of chess between himself and Nobuta Narihito. "The discarded discs on the left side of this game are handled very well, and it is a very satisfying game for me. At that time, when I said to my teacher, 'I'm going to give up on being a graduate student,' the teacher said, 'It's a shame,' but he understood my feelings. I thought my teacher would stop caring about me, but it wasn't like that."
Whether it's visible or not, Haru Iwasaki just wants to play normally. For him, the real challenge has just begun.