Chess robot grabs, breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent

A 7-year-old boy had his finger broken by a chess-playing robot that was apparently startled by the quick responses the child made during the match at a tournament in Moscow, the TASS news agency reported.

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According to the report, the robot grabbed and broke the boy’s finger during a match at the Moscow Open last week.

“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, after the incident. “This is, of course, bad.”

Video of the July 19 incident, published by the Russian news site Baza Telegram channel, shows the robot grabbing the boy’s finger for several seconds before four adults try to free him.

“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realize he first had to wait,” Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation said. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall,” he added.

According to Lazarev, the boy “made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried and the robot grabbed him”. Either way, he said, the robot’s suppliers were “going to have to think again,” he said.

“The robot was rented by us, it has been exhibited in many places, for a long time, with specialists. Apparently, the operators overlooked it,” Lazarev said.

“We have nothing to do with the robot,” Lazarev added.

Lazarev told Tass that the boy, whose finger was put in a plaster cast, played in the tournament the next day.

According to Smagin, the machine had played several matches on the day of the incident and was “absolutely safe.” He added that the incident was “a coincidence.”

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