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

A chess-playing robot, apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy, grabbed and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open last week, Russian media outlets have reported.

“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the TASS news agency after the incident, adding that the machine had played many previous exhibitions without upset. “This is of course bad.”

Video of the 19 July incident published by the Baza Telegram channel shows the boy’s finger being pinched by the robotic arm for several seconds before a woman followed by three men rush in, eventually freeing him and ushering him away.

Jesus… A robot broke kid‘s finger at Chess Tournament in Moscow @elonmusk @MagnusCarlsen There is no violence in chess, they said. Come and play, they said. https://t.co/W7sgnxAFCi pic.twitter.com/OVBGCv2R9H

Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told Baza that the robot appeared to pounce after it took one of the boy’s pieces. Rather than waiting for the machine to complete its move, the boy opted for a quick riposte, he said.

“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realise he first had to wait,” Smagin said. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall,” he added.

Lazarev had a different account, saying the child had “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 “are going to have to think again”.

Baza named the boy as Christopher and said he was one of the 30 best chess players in the Russian capital in the under-nines category.