Sore Loser: Russian Chess Robot Breaks Finger of Seven-Year-Old Opponent

A Russian chess-playing robot recently grabbed the finger of a seven-year-old opponent and broke during the Moscow Open chess tournament. The VP of the Russian Chess Federation blamed the child for making his move too quickly.

The Guardian reports that during the recent Moscow Open chess tournament, a chess-playing robot was unsettled by the quick response of a seven-year-old boy and grabbed his finger, breaking it before adults could rush in to help.

Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the TASS news agency, “The robot broke the child’s finger. This is of course bad.” A vide of the incident on July 19 was published by the Baza Telegram channel and shows the boy’s finger being pinched by the robotic arm for several seconds before a woman and three men rush in to free him and remove him from the situation.

Sergey Smagin, the vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told Baza that the robot appeared to grab the boys finger after it took one of the boy’s pieces. Instead of waiting for the machine to complete its move the boy quickly moved his own piece.

“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.”

However, Lazarev had a different version of events, saying that the child “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.” He noted that regardless, the robot manufactures were “going to have to think again.”

Baza said that the boys name was Christopher and that he was one of the 30 best chess players in the Russian capital in the under-nines category. “People rushed to help and pulled out the finger of the young player, but the fracture could not be avoided,” Baza stated.

Lazarev noted that the boy did not seem traumatized by the attack.“The child played the very next day, finished the tournament, and volunteers helped to record the moves,” he said.

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