It's rare to end a chess tournament with a broken finger. Especially if the causer is the opponent and it is also a robot. This is what happened to a seven-year-old in Moscow.
When it comes to chess, most people get an image of players in concentrated calm. Unlike boxing or wrestling, for example. Apart from the rather rare moments when someone loses their composure because of an unexpected turn of the game, hardly any scuffles or even violence are to be expected.
Apparently, this was not sufficiently taken into account when programming a chess robot. According to Russian media, robot Baza broke a finger of a human teammate during a match at the Moscow Open last week. Apparently the machine was unsettled by the quick reactions of a seven-year-old boy.
"The robot broke the child's finger," Moscow Chess Federation President Sergey Lazarev told the TASS news agency in surprise after the incident. So far, the machine has always worked perfectly. Video of the July 19 incident, published by Telegram's Baza channel, shows the boy's finger being pinched by the robotic arm for seconds before several adults rush down to help the child.
In the heat of the moment, the boy may have triggered the robot's overreaction after it hit one of its characters. "There are certain safety rules, and the child apparently violated them," said Russian Chess Federation Vice-President Sergei Smagin. "When he made his move, he didn't realize he had to wait first." Instead of waiting for the machine to finish its move, the boy decided to reply quickly. This is an extremely rare case, "the first I can remember".
The robot, which was rented for the Moscow Chess Open, can play several matches at the same time. It is an automated arm powered by artificial intelligence (AI). It is believed that the AI did not have enough time to recalculate the boy's finger and mistook it for a chess piece. According to Lazarev, the suppliers of the robot would still have to "rethink".
The boy, whose name was given as Christopher, apparently coped well with the attack. He continued the tournament with a plaster cast. Volunteers would have helped him to record his moves. The child is said to be one of the top 30 chess players in Moscow in the under-nine category.
