A chess-playing robot grabbed and broke the finger of a seven-year-old boy as they played a match at the Moscow Open last week, The Guardian reports.
“The robot broke the child’s finger,” Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, told the TASS news agency following the match, adding that the machine had played many games without such an incident occurring. “This is of course bad.”
Footage of the unexpected ordeal on July 19 published by the Baza Telegram channel shows how the youngster's finger is pinched by the robotic arm over a period of seconds, with the boy looking alarmed before a woman and then three men rush in to help free him from the machine's grip.
Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told Baza that the machine seemed to pounce after it took one of its young opponent's pieces in the game. But rather than wait for the robot to complete its move, the lad responded too swiftly, he added.
“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,” Mr Smagin said. “This is an extremely rare case, the first I can recall,” he added.
Lazarev went on to explain that the boy carried out his move quickly, which led the robot to grab him. In any case, he said, the machine's suppliers "are going to have to think again."
The Baza Telegram channel identified the boy as Christopher and said he was one of the 30 most promising chess players in Moscow 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,” it said.
Lazarev told the TASS news agency that Christopher, whose finger was placed in a plaster cast, did not appear to be too perturbed by the incident. “The child played the very next day, finished the tournament, and volunteers helped to record the moves,” he said.
However, the boy's parents are believed to have contacted the public prosecutor’s office. “We will communicate, figure it out and try to help in any way we can,” he said. Smagin told RIA Novosti the incident was "a coincidence" and the machine is "absolutely safe".