El Ajedrecista
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El Ajedrecista (English: The Chess Player) was an automaton built in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. El Ajedrecista made a public debut during the Paris World Fair of 1914, creating great excitement at the time. It was first widely mentioned in Scientific American as "Torres and His Remarkable Automatic Devices" in November 6th, 1915. Using electromagnets under the board, it automatically played a three chesspiece endgame moving a King and a Rook against a human opponent King. By today's engineering standards, the automata built by Quevedo would not be viewed as remarkable. However, they were considered revolutionary in their day. If an illegal move were made by the opposite player the automaton would signal it.
The automaton did not play very precisely and it did not always deliver mate in the minimum amount of moves because of the simple algorithm that calculated the positions. It did however mate the opponent flawlessly every time. Leonardo's son Gonzalo made an improved chess automaton based on El Ajedrecista in 1920, which made its plays via magnets located under the board. El Ajedrecista and its improved version are still working and are on display at the Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos in Madrid.
As opposed to The Turk and Ajeeb (human operated but deceptive devices that hid their operators), El Ajedrecista was a true automaton built to play chess without human guidance.
