English Chess Forum

The thread on 'How Do You Resign' made me think of all those games where I was losing and trying to think of one last trap that I could set that might enable me to save a game I really deserved to lose. Maybe its undeserved but I always think Mark Hebden is the undisputed master of the swindle constantly setting tricks and traps for his opponents to fall into and I used to wish I could play like that.

Of course the original inspiration came from Simon Webb's Chess For Tigers where a bit of acting was encouraged to lower the opponent's vigilance. My best (worst?) swindle I think was in a King's Head rapid play many, many, years ago. I didn't keep the score and I can't for the life of me remember who my opponent was but I remember as White getting well beat and looking thoroughly dejected and playing a stupid looking Ra1-a5 followed by the equally stupid looking Bc4-Bf7 (attacking the rook on e8 then pretending to take the move back and hovering the piece in the air and reluctantly putting it back down on f7) and then bang! Qc2xh7+ ....Kxh7 Rh5 mate followed by my opponent congratulating me with "you lucky ***** ***** *****"

I'm not sure such a win would give me any satisfaction now and so I was very interested to read the chess.com article on How To Steal A Chess Game and I quote "Swindles are often misperceived as cheap traps that are primarily seen in online bullet games. This is far from true: as we are about to see, even the strongest players in the world have been devilishly swindled."

Perhaps the art of the swindle ought to be lauded instead of seen as some disgraceful act of injustice?

http://www.chess.com/article/view/swindling-101

Hi Chris,

"Perhaps the art of the swindle ought to be lauded instead of seen as some disgraceful act of injustice?"

As one who has often been called a swindler or cheapo merchant I agree.
I have never been bothered by the comment. I hear it as a compliment.

I quickly discovered I have knack (no other word for it) for threading my
though messy positions and creating positions my opponents blunder in.

I also quickly discovered this 'knack' also leads me very easily into lost positions
and I depend on the knack to get me out of a the many holes I find myself in.
Infact the quicker I can get a lost position the happier I am.
All I ask for is just a tad of counter-play.

Come to think of it. ....
Apparently White (theorectically speaking) is better at the start of the game.
So therefore everytime you have won as Black you have infact swindled your opponent.

I've rarely swindled in my chess career, and the rare times I have, I feel a bit strange after. On the one hand, I'm glad to have had enough stick-to-it-iveness to get the win, but somehow I feel dirty. *shudders*

I admit there's absolutely no logic to what I've just said, a win is a win and it's not like I did anything dishonest or immoral, like hiding Houdini in my pocket or trying to distract my opponent. But still, it just feels...weird.

There is nothing illogical in your comments. It depends whether you see chess as an art or a sport. Looking at chess as an artform, I get little satisfaction from swindling an opponent, and feel cheated when I get swindled. As a sport there is little that feels better than swindling the opponent - a bit like the last minute winner in football having been outplayed for 90 minutes

I see it more as a sport than as an art, but it's undoubtedly both for me. Although maybe the fact that the game was out of my control and decided by a seemingly random tactic, upsets my vision of the game.
My favourite wins are when I keep a tight rein on things and slowly squeeze the opponent, avoid tactical explosions until I'm good and ready!

To me the issue is not really one of honesty at all. It's a sense that a good game is one that is well fought with accurate parries all the way through. Obviously, if one side wins the other side has played badly in some way - but the better both sides play the better the game. I cannot be prod of a game that I win by a fluke, nor one that I win because my opponent loses. The game I am proud of is the one where we battled manfully to the end, each seeing the other's traps and strategy, countering them and then putting forward our own.

I feel a good game of chess is an act of joint poetry - the sadness is when the poetry stoops from the highest standard.

[Of course this standard is never achieved in my games - but I still hope...]

Chris Rice wrote:... my opponent congratulating me with "you lucky ***** ***** *****"
...
Perhaps the art of the swindle ought to be lauded instead of seen as some disgraceful act of injustice?

I’ve never understood the narrative that states that advantages gained at first are achieved through skill and advantages that come afterwards are obtained by luck.

You played better than your opponent - the evidence being that you mated him - and you won. You would have been lucky if he had checkmated you and you still got the point nevertheless.

Michael Farthing wrote: [Of course this standard is never achieved in my games - but I still hope...]

I doubt that standard is achieved in any game. Chess just ain’t like that. The standard of the mistakes might be higher at GM and Super-GM standard but they’re still there.


I played Chris Rice at Golders Green a few weeks back. I was worse. Then he was worse. Then it was a draw. That’s what chess is.

Chess, to me, tells a story (which you can tell if you ever hear me analyse). Swindles, then, are analogous to the hero slaying the dragon, rescuing the princess, and then falling down the stairs on the way out - it just doesn't fit with the flow of the game.

Rob Thompson wrote:Chess, to me, tells a story (which you can tell if you ever hear me analyse). Swindles, then, are analogous to the hero slaying the dragon, rescuing the princess, and then falling down the stairs on the way out - it just doesn't fit with the flow of the game.

Story or otherwise (I think you have a point there, fwiw) that’s still just you making a value judgement about what 'flow of the game' is. I mean, fair enough it’s that’s how you want to see it, but you might just as easily have said that you see chess as a story and swindles are the twist at the end when you find out it wasn’t Professor Plum in the conservatory with the lead piping, but the Reverend Green all along.

Swindling is an art - if properly defined. In my view, at least: see below (includes some actual chess!)

http://www.kingpinchess.net/2013/09/the ... g-defined/

(This piece was well received and even translated into Hebrew (!). But I daresay that even those who enjoyed it carried on using the "word" swindle to mean almost any bit of luck under the sun.)

Swindles, are just as the name implies - snatching away a deserved victory because of a momentary lapse in the opponents concentration, there was never any intention going into the game that the fateful tactic as ever being steered towards, as a proper swindle tends to be a freak tactic which has been overlooked in a winning position.

I see it the same as poker - sometimes people take huge risks and bluff with losing hands, but in the long run the more solid and consistent players will always end up winning.

Whenever I write or refer to something thoughtful, I am always disappointed when Joey is the next person to post ...

Jonathan, unfortunately I decided to read your article before posting about it, otherwise my observation that it is interesting and well thought out would have been the next post....

I hadn't seen the Lasker game, which was very neat.

Jonathan Rogers wrote:Whenever I write or refer to something thoughtful, I am always disappointed when Joey is the next person to post ...

Maybe next time you should put those thoughtful comments onto the forum instead of linking elsewhere - few, if any, people click on random links on the internet these days.

Thanks Simon!

I just realised that the KINGPIN online verison doesn't fully reproduce the original for some reason. The original version had concluded with a brief criticism of Ali Mortazavi's book "The Fine Art of Swindling" where no definition of a swindle was offered, and (in my view) very few swindles (as opposed to cheapos, randomising moves, etc) were offered too. I was later told that Ali had been soliciting friends for material for the book ... mind you, "real" swindles, as I see them, are hard to come by.

Ali did at least give the extract from the Lasker game. Unfortunately though he only gave the position from the starting diagram and did not say whether Lasker's previous move had been Rad1 - which in my view would make all the difference. I still don't know Lasker's previous move, in fact. Perhaps some kind soul on the forum can find the game?