Talk:Swindle (chess)

Some comments

This article is definitely interesting, and has plenty of interesting positions. At my level (elo 1223), swindles are quite common and I have been at both ends of that stick (my most memorable game was losing with an extra knight and bishop because I did not pay attention to some passed pawns, thankfully you will not see that game in ChessBase or on my userpage!). Regarding the article, I have some suggestions:

General

• In my mind, a "swindle" usually refers to a rather dramatic and rapid change of fortune, an ensnarement which suddenly changes the outcome. If a player accepts an unsound gambit (and gets a won position), but then starts dillying with passive play, letting the opponent gradually build up an attack which slowly becomes unstoppable, I would call it being outplayed, not a swindle.
• Swindles happen in lost positions, and must include a mistake from the swindled. As such I think each example should start with a position shortly before the turning point. The setting of the trap, the blunder which falls into the trap, and the swift punishment. For instance, the first example (Marshall-MacClure) does not show where MacClure treads wrong.
• A bit about how a blunder from the opponent can be induced. To prevent anything on this being original research there are some pretty good paper sources, the two which come to mind is "Saving Lost Positions", a Back to Basics column by Lev Alburt and Larry Parr in the October 1994 Chess Life (which, among other things, advocates alertness, sound counterplay, randomization, and muddy waters), and the chapter "Fortune favors the lucky" in Chess for Tigers by Simon Webb (also advocating muddy and unclear waters, but also something on demeanor at the board. I seem to remember Alexander Kotov once getting lulled by the despondant opponent who was apparently getting ready to leave, putting his hat on and crumpling up the scoresheet.)

Stalemate

• The games listed in the beginning should have an external link to the games. (I see there is a link to stalemate, but that article can quickly change some day, breaking the chain here.)
• The bit on time trouble has nothing to do with stalemate, and should perhaps be in a section on inducing blunders (see general.)

Material insufficiency

• Not entirely convinced that this has so much to do with swindling. Is it simply not a regular drawing technique? If I get into a trouble and decide to start trading pieces to reach an inferior, but drawn endgame with reduced material without ever getting a lost position at any point, I may have defended well but I have hardly carried out a "swindle".

Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

True enough. I have now addressed this in the text, indicating that drawing by material insufficiency may or may not be the result of a "swindle." Krakatoa 02:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Zugzwang

I think the first two diagrams in this section and the paragraph (two sentences) starting "In the position... " can be removed. Basically a duplication of what is in the zugzwang article, and nothing specifically about Swindle. Bubba73 (talk), 21:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Diagram display issue

Left half of board only is shown in two positions. "Position after 39...Nf3+!!" and "Position after 61.Nf5!!". I guess this is some sort of template issue? ChessCreator (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Huh, I can see the whole board in these two positions. Does anyone have any idea why ChessCreator is having this problem, and how I can fix this? Krakatoa (talk) 00:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

After a bit of checking. This error occurs in Firefox (version 2) but not in Internet Explorer (version 7). The problem occurs when two diagrams are used next to each other, and the one on the right is only partly shown using 'template: Chess diagram'. ChessCreator (talk) 01:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Example with right diagram chopped. Higlighted issue on the diagram talk page. Template_talk:Chess_diagram

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Korchnoi-Karpov: "a position it seemed impossible to lose"

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Position after 39...Nf3+!!

• It looks like a February 20 change to Template:Chess diagram broke something. My guess is that it was the update to a div class. I reverted, and it seems to be OK now. (The last two updates to Template:Chess diagram have both been bad. Fortunately they don't seem to know about Template:Chess diagram small since that's been left alone.) Quale (talk) 03:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The display has changed but it's not fixed. The wording under the diagrams is now both on the left diagram. ChessCreator (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Use of tcenter is busted in general, and just a bad idea. Use tleft for both the diagrams and let them stack naturally. I've made that update in the article. Quale (talk) 04:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, looks far better now. White space looks less obvious then it did previously. ChessCreator (talk) 12:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Consider using smaller diagrams

I tried to improve the diagram and image placement in the article, but it's a difficult task. We could consider using smaller diagrams (Template:chess diagram small). They would make placement easier and might allow for greater use of text flow the the right or left of the diagrams, and reduce the number of float clears ({{-}}) needed. All that is required is to use chess diagram small where we currently have chess diagram. One article that uses both sizes of diagram is Slav Defense. Quale (talk) 04:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Had a go at chess diagram small but didn't save as the small diagrams make the white space even bigger and therefore more obvious. ChessCreator (talk) 12:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

A-class review

This article has been subject to a review within the WikiProject Chess in order to assess whether quality could be assessed as A-class. The review began on 4th March 2008 and ended on 18th March 2008. The discussion is reproduced hereafter so that editors can find hints on how to improve the article. The original discussion can also be consulted here. SyG (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You can see the archived discussion hereunder: SyG (talk) 08:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Review of Swindle (chess)

This review is done in the scope of the WikiProject Chess and is transcluded from Wikipedia:WikiProject Chess/Review/Swindle (chess). The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nomination by Krakatoa

I have put a ton of work into this article, and think it is quite comprehensive, well-sourced, and has excellent examples. I have looked at a lot of sources, and I frankly think that this article covers the subject better than anything I've seen in the literature. There are a lot of books along the lines of "How to Defend Difficult Positions," such as "The Art of Defense in Chess" (Soltis), "The Art of Defence in Chess" (Polugaevsky/Damsky), etc., but there is not much on swindles as such: how to try to rescue yourself from a clearly lost position. And I haven't seen anything that treats swindles in a comprehensive way, as this article does. Apart from Marshall, who reveled in swindles, most authors tend to shy away from the subject, considering swindles somehow uncouth. Even great swindles usually don't make it into players' "best games" collections, since people like to show off games where they played brilliantly the entire way, rather than games where they played badly, got lost positions, then bamboozled their way out. (For example, Bouaziz-Miles, a swindling masterpiece, is not in Miles' biography, and Karpov's "My 300 Best Games" doesn't include Karpov-Csom. Very few players have ever heard of Beliavsky-Christiansen, maybe the greatest swindling game of all time.) Anyway, enough blathering. I hope you like the article. Thanks for your consideration. Krakatoa (talk) 06:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)/ WITHDRAWN BY PROPONENT This article is obviously unworthy, and should be deleted instead. Krakatoa (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Review by Voorlandt: conclusion was "Comment"

Comment: Thanks a lot for your work on this article, it looks very comprehensive. I don't have time to go through it now, but I can tell you that the biggest hurdle to get this article featured will be (a) the topic, (b) the style of the article. This is the sad reality of featured articles! Now I am not saying that the topic isn't worth being featured, or that the article is written in a bad style, just saying that if you are trying to make this article featured, you should be prepared being attacked on both. I ran the article to the automatic peerreviewer bot, and here is the output (this should help improving (b)): The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question: Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?] Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.[?] Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?] Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, if January 15, 2006 appeared in the article, link it as January 15, 2006.[?] Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.[?] Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.[?] This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, then an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.[?] The script has spotted the following contractions: didn't, didn't, Don't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded. As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?] Voorlandt (talk) 19:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC) Thanks! I will definitely look into all of that. I didn't realize that getting an article featured was such a ritual, although I should have expected as much. I don't generally look at the featured articles, but looked at today's on the Philadelphia Inquirer. No doubt it's impolitic to say so, but I was pretty underwhelmed. Ungrammatical sentences, at least one misspelling, whole paragraphs making assorted factual assertions without a single reference, etc. Krakatoa (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC) Yeah I am just mentioning it, since I had a rather bad experience with Bughouse Chess. For the article I read several books, spend weeks researching and contacted a dozen of people for info. In my obviously biased opinion it is the most balanced and complete essay ever written on bughouse. Nevertheless, it was critized for its length and for the lack of history section. Although it is hardly my fault the history is unknown! What matters for FA more is (1) the topic; (2) the length of the article and perhaps the most important one (3) whether it looks good! Shorter articles, with less text are read far more thoroughly than long articles, and therefore far more prone to critic. I have also seen many long FA articles riddled with mistakes. That said, don't let my bad experience discourage you. The first step is of course getting this article through A and GA review. I think it needs a little bit more work, but not much. Voorlandt (talk) 09:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC) Bughouse chess indeed looks like a very thorough article, and I'm sorry you didn't make it. But I appreciate learning of your unhappy experience: that way I won't take it too hard when Swindle (chess) gets shot down . . . . Krakatoa (talk) 23:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Review by SyG: conclusion was "Comment"

Comments This is clearly a very good article on a difficult and understudied subject. Apart from Voorlandt's comments, here are some additional remarks if we want to narrow the gap to FA-class: The article includes Original Analysis, and that is forbidden in Wikipedia! See for example the 38th reference. In the lead, I do not understand the difference between the first sentence "In chess, a swindle is a ruse by which a player [...] achieves a win or draw instead of the expected loss" and the second sentence "It may also refer more generally to obtaining a win or draw from a clearly losing position". Probably the first sentence refers to one-mover and the second is more general, but this could be more explicit. As the lead states that certain players [...] have become famous for their swindling exploits, I would expect to see a section in the article on famous swindlers (with due references, of course), otherwise it is just reckoning. Some diagrams have a legend that is too long. I would expect the legends to be no more than one line. I would suggest to systematically include in the legend of the diagrams the move number at which is position is obtained. Most sections in Recurrent themes are just a collection of examples. Would it be possible to add a bit more substance (I mean, some general considerations in each chapter) to make it a bit more "encyclopedic" ? In the section Perpetual check there are interesting remarks about the pieces that are good for attack but suddenly bad for defence, making it impossible to the player to adapt to the new situation. Maybe these considerations could be generalised, developped and put into the section Practical consideration as they are not valid only for perpetual check. The section Practical consideration is the most encyclopedic one. In order to promote it, I would propose to put it before the section Recurrent themes, and to split it into different subsections (for the moment it is too long). There seems to be some syntax problems here and there (although I am a pure patzer in syntax), just to name a few: The first sentence of the section Classic example lacks an ending point. Same section, the second sentence has a reference placed in the middle of the text, which is not in line with the Formating Guidelines, as far as I know. Same section, sentence but Marshall saw an opportunity for "a last 'swindle", there seems to be a lonesome comma in the quotation. In "de Firmian-Shirazi", in the sentence "since 31.Qxe4 allows 31...Rfl#." there is a "l" instead of a "1". The sentence "Draw by perpetual check is another oft-seen way of swindling" when the word "often" is misspelled. The sentence "However, Krogius warns that one should deliberately get into time trouble only after after a detailed assessment of a number of considerations" contains twice the word "after". There is no History section; that could be useful to know if there are more or less swindles than in the past, e.g. due to the improvement of chess computers. There is no example with a chess computer, whereas I believe they are very good in swindles due to their great tactical abilities. The consequences of famous swindles could be explained further, e.g. for "the swindle of the century". In the Stalemate section, a sentence says "Another famous Marshall swindle is Marshall-MacClure, New York 1923 (diagram at right)" while I understand it should be "(diagram at left)". In the Weak back rank section, the first sentence says "Mating threats along the opponent's back rank often enable one to win or draw from a lost position." which is precisely the definition of swindles, if I understand correctly. Therefore a more consise formulation could be something like "Mating threats along the opponent's back rank often enable one to swindle." Having the diagrams first and the explanations next could be found a bit confusing for the casual reader, especially as there is no clear separation between the different articles. Maybe sometimes some subsections could be used ? In the example "Chigorin-Schlechter, Ostend 1905", I find there are too many exclamation marks in the explanations, as I would only give an exclamation mark to 44...Qc7, the other ones being nor difficult to find, nor forced. I do not see the point of putting wikilinks for years, like 1997, especially when the sentence has nothing special to do with the concerned year. The article contains some Id. references that do nothing apart from taking space, while it is better in Wikipedia to cite several times the same reference without creating a separate line every time. In the first sentence about "de Firmian-Shirazi", we can read "GM de Firmian is ahead three pawns" while I am not sure it has been explained above that "GM" stands for Grandmaster ? Same remark for "IM Shirazi". The difference between a swindle and a blunder is not clearly explained. I mean, do you have a swindle every time there is a trick in the position ? Or is it only when you play second-best move that sets up a trap ? I am not sure the "Zukertort-Steinitz, London 1883" example is a good one, as I do not see the swindle. I mean, Black has sacrificed an exchange to decentralised the White queen and get an attack, then the attack succeeds because White blunders. But where is the ruse ? Same remark on "Donner-Fischer": is it really a swindle ? it looks like just a blunder from Fischer. Same remark on most of the examples in the Material insufficiency section: not really swindles to me, just good play from the side with the less material. This is acknowledgeg in the article, but then why keep them here ? A good example of swindle could be the recent game "Grischuck-Polgar" when Polgar managed to save a K+N+2P/K+N endgame. Very generally, in a FA review there could be some critics regarding the need for an article on the subject, for example: What is the need for an article on "swindling in chess" ? I mean, there could just be an article called "Swindle (games)" ? Is there any way swindles in chess are particular, e.g. compared with swindles in Go or Checkers ? Why is this theme encyclopedic, and not just trivia ? Given the references, it seems noone has bothered to publish some work dedicated to this subject, so maybe this is just a collection of anecdotes ? Why is this theme encyclopedic, and not just a definition ? Why not just moving the definition to Wiktionnary, instead of an article in Wikipedia ? I hope you don't find these comments too harsh or pointy, of course the aim is just to improve the article and maybe prepare a FA review, which are often very depressing. SyG (talk) 13:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion by SyG: A-class was failed
Close the review As the nominator has withdrawn the nomination for the article, I shall close the review. SyG (talk) 21:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:FrankMarshall.jpg

The image Image:FrankMarshall.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• Image:TonyMiles.jpg

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --09:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Fairusebot has now swiped the picture of Frank Marshall that graced this article - the same picture that still appears in the Frank Marshall article. Marshall has been dead about 60 years now. The picture in question looks to have been taken when he was pretty young (maybe in his heyday when IIRC he won Cambridge Springs 1904 2 points ahead of Lasker), so I'm guessing it's a century or more old? Surely this picture is in the public domain by now? Krakatoa (talk) 20:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

If it was published in the US before 1923 then it is in the public domain. In some cases the catch is "was it published in the US before 1923?" There is also the "fair use" criteria. Bubba73 (talk), 20:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Qe4 was not the best move

In the diagram that showed the so-called Marshall masher, Black can immediately play Rf1# rather than Qe4.209.155.146.2 (talk) 22:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That would be illegal, since it would put Black's king in check by White's queen. Krakatoa (talk) 01:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Frank Marshall's Swindles

Marshall did not call his book by that particular title in reference to 'swindling' lost games. The book is available via google books. In the introduction he says that games where he took unpracticed theorists by surprise were derisively called "Swindles", and he decided to publish a collection of such games. I would assume this is why the title has the word "Swindles" in quotes. 67.194.193.80 (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. The title is really a misnomer; IIRC Soltis referred to it as "unfortunately named." It would be better called "Marshall's Best Games of Chess." Krakatoa (talk) 00:23, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Given this, perhaps we should revise the introduction's text dealing with Marshall? At the very least, I think the comments about the book need re-wording. 67.194.77.232 (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Sticky-out photo

A photo of Karpov was added March '08, but there is no photo of any other "swindler", including Evans, Miles, Christiansen, J. Polgar, S. Polgar, and etc. So, w/o context of others' photos, Karpov's seems out of place (i.e. what reason to include only his?). So am removing on that basis. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:38, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Gershon - Thorhallson

THis is an excellent example of a swindle (I may have colors reverseed) That is well sourced in one of seirawan's winning chess books. It shows thorhallson refusing to execute a bishop, but rather running to the corner with his king for a bishop and wrong color rook pawn draw. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Practical considerations

Some problems in the Practical considerations section:

• Per WP:NOTHOWTO, it should be written as observations on how swindlers tend to succeed, not advice on how you too can be a successful swindler.
• Confusing numbering: Simon Webb's 'five "secrets of swindling"' are numbered 1 to 6. Are are the unindented sections after numbers 3, 5, and 6 meant to be part of the preceding numbers? Tying them to Webb may violate wp:synth.

jnestorius^(talk) 23:04, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

impossible move

in the article, it says: "Now Black could have played 45...bxc6!" No, they couldn't have, the bishop is on the wrong colour of square to go there. Somebody please fix this.Bomberswarm2 (talk) 02:51, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

"45...bxc6" refers to the pawn on the b-file capturing to c6, which is perfectly legal. A bishop capturing to c6 would be "45...Bxc6", using a capital B instead. Double sharp (talk) 08:08, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Stigma

The bit in the lead about "swindles" carrying a "moral stigma" seems strangely unbalanced. After all, in the 2012 Olympic badminton tournament, several players got sent home in disgrace for 'unsportingly' not trying to win their matches (because the losers would face easier opponents in the next round). So unless 'chess morality' is unanimously different from 'Olympic morality', there ought to be some people claiming that failing to look for swindles is 'failing to try to win' and therefore unsportsmanlike, lazy, cheating, letting your country down, ruining the spectators' enjoyment, and so on, while looking for swindles is your clear moral and sporting duty, so it would seem strange if there are no Reliable Sources mentioning such a viewpoint (possibly as a minority one, though I suspect it's actually a majority view among ordinary people, as distinct perhaps from professional players with a trade union mentality towards having to work harder to win). I'm not sufficiently interested to try to find such a RS, but some other editor might be. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:34, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 external links on Swindle (chess). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080213020308/http://www.fide.com:80/ratings/top_files.phtml?id=14100010 to http://www.fide.com/ratings/top_files.phtml?id=14100010
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060930090528/http://www.4ncl.co.uk/pein19.htm to http://www.4ncl.co.uk/pein19.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 22:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Delete the "shouting check" section?

The "shouting check" section has me kind of puzzled. Most of it is an unsourced quotation (you can find it here, though I suspect it's originally from a book or some other printed source). The subsequent commentary misspells the names of both players, and there are no citations or links. My impulse is to delete the entire section, but maybe it can be salvaged, so I thought I'd post about it in case other people feel differently. 2601:801:3:1A80:CDC8:381A:8755:1D6B (talk) 21:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

It isn't very good, so I am in favor of removing it. Quale (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely dreadful. I've removed it. Even the article lede says ... Although "swindling" in general usage is synonymous with cheating or fraud, in chess the term does not imply that the swindler has done anything unethical or unsportsmanlike. This was contradicted by the case described, which is just plain cheating, and very definitely unethical and unsportsmanlike. Brittle heaven (talk) 03:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Drawing by stalemating your opponent

Are there any examples of swindles involving a player stalemating their opponent so their opponent (not them) had no moves? Also has it ever happened where the move to stalemate the opponent was the only drawing move available because all other moves would lose? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synesthetic (talk • contribs) 07:39, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

• Typically the player who stands better is not about to run out of moves unless there is a checkmate. However, there certainly are positions where the defensive resource is to stalemate the opponent. In the position on the right, White's only move to draw is Kf2, and Black is stalemated. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:31, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

"Rosen Trap" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Rosen Trap. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 9#Rosen Trap until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:58, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Not true swindles

The article clearly says in the lead that for a swindle to happen, the player that swindles must be losing before it. But there are more than one example of supposed swindles in this article in which this didn't happen. At one point it even says something like "The previous examples aren't bona fide swindles..." - if they aren't, what are they doing here? I propose we remove all those cases--Ngfsmg (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2022 (UTC)