The Complete Chess Swindler is unlike any other chess book I’ve ever read. It focuses purely on saving lost positions and lost tournament and rating points. Having a book on such a specific topic which is, at the same time, so widely applicable to chess players of all levels is rare. It may even be unique. Smerdon has created a textbook on swindling your way out of dead lost positions.
If you know anything about me and my style of play, you’ll know that my biggest weakness is dynamic positions, calculation, and being extremely deterministic when it comes to evaluating positions. Combine these three factors, and the conclusion is that I almost never fight when I’m much worse or losing, and I often find myself being outplayed or swindled when I have a clearly winning position. This has been the case in many tournament and online training games. So reading a book on how to fix that has been an eye-opener for me.
Defining, describing, and teaching something as complex as swindling chess positions is not easy. I would struggle to reduce the concept to elements that can be taught. Smerdon has done a very good job in The Complete Chess Swindler. The book is divided into four major parts, each of which explains one crucial part of being successful at converting winning positions and saving lost positions by swindling your opponent. The first part explains what a swindle is and when “entering swindle mode”, as the author puts it is necessary. Part two focuses on psychology, or, better put, what makes us make good and bad decisions, what restricts us from fighting on and looking for resources, and many other important lessons every successful swindler should know, such as mastering fear, impatience, and optimism (or the lack of it).
Part three focuses on providing tools and showing the reader the signals they can use to see that a swindle is possible. Smerdon calls it “The Swindler’s Toolbox”. Part four is in a way an addition to that, as it expands on building your knowledge of ideas on how to recognize a possible swindle and execute it successfully.
Finally, Smerdon goes over many instructive examples of games in which a hopeless position was saved. I think that’s of immense value to the improving player. Patterns you’ll see in The Complete Chess Swindler are bound to stick with you. I think that building a database of such instructive swindling ideas is a great start to being able to play them yourself when an opportunity presents itself.
The book is a fun and light read, without too many lines and endless sub-variations. I went through the whole thing without using a board. Partly because I started reading it on a train, but also because the diagrams are easy to follow and it focuses on ideas rather than training calculation.
I would also like to add that it was very inspiring for me. It made me wish I could sit at the board in a position I had to swindle my way out of while reading it! It boosted my confidence and (I hope) changed my habit of giving up easily. The Complete Chess Swindler is a book that focuses on one single skill. But developing that one skill, being able to fight well in hopeless positions, could be the most valuable investment you could make when it comes to your rating!
