Well another swindle… I was in a clearly losing endgame after a mistake on move 37. Well it was pretty hard to calculate. I just wanted to protect that double pawn. So I was losing and somehow won again. Just a3 instead of b3 on move 41 would have won the game for white.

So what can you do to get a swindle:

• You have already lost. Your opponent needs to work hard. The hardest is to win a win. The worst that can happen to you is that you lose.
• Try and keep the queen on the board. The more moves you have the more complicated it stays for your opponent.
• Sacrifice if you have to. Keep the position complicated.
• Look confident.
• Build a fortress, worst that can happen is you lose
• Look for trickery like mate on back rank or wild knights attacking multiple pieces
• Perpetual chess works
• Look for stalemate
• Its not my style but this happened to me: my opponent kinda slammed his queen on the board. I somehow did not take his queen then ended up losing my queen to a rook (and still drew the game). So some kind of little play to just throw your opponent off balance. I have no idea if this actually allowed…

Better an ugly win than a beautiful loss I suppose. De Wachter won 4,5 to 3,5.