Books Downloads Pdf The Woodpecker Method
Christiana Call
I was at first intrigued with this woodpecker method thing, and was going to purchase the book. Unfortunately, I am a bad consumer, as i like to review things first. I like to read up on things, and not just impulse buy. While i like the idea, I can simply use my CT-Art 3.0 and go through each level of the tactics over and over and over, until i am getting them faster, and faster, and faster. Maybe ot the exact same thing, but its close.
The fact that this "woodpecker method" worked with Tikkanen doesn't mean it works with everyone. There is a trap here. Tikannen was ready to become a GM and he wanted a little push. That push could be anything depending on the player and his previous training and knowledge gaps.For example, an IM told me that he was stuck and eventually got the his final norm after he stopped studying or playing for 3 months. Obviously what he needed was to relax and stay away from chess for a short period. But it would be silly to write a book with title "Don't study chess to become IM"? It was something that worked for him and hardly a qualified training advice.
Novices need to do things that work in the vast majority of novices and not things that work in a limited number of GMs. GMs have different needs than novices. Smith's method is nothing more than Smith's method. It's not accepted by any other trainer. Dvoretsky and Yusupov support the method of thinking caculating and understanding. Fernard Gobet , the leading authority to cognitive architecture also claims the same as the important for a novice is to create a knowledge base. Smith's method is not accepted by the world's best trainers(his book is not in the list of FIDE's best books suggested by the best senior FIDE trainers) or cognitive scientists.
Yes, you are right, if you got the idea and if you have the discipline to do it, you can use a similar method with any book on tactics (it is what one of the co-authors did at the beginning, but he was annoyed about the mistakes that these books had - he checked every single exercise which seemed not convincing for him).
Many improving players are told to use either Yusupov's 9-book series or the Woodpecker Method by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen to improve their tactical skills. These books are however hard for most intermediate players. The idea behind the woodpecker method is quite interesting, which is to repeat the puzzles 7 times in cycles. The book however has 222 easy puzzles, before the level gets harder.
The goal with this workbook series is to create training material that makes it possible to use spaced repetition cycles on a large number of puzzles on an even level.
To do this I have used the Lichess puzzle database. It contains 2,132,989 chess puzzles that are rated and tagged. This has allowed me the opportunity to select puzzles of the same difficulty throughout this book. In this way, you should not experience that you run your head against the wall, but that you reach a good flow while solving.
The Lichess data suggest that there is a good correlation between puzzle-solving abilities (as reflected by puzzle score) and chess-playing ability (as reflected by the rapid rating).
chessable and chesstempo versions would be useful as well. I have been going through the woodpecker method on chess tempo where I bought the book and it allows quite a lot of modalities , looping, spaced repetition, etc. to work through the puzzles, track progress, ...
Many improving players are told to use either Yusupov's 9-book series or the Woodpecker Method by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen to improve their tactical skills. These books are however hard for most intermediate players. The idea behind the woodpecker method is quite interesting, which is to repeat the puzzles 7 times in cycles. The book however has 222 easy puzzles, before the level gets harder.
The goal with this workbook series is to create training material that makes it possible to use spaced repetition cycles on a large number of puzzles on an even level.
To do this I have used the Lichess puzzle database. It contains 2,132,989 chess puzzles that are rated and tagged. This has allowed me the opportunity to select puzzles of the same difficulty throughout this book. In this way, you should not experience that you run your head against the wall, but that you reach a good flow while solving.
The Lichess data suggest that there is a good correlation between puzzle-solving abilities (as reflected by puzzle score) and chess-playing ability (as reflected by the rapid rating).