The Woodpecker Method | Dojo Book Review 

The thing I noticed about this book is that the authors seem to hate Capablanca. So many exercises from his games are moves that he himself didn't find.

FYI You can turn the timer off on Chessable. Also there is a template online where you record your times and data from each round. It’s on the official site for the book.

The beginner section of the WPM on Chessable SINGLEHANDEDLY took me from 1000-1500. The pattern recognition was perfect for the gamification on chessable. Also a lot of these gripes with Chessable (besides the point system) are settings errors.

The point of having a score is that it allows you to check progress from cycle to cycle. Obviously if you only do the problems once it becomes less meaningful. It also forces you to write down all your analysis, which is a great habit to develop.

I genuinely love the tactics tests on the Dojo. They really force you to look and consider every line. No handholding. It’s harder. But that’s kind of the point. Also just moved up to the 1100 cohort and loving the Benedictine Visualise book. I’m on the 10 ply section now and still getting good results. Has really increased my confidence

While I agree that points themselves are meaningless, it's important to specify precisely how far was I supposed to calculate in order to treat the puzzle as "solved correctly". Think of Perfect Your Chess, which simply gives a bunch of variations + the game continuation, both of which can go for 20 plies, and you can see how valuable the information is.

I'm about 30% of the way through the Woodpecker Method, and it's made me feel really stupid! I'm about 1500 OTB (USCF) and I struggle to solve even half of the (so called) easy problems. It's getting a little easier, but this has been far more difficult than I thought it would be.

Let me correct a couple of things. There is a clear and long introduction on the book how to do the exercise cycles. Also, no need to vent about who was world champion and who was not... and completely irrelevant for the book (not sure if sorting problems by date makes any sense at all, though). The chessable version is excellent. It has very clear instructions how to use it on the platform, additional notes, and suggests setting. The timer can be switched off with one click for the whole book. Also, there are no hints "Look at the white Knight". The titles visible when doing problems is just the name of the players, something that's often printed in puzzle books right next to the diagram anyway. And also here, if you want it hidden, it is one click and it will stay off.

Great video! I haven't read the book, but I was still enjoying Jesse's take on it, and how he describes where the book shines and where it disappoints in a way. I am not a big fan of chessable for some other reasons compared to those mentioned by Jesse, but now my stance is reaffirmed, when hearing about how a puzzle book is being presented there. Spoiler alert ( maybe?) : A few days ago I shared in a comment that I started studying Steinitz. From what I've seen the guy often found a way to sacrifice his heavy pieces ( We are not talking vs Bardeleben game, but instead some early games that are mostly not featured in books), so I would assume that most of the positions featuring his games would be of that sort. Specifically to make this comment accurate, I quickly went over the 16 games I analyzed so far ( last time the count was 7, but I've made some progress since). Here are the stats about the number of times him sacrificing different pieces: Queen: 3 ( last time I said 4, but apparently I miscounted) Rook: 7 ( Seven times!) Exchange: 4 Bishop: 3 Knight: 2 Out of those 16 games he won 14 and lost 2 , and in the two games he lost he didn't sacrifice anything ( in one game he lost his queen, and in the other he went pawngrabbing and got crushed). So, in the 14 games he won he made 19 piece sacrifices !!!, 14 of which were heavy pieces sacrifice!! ( I didn't count pawn sacs). Now, bare in mind that this was a young Steinitz, who had not yet become the one described in the books and such. IMO, this describes what was his natural gift, since these are the games before he made serious progress, so this was his innate ability in a way. From what I see, he somehow had a natural gift of using the heavy pieces aggressively. So my guess is ( spoiler alert) - that the positions from his games will feature heavy pieces sacs. Of course, I might be totally wrong, since I have only analyzed around 2-3% of his games, so maybe it is that my data is skewed by coincidence ( although, I don't believe it since I was looking at games not at random, but in chronological order).

Tried reading the Woodpecker #2, i realised how ridiculously weak I actually am. 😢 Demotivated me immediately...

But... surely woodpeckering pays best for the Most Common Patterns? GM Alburt"s Chess Training Pocket Book aims at "300 Most Important Positions and Ideas". The Return on Investment has gotta be higher for Alburt, than for Smith, right? And... whats gotta pay best of all, per woodpecker hour, are screwups from the Adult Improver"s OWN NOTEBOOKS. The themes tend to recur, and thus be more relevant, because they come from that players opening repertoire, and they stick better because the pain is personal. What am I missing here, Jesse? Please explain...

Would agree with Jesse that you can be over-primed to see tactics (especially short term "tricks" or even seeing ghosts in the position) rather strategy long term ie seeing and exploiting weaknesses in a position that requires more subtlety (maneuvering) rather than brute force. I'd rather spend time looking at endgames and specific mating attacks than trying to find the win or overlooked win in a given position. Most times you don't need to find the killer blow or winning move as a move that prolongs the tension/agony or pressure in a position is enough for your opponent to weaken his/her position. (Hence there may be detrimental effect as it doesn't take into account the second or third best move which is usually good enough to succeed.) Perfection is the enemy of good as they say. Excellent critique of the book btw! The book you displayed, is it called *Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games by Lazlo Polgar?*

Is there any other software you can use to generate tactical puzzles from somebodys games?

I've been working through the book on chesstempo and found it to feel quite productive.

Does anybody have the name of the russian book on endgame tactics he shows at the end? Thanks!

Oh, chessable butchered yet another chess book? I’m surprised.

hmm.. since when did Dojo started to discredit others work and started to promote Dojo-only-rocks! pass