Yeah, I went with the Woodpecker book on Forward Chess, and have been quite happy with it so far.

Just wondering, what program would you recommend to woodpecker? I saw chess art was mentioned? I really like something I could use on my mobile phone.

In Peshka CT-Art 4, the 5x5 hint diagrams exist and are fine for every problem, the program shows you why your move is bad for certain major mistakes (e.g. overlooking counterplay) just as does CT-Art 3, and the graphics are much better. The major differences from 3.0 from a practical standpoint are in the (re)testing options and the ability to play out a position. Selecting a range of exercises for retesting in 3.0 can be done in a finer-grained manner than in 4.0, partly because of the previously-mentioned batches and partly because fewer options exist; and in Peshka, you can only play the position out against an engine as the side to move [dee-wa]! If you have Aquarium, though, which I do, you can push a button in Peshka to send the exercise into a running Aquarium instance and analyze to your heart's content (and even annotate--it's like Chessbase for that).

Stigma wrote on 10/25/18 at 21:15:33:

It's a long time ago that I checked on the peshka program, especially after switching to a Mac, so bear with me.
1. If you work through difficulty there are, say around 200 level 10 (they don't call it level one). In 3.0 it is one batch of 200 in 4.0 & later for some reason they split it up in multiple batches, so say 10 x 20 problems for level 10.
2. If you make a mistake in ct-art 3.0 you get a simple pattern of the problem at hand on a 5x5 board. IIRC that wasn't in 4.0 & later or it was badly implemented
3. I think that in Ct-art 3.0, that if you made a mistake you were shown the refutation quite clearly
4. Ct-art 3.0 had quick insights into your scoringstats. I think that was more difficult to extract out of 4.0 and later due to the strange batches

Stigma wrote on 10/25/18 at 21:15:33:

Maybe they did, I don't know. Ct-art 3.0 got all the problems from Combinational Motifs from Blokh. It had a great didactical build-up with it's problem complexity. Studies are a different batch which are more beneficial to train your calculation instead of pattern recognition training.
It looked to me like a revenue model. Release version X with slightly more content and get some extra sales.
Ct-Art 3.0 wasn't without faults, but it felt to me like a labor of love. Maybe it's just nostalgia 

Stigma wrote on 10/25/18 at 21:15:33:

No it wasn't really a problem. I knew some Fischer tactics and some from Tal, but not that it was a big problem, because I remembered bits of the combination but not all.
I ended up with Karpov with 765 problems total, so I really don't know about Kasparov and later.
Funny thing was that there are quite a few combinations taken from simuls, especially Alekhine, so that shows that pattern recognition is a nice thing to work on 

IsaVulpes wrote on 09/19/18 at 21:21:14:


Ct-Art 3.0 is still the best tactics training program you can find, especially for woodpeckering. I actually bought Crossover for my Mac only to run this old program which does not run under windows 10 anymore. Don't bother with the Peshka (Ct-art 4.0 and later) versions, they totally messed up a brilliant program. Send me a PM if you've got trouble finding the good ol' CT-art 3.0.
I got the mobile Ct-art version too. It is fine, but it can't compare with 3.0.

I think the benefits of the Woodpecker Method are besides pattern recognition the training of your decision making under severe time constraint. I consider this as more important than pattern recognition.
If I study chess most of the times I go deep and there isn't a time limit which I set for myself. I could spend any amount of time on a problem and most of the times I just want to get it right.
The difference with the woodpecker method is that it isn't about getting it right, but it's primary goal is to increase the speed of your problem solving. You do have to make a serious effort of course and choose a move for which you take responsibility.
With the woodpeckermethod you first start solving for 4 weeks (the first cycle), the amount of problems you solve there is your set. So that could be 200 for a beginner or 1000 for an advanced player. You can see this as a baseline measurement.
The next cycle you need to solve your set it in 2 weeks, (taking advantage of pattern recognition), then the next cycle in 1 week etc. Right now I am only in my second cycle, and it is already quite tough.

I write all my solutions and time used down.
I averaged 5 minutes per problem in the first cycle and it is now down to 4 minutes in the second cycle.
Smith and Tikkanen say that speed is your nr.1 focus with the training. The ticks really help in that regard. If you see that your tactics work good enough, write it down and go the next problem, there is no need to flesh out the entire variation.
In a way this really is the best experience I have with training which simulates OTB decision making with a clock running.
In the second cycle I actually got some problems wrong which I got the first cycle right. That is intensely frustrating, but also quite revealing, that not all patterns stay in the memory banks. Overall my solving percentage is slightly higher.

It is quite hard to train solo with limited time, because it is hard to say how much time you need. The baseline which you set in the 4 weeks works great in that regard.
I think it was Sadler who said that when he trained with Dvoretsky, the most grueling part was that he had to solve a tremendous amount of hard problems in a set amount of time.
https://matthewsadler.me.uk/news/memoriam-mark-dvoretsky/
I think the spaced repetition is different from the Woodpecker in that there is no increased time strain, which makes Woodpeckering so tough, and therefore a great practice tool.
Also I think it is good to focus on all the problems and not necessarily the ones you got wrong as you forget a lot sadly.

Of course this is from a sample size of one, but still


As for the book. In a way it is YATB, you can use any tactics book for woodpeckering.
But I still recommend it if you own other tactics books.
The timeline for the tactics from all the word champions from Steinitz to Carlsen is a nice feature and outlines a nice path in the book.
The ticks are a good feature to make more intuitive decisions where you see far enough. Sometimes you can disagree with the placements, but than you can use common sense.
The quality of the book, paper and bindingwise is of the usual top stuff from Quality Chess.

Does anyone who has worked with the book for a bit have a concrete opinion as to how it stacks ups to "simply" doing ChessTempo or CT-Art?
I am not very concerned about the repetition vs new puzzles debate; if I believed the method to work, I could after all just do the same with a different book / custom problem set in CT / etc (naturally neither of the authors did their run of the system with the book..) , so this would mostly be a question about quality of the puzzles, clarity of the solutions, and I guess entertainment value of the book as a whole - when compared to the other tactics sources out there.
Did anything about the book 'grip' you in particular fashion, or did you indeed feel there was little difference compared to other tomes (such as eg Palliser's "The complete chess workout")?

In October I will have some amount of time, but little access to the internet. Would you recommend me to get the CT-Art mobile version, or the book on Forward Chess, or perhaps something entirely else?
I am currently tending towards the book, as it seems 'more different' to my usual Chesstempo puzzles than CT-Art does, but while skimming through places, I eg found a 2014 review by ReneDescartes, who called CT-Art smth like the by far best tactics.. thing, something. I know very little about it, so I cant judge, and of course I also don't know if something changed in the last 4 years.
Or indeed, perhaps someone has a great different idea as to what would be an optimal way of practicing tactics, on mobile, without internet?

I'm a ways behind Paul, but I've done about 450 of the exercises so far. I'm enjoying it. I've never gone through a tactics book in this way before and it's a weakness of my game. I'm probably a prime candidate for improvement via the Woodpecker method! That said I think the book could have been better...

I like most of the puzzles but do find the red herrings a bit strange. They are so infrequent - maybe 1% of the total. Honestly, I think it would be better if either 1) they weren't there, when I could focus on drilling the patterns or 2) there were more of them, say c.5-10%. Then I think they'd do a better job of keeping me on my toes.

I like the idea of the ticks in the solutions, however I don't think it's executed as well as it could be - in my opinion the Yusupov series is much better in this regard. My understanding is that the ticks represent what you should see before executing the first move, but I find myself disagreeing a lot. A common scenario is that the initial position looks hopeless until you spot the tactical idea. It's not clear at first if it simply gets you out of trouble or wins material, but the ticks continue right until the situation is clarified. To play the move in a game did you need to see everything? I don't think so. I'd follow Leko's rule - play the forced move and then think again on the next turn. Sometimes it goes the other way as well i.e. I feel it's necessary to calculate a couple of moves deeper to 'make sure', while the authors feel it wasn't necessary. As someone said earlier, that's probably down to playing strength and style, which makes it more understandable.