Chess puzzles
Five puzzles per set, solved 3 times each. Solving a thousand different puzzles once teaches a thousand things badly; solving a few repeatedly moves them from calculation into recognition.
- Mating patterns5 puzzles · 3 rounds
Five checkmates that recur constantly in club games. Each is mate in one — the work is recognising which pattern is on the board.
- Basic tactics5 puzzles · 3 rounds
Forks, pins and loose pieces — the three motifs that decide most games under 1600. Two of the five finish with mate.
Why repetition beats volume
The Woodpecker Method comes from Hans Tikkanen, who used it to earn three grandmaster norms in a single year. The principle is that tactical strength is pattern recognition, and recognition comes from seeing the same pattern repeatedly rather than from seeing many patterns once.
So the set does not change between rounds. The second pass is faster than the first and the third faster again, and that speed-up — not the number solved — is the measurement that matters. By the last round most people get everything right, so accuracy stops discriminating and time is what still moves.
Each set here is deliberately small. A set you cannot hold in your head is a set you are re-solving rather than recalling, which is the ordinary puzzle-grinding this is meant to replace.
Puzzles from your own games
These sets are fixed and shared by everyone. The training in your account is the other thing: positions you personally keep reaching and answering differently, drawn from your imported games rather than from a puzzle book.