Extracted Pages From Axel Smith-Pump Up Your Rating-Bookmarks-OCR-7.9MB

Chapter 6 Te Wo o dpe dpecker cker Metho Metho d

Cl: Lds ASK Br: B r: 1985 GM: 20 20 10

ikka ikkanen nen bec became ame a me memb mber er of ofLu Lun n ASK at the age age of of 1 4, an and d moved mo ved to to Lun L und d when he was 19. At that time he had lost lost his motiv m otivatio ationn r chess, chess, an and d instead instead tried both Go and ha hearted heart ed stu studies dies at universi un iversi. . Howe oweve ve with the new ne w envi en viron ronmen mentt he soon regain ained ed his o psi p sion on  r chess. In th thee sp sp ring of20 2011 0, he creat created ed e Wood oodpecke peckerr Met Metho hod d and on o n mo monn th thss ter he made made three three GM no norm rmss in seven weeks. Tkk Tkkane anenn won the Swedis Swedishh Cha ham mpi pions onshi hip p in 201 1, 01 and and 2013

222

Pup Up You Rating

Chess  99% taccs - Richad eichmann Like so many mims, thee is some tuth in eichmann's quote. Despite this, pacsg cacuation is quite a sma pat of most payes' chess taining. Te eason, I beieve, is that it's dicut to dene exacty what you have eaned. Tat desie fo tangibe esuts is vey human ("oday I memoized 30 moves of Gnfed theo') but even so thee is nothing moe vauabe at the boad than being abe to cacuate we.

Chapr ove Tis chapte begins with a discussion about tactical taining, with Hans ikkanen as the mode paye. ikkanen impoved a ot when he stated to wok sytematicay and he aso inspied a Danish fiend to even geate impovements . Te geneal advice is to me the taining simia to a game situation. One way of achieving that is using a chess cock. Te second section deas with tactica motifs. It ciitates cacuation to know thei featues by heat. One of the motifs has not been named befoe: the ifeine. Te chapte contains 5 1 execises of vaying degees of dicuty. Most of them ( 1 2+6+ 1 2+6) ae pesented befoe each tactica moti but the ast section aso hods 1 5 chaenging execises.

Tc tg Hans ikkanen is inteested in studying the human bain, its stuctue and nction. His taining pogam was designed to t the way that humans ean to intuitivey ecognize pattens. ikkanen stated by soving quite simpe tactica execises. hen he nished, ae about 1 000 execises, he took a shot beak, and then stated a ove again on the same execises. And when he nished fo a second time, he stated a thid time, and so on. ikkanen's esults wee convincing - his thee GM nos the folowing summe gained him moe than 1 00 Eo points. I have theefoe named the taining pogam ae him: Te Woodpecke Method. Tis comes fom the meaning of ianen' in its oigina anguage, Finnish. Howeve, as ikkanen is a somewhat mysteious and modest peson, he doesn't want to expain the undeying theoies o exacty how he did it. What I have witten in this chapte is theefoe my intepetation, but as I have folowed him cosey, it's hopey cose enough! Tee is anothe sunny stoy about this ethod's eectiveness - the Danish playe Andeas Skytte Haen, who aso pays o unds ASK. Since 2006 he has been a seious chess paye: paying, anaysing openings, eading books and soving execises. Howeve, his pogess was modest unti he met ikkanen at a tounament. Suddeny, Hagen inceased fom 229 0 in Mach 20 1 1  to 2454, o monts ate. It tuned out that both ikkanen and Hagen had ead the same book: Geo Covin's nt is oveated (2010). Covin poposes a tough taining pogam with epeated execises Feedback shoud be given ae each taining session, which means using a timekeeping and points system. In that way pogess can be seen fom day to day.