SC Week 4/5: How to Woodpecker

 " …open files only have value as a means of feeding rooks (or possible queens) into the enemy position, so that a file has no value unless there is somewhere along it an entry point …."

Michael Stean

Quite a bit of this chapter is fragments or analysis example positions. This leaves us with a few days to fill.

As we’re about halfway through, now’s a good time to use our extra days to catch up if we’ve missed a day and reflect on how things are going.

Today we’ll have a think about how we’re using the Woodpecker Method.

If you are Woodpeckering - Introduction/6 - how are you getting on?

Neal Bruce - Dr Spaced Repetition - wrote the other day that any position with one or two clearly best moves is worth turning into a flash card. That’s an eminently sensible way to go about things, but it’s not what I do.

When I pick a position to add to my Woodpecker I’m looking for something that shows an idea. Whether it’s the "best" according to an engine doesn’t really matter.

Take 25 a6, 26 Kg2 or 27 Qe2 from Botvinnik - Szilagyi (Introduction/2). All of the these moves, for very different reasons, show me something I want to remember. None of get a clearly better engine evaluation from a number of other options White has each move.

Which is not to say I’m right and Neal is wrong. Whether its my way, Neal’s, a mixture of both or something altogether different really doesn’t matter. The point is to find a way to do the Woodpecker Method that works for you.