Woodpecker 10(0)1 - IV

Woodpeckering my way through 1001 chess puzzles in 2021

Today I’ll talk about my scoring system.

If you’re British, of a certain age and probably male (a core demographic for this blog), you’ll remember and were probably a fan of Red Dwarf.

For those of you who are none of the above one of the main characters in that sci-fi/comedy cross over TV series was the hapless Arnold Rimmer. In my favourite episode he explains the main reason for failing his entry exams for the Space Corps academy. He had spent so long constructing an extremely elaborate revision plan he had no time left over to do any studying.

This is not what you want for Woodpeckering. So my scoring system is simple.

1 point for solving the problem.

Half a point if I got the first/early moves right but missed a key potential defence.

No points for spotting the right theme but getting the first move wrong. Unlike the above,  I argued to myself, if this scenario occurred during the game it wouldn’t be possible to fix things along the way.

Then I work out my percentage. That’s it.

PROGRESS

By the time you read this I’ll be coming towards the end of the second cycle.

Here’s how things have been going so far.

Set One:

Number of Puzzles: 277

Cycle One Running Totals

Week One: 80 puzzles at 84% accuracy in 6 hours 21 minutes

Week Two: 109 puzzles at 81% accuracy in 11 hours 2 minutes

Week Three: 172 puzzles at 81% accuracy in 15 hours 51 minutes

Week Four: 277 puzzles at 82% accuracy in 22 hours 42 minutes

Cycle Two Running Totals

Week One: 111 puzzles at 89% accuracy in 3 hours 33 minutes.