That seems to be the gist of the method proposed by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen in their book The Woodpecker Method.
Everybody knows that when it comes to Class play (players below the Expert/Master level) games are almost always decided by tactics, but this Woodpecker Method sounds a lot like de la Maza’s Seven Circles.
In the de la Maza method you choose 1,000 problems which you will go through seven complete times and each time you go through the set, you go faster and faster.
On the first pass, you have 64 days to do the 1,000 problems. That’s 15-16 problems a day which seems doable. On the next run through the problems you should be able to do all of the problems over 32 days within about the same amount of time per day. By the time you’re done you supposed to be able to do all the problems in 12 hours, less that 15 seconds per problem. All this is assuming you don’t burn out or start puking when you see the problems.
Anyway, there used to be a lot of blogs advocating the method, but I think they are almost all discontinued. Also, I don’t think anybody ever claimed it really worked. This Woodpecker Method sounds kind of similar.
The claim is that back in 2010, by using this method, Hans Tikkanen achieved three GM norms within a seven-week period. Hans Tikkanen (born February 6, 1985) is a Swedish GM who has won the Swedish Championship five times. But, it should be pointed out that he won the Swedish Junior Championship in 2002, so in 2010 he was hardly a Class player, but already a strong master. Tikkanen is also a football player.
This Woodpecker Method is going to be hard work that sounds more like drudgery than anything. There's no doubt that there will be benefits like sharper tactical vision and fewer blunders, but that's assuming you can get through the course. My guess is most players won't.
Axel Smith is also the author of Pump Up Your Rating. In that book he recommended, among other things, using the de la Maza Method. Also, I discovered Smith left something out of that book: he put in a LOT of hours and, oh, by the way, former Super-GM Ulf Andersson was his coach. It never hurts to be able to study 8 hours a day and have a GM on staff to coach you.
The whole point is that this method sounds like self-torture and studying chess should be fun. I know if I were motivated to study chess I’d want it to be fun.
Instead of torturing yourself, the late NM James R. Schoeder recommended a different approach. Writing in The Chess Correspondent back in 1975, he gave some pretty good advice that if followed should not be painful, but actually enjoyable.
It was Schroeders' opinion that 90 per cent of the chess books in print are worthless and he even went so far as to say most of them harmful. As for opening books, he said don't read them until you are at least an Expert (2000+).
He said you should never waste time on those things called Modern Chess Openings or Encyclopedia Of Openings etc. because they are nothing more than a compilation of selective data and contain thousands of mistakes in analysis and evaluations. GM Lubomir Kavalek once wrote that he had checked a variation in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and he “could not believe (his) eyes” at one evaluation and added that we should not really surprised since he had found dozens of similar mistakes and misjudgments in that book.
Just as bad (or worse) are books of specific openings, especially if they are written by a non-Master. The ever caustic Schroeder wrote, “Articles on openings written by amateurs but published by professional magazines are worthless (unless you want to amuse yourself refuting the drivel).” The reason so much of this type of material is published is because publishers pander to the desire of many players who are looking for an easy way to improve.
Schroeder wrote that only after you become completely knowledgeable of how to checkmate, and thoroughly understand the endgame, and know all the possible types of combinations and have played through at least a thousand master games are you then you are ready to study openings. He added that by the time you do all that, you'll be a Master anyway. One assumes that Schroeder believed you will learn enough about openings by playing over master games to get you by. He is probably correct.
He wrote, “If you cannot refute a bad move over-the-board you will never be a good player.”
Three things Schroeder recommended:
1) Study endings
2) Study Tactics
3) Play over master games.
Jonathan Hawkins managed to go from being an average tournament player with a rating of around 1700 to a Grandmaster. He claims he did it by focusing his attention on the endgame and devising a number of building blocks and identified a number of important areas of study. See his book Amateur to IM: Proven Ideas and Training Methods.
One’s goal should not be to become a one trick pony. One should endeavor to become an all around player and to that end one should, as Senior Master Mark Buckley wrote, make it a goal to become an all around master. In order to do that Buckley had to study everything that he didn’t understand, even if he didn't like it.
For further reading...
Vox article - Re-reading is ineffective
American Psychological Association - Study Smart
Study Right - Learning is really hard work. Learning by osmosis doesn't work.
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