Yesterday the young Dutch player Lucas van Foreest finished on 7/9 in the Condigne Dutch Open. This was 1st equal on points, but GM Erwin l’Ami won on tiebreak. More significantly for Lucas, the score was enough for a final GM norm and gaining enough rating to push him over 2500. So that is the Grandmaster title at age 17. Congratulations!
So what is the Quality Chess connection? Three years ago Lucas was the joint winner of the quiz we ran about the 2015 World Cup, winning 20 free Quality Chess books.
Lucas Van Foreest
So that’s the secret – get 20 Quality Chess books, become a grandmaster. Sadly, that’s not quite the full story. Lucas is clearly a hardworking and talented young man from a famous chess-playing family. Older brother Jorden is a GM and rated well over 2600, while their family website tells me their great grandfather A.E. van Foreest was Dutch Champion three times. And that’s just to mention three members of the family: there are more chessplayers. New quiz question: name a more impressive chess family?
In related news, and with a definite Quality Chess connection, a Chess24 tweet informs me that “Loek van Wely is also organising the Hoogeveen Chess tournament this year (21-27 October), when the matches will be: Svidler vs. Shankland & Jorden van Foreest vs. Fedoseev”
Sam Shankland is of course the author of Small Steps to Giant Improvement. And also US Champion.
After last week’s blog post on The Woodpecker Method generated several responses and questions, we decided to make it a weekly feature, at least for every Wednesday between now and the Batumi Olympiad, which is the event I’m using the book/method to prepare for. I will document my progress in working through the exercises, and invite anyone else working with the book to do the same, as well as ask any questions about the book or the training method.
Since last Wednesday I have worked through the first 390 exercises in the book. The 222 Easy ones were done in the first two sessions, but my pace has naturally dropped off since moving on to the Medium section. I am aiming for a fairly consistent routine of 36 exercises per daily session, or 24 on days when I am especially tired or pushed for time. This will keep me on track to finish the target set of 984 exercises (all Easy/Medium positions in the book) within the four-week period recommended by the authors. Please note that the 984 total exercises and 36/24 medium exercises per daily session are what I believe to be suitable for my own playing strength, ambition and lifestyle, and should not be taken as recommendations for all.
I have also been keeping track of my scoring and number of minutes spent solving per session (not including time spent checking solutions and adding up my score, which I do separately afterwards). I don’t have the exact figures available as I write this, but I can recall that my total solving time over the past 7 days is a little under five hours and my overall accuracy has been something like 93%. This is not intended to open up a competition between myself and blog readers – only a competition with myself when I compare these results with future solving cycles.
Summing up, I am happy with how the first week has gone, although the really hard work still lies ahead. So, over to you lot! Who else has been Woodpeckering this week?
We are continuing our special offer – if you buy three books or more and live in the normal European Union zone (as defined by UPS – for example, they exclude some islands and remote areas) we will send you an extra book free.
Please note that if you buy a Special Offer and are in the EU zone, we will add one free book. For example, the Grandmaster Preparation Special Offer is 6 hardbacks for the price of 5. So if a European buys that, we send Jacob’s 6 GM Preparation hardbacks, plus one free extra book.
The previous default option on the free book was Grandmaster Battle Manual. For August and September we will switch the default option to ATTACKING THE SPANISH. But if you already have that book, or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email to salesgroup@qualitychess.co.uk with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
CARLSEN’S ASSAULT ON THE THRONE
GRANDMASTER BATTLE MANUAL
GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
POSITIONAL CHESS SACRIFICES
REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – WHITE GAMBITS
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 1
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 2
SAN LUIS 2005
TACTIMANIA
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3
The always excellent New in Chess magazine arrived in our office yesterday, with another batch of reviews by GM Matthew Sadler. Three of them were about Quality Chess books.
Small Steps to Great Improvement by Sam Shankland
5/5 Stars “A beautifully produced hardback… Shankland wins me over by illustrating these guidelines beautifully… All in all, an excellent, original book.”
Under the Surface by Jan Markos
5/5 Stars “An incredibly creative book… Markos has a host of original ideas about all sorts of chess topics and a wonderfully witty and enthusiastic way of bringing them across… another fantastic book from Quality Chess!”
Playing 1.e4 e5 by Nikolaos Ntirlis
4/5 Stars “It’s probably pretty much the ideal repertoire for a player wanting to take up 1.e4 e5 without having to learn the whole world! … Ntirlis does his normal thorough, creative job.”
We have arrived at the official publication day of The Woodpecker Method! For anyone who doesn’t know, or needs a reminder, the Woodpecker Method involves taking a large number of tactical exercises (the ‘set’) and solving them repeatedly, in up to seven cycles, each of which takes less time than the last, due to the benefits of memory and recognition. The point of repeating the same exercises is to supercharge your unconscious ability to spot tactical motifs.
I invite any readers who intend to train using this book/method to share their training goals and timescale in the comments. Make yourself accountable for your training plan now, and (hopefully) you will be more likely to stick to it! In the weeks and months ahead, we can revisit this topic and share our results.
I’ll go first, as I have a clear goal of performing to the best of my ability at the Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia, which starts in just over eight weeks. My plan is… Read more…
I saw that the excellent gentleman and highway robber in blitz Kevin Goh said a few nice things about me after making his last GM-norm.
JT: Was there a different approach you took towards this event and the previous other GM norm attempts you made during the barren years that made your chances better (preparation, mindset, living conditions etc)?
Read more…
Just a little update. We have an agreement with a hotel 15 minutes from Heraklion Airport. It is an all-inclusive hotel, with nice rooms, swimming pools, beach access and so on. I hope we will be able to launch a website within a week and start accepting entries. Read more…
Quality Chess would like to congratulate, GM Hans Tikkanen, co-author of the soon-to-be published The Woodpecker Method…
…on becoming Swedish Champion for the fifth time. 7/9 and a 2714 performance is mighty impressive! We’d love to tell you his victory was the result of pre-tournament Woodpecker training but, as far as we know, this was not part of his preparations. Still, the process of collecting and working through more than a thousand tactical puzzles for the book was evidently not bad for his chess. Take the following example from round 5, which would have made a perfect example in the book.
Jonny Hector – Hans Tikkanen
Ronneby 2018
Black has built up a dominating position with skilful middlegame play. His advantage should be enough to win by slow means, but there is one clear way to break through.
Read more…
Recent Comments