The Woodpecker method for older players

I am trying the “woodpecker” training book. To those of you not familiar with it, you do a large set of problems over a month, then do the same set but give yourself only 2 weeks, etc until your 7th pass when you do them all in one day.

I am 59. I think a mentally young 59, but 59 nonetheless.

I don’t know if I can improve my chess at this age. So the woodpecker method will be my test.

I did the 222 “easy” problems plus a half dozen intermediate puzzles my first month, so now I have started the 2 week cycle. Even the easy ones are usually several moves deep. Some were actually easy for me, some were not.

If I cannot do this, I will resign myself to being passed the point of improvement. But I picked a problem side that I think should be doable. If I am able to do it, my next set will be more ambitious. Etc.

So fellow old timers watch this space. I will report back in a couple weeks then again with every new step. I want to give you hope that of I can improve, so can you!

For reference btw my more or less lifetime rating until now has always(!) been class B, comprised mostly of 6 month ventures into tournament chess followed by 5 year vacations from chess. So my history is a little odd, with no long term commitment to improvement, ever. Just little forays.

What results did you get? I'm 40 and I'm considering doing this at some point.

The thing with tactics is that you either have it or you don't, and if you don't then you won't be improving tactically.

You'd be better off learning openings and endgames.