Rapid Chess Improvement

“Rapid Chess Improvement” by Michael de la Maza

This book could be summed up as “study tactics and work your ass off to reach 2000 elo”. Most of the book is a self promoting infomercial. The tiny slice of the book that has meat introduces repetitively solving the same patterns but does not provide the patterns in the book. Being published over a decade before the “Woodpecker Method,” I can safely say this book was its forerunner in spirit. The “Woodpecker Method” contains the grouping of tactics in order to be a complete package. “Rapid Chess Improvement” does have a unique Chess Vision drills like Concentric Square that I have seen beneficial to my students the week before an over the board tournament.

To sum up, “Rapid Chess Improvement” was a historical trailblazer that served as the grandfather of the better “Woodpecker Method” by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen but it will not find a place on my shelf.