Pattern Drills
Puzzle sets built around a single pattern. Every puzzle contains the pattern you picked, so you learn to spot it in real positions instead of meeting it now and then in a random mix.
Each drill focuses on a single pattern at one difficulty, such as forks, a smothered mate or a rook endgame, with a fixed training setup. There are no decisions about puzzle counts or repetitions, so you can start straight away.
Tactics, checkmates and endgames
Tactical motifs
Forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, deflection, intermezzo, quiet moves and more.
Checkmates
Mate in 1 to 4, back rank mate, smothered mate, Anastasia's mate, Arabian mate and more.
Endgames
Rook and pawn endgames, the positions that decide the most games.
Most patterns come in Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Every Beginner drill is free, and Premium unlocks Intermediate and Advanced.
One pattern at a time
When you solve a mix of puzzles, individual ideas get lost. A pattern you keep missing is buried among everything else, and it is hard to study something you only meet a few times at random.
A drill isolates one pattern so you can work on it directly. Every puzzle contains it, and other tactics can still appear, just like in real games. You build a clearer understanding of why the pattern works and learn to spot it faster over the board.
The same repetition engine
Drills run on the same repetition-based engine as the rest of ChessWoodie. You solve a fixed set of puzzles (50 at Beginner, 100 at Intermediate, 150 at Advanced) and repeat it across 3 cycles, so the pattern becomes automatic rather than something you recalculate each time. Train a drill again later and you get a fresh set of puzzles with the same pattern.
Progress is saved automatically, so you can stop and continue where you left off. More on the cycles is on the Repetition Cycles page.
It feeds your wider picture
Drills are a focused way in, not a separate silo. Your drill attempts count toward your overall Training Insights, and Insights in turn suggests drills for the patterns you miss most, so the time you spend here shows up in how your tactical strengths and weaknesses evolve.
It stays separate from competitive leaderboards, so you can drill a weak pattern without it counting against you anywhere.
Common questions
Master patterns one by one
Every Beginner drill is free, and each one has a fixed setup, so you can start straight away.
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Pattern Drills are one part of the ChessWoodie loop.