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Fabulous Final Weeks
League finale recap, plus the challenge of safely positioning open space around your king.
Happy New Year from Rookly! In our first newsletter of 2025, we catch up on league standings from November and December, present a mini-lesson to help improve your game, and share news from the chess world at large. Thanks to our students, parents, teachers, and administrators for reading and being a part of the Rookly community!
The Rookly Leagues finished out 2024 strong, with attendance continuing to grow - including over 90 players in a single weeknight match! We are super excited for the next season starting the week of January 27 - please inquire with us if you haven’t yet and would like to join!
The Game of the Week was Daniel vs Ephraim from the Dec. 12 match in the Thursday Day School League, where Ephraim faced a choice about how to defend against an attack:
Daniel (Leffell) vs Ephraim (Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy)
12 Dec. 2024
1. c4 Nc6 2. g3 e5 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bc5 5. e3 O-O 6. Nge2 Re8 7. Qc2 Nb4 8. Qb1 c6 9. a3 Na6 10. Ne4 Nxe4 11. Bxe4
White’s queen-bishop battery is attacking Black’s h7-pawn, and Black has a choice of how to defend against the threat: move away with 11…h6 or block the attack with …g6. Ephraim chose the latter, a decision we agree with because it gives Black’s king the dark square g7 as luft - see mini-lesson below for an explanation of this concept.
11…g6 12. Nc3 d5 13. cxd5 cxd5 14. Nxd5 Be6 15. Nc3 Rb8 16. Nb5 Qb6 17. Nc3 Rbd8 18. Na4 Qb5 19. Nxc5 Nxc5 20. Bg2 Nd3+ 21. Kf1 Nxc1+ 22. Kg1 Ne2+ 23. Kf1 Nc3+ 0-1
Nice game, Ephraim!
Weekly Match Recap
In the Monday Bishop League, American Heritage School of Plantation, FL placed first with 135 season points, followed by Cardinal Kung Academy of Stamford, CT with 120 points and De La Salle Academy of New York, NY with 97 points.
In the Monday Early West Coast League, The Meadows School of Las Vegas, NV placed first with 148 season points, followed by Westside Neighborhood School of Los Angeles, CA with 133 points and St. Francis of Sherwood, OR with 110 points.
In the Monday Late West Coast League, The Lawrenceville School of Lawrenceville, NJ placed first with 68 season points, closely followed by Saint Joseph Notre Dame High School of Alameda, CA with 65 points and Discovery Prep of Newport Beach, CA with 61 points.
In the Tuesday Rook League, Nativity Preparatory School of New Bedford, MA placed first with 128 season points, followed by St. Joseph’s Prep of Philadelphia, PA with 106 points and New Heights Charter School of Brockton, MA close behind with 104 points.
In the Wednesday League, Donoho School of Anniston, AL placed first with 116 season points, followed by Austin Jewish Academy of Austin, TX with 91 points and Daystar Academy of Chicago, IL with 83 points.
In the Thursday 3:30 PM Central League, Lausanne Collegiate School of Memphis, TN placed first with 142 season points, followed by Lakeside School District of Garland County, AR with 132 points and Christian Brothers High School of Memphis, TN with 85 points.
In the Thursday Day School League, Bi-Cultural Hebrew Academy of Stamford, CT placed first with 143 season points, followed by Hannah Senesh Community Day School of Brooklyn, NY with 95 points and Columbus Torah Academy of Columbus, OH with 44 points.
Luft
After castling, we have to be careful about moving the pawns in front of our king. If we open up our castled position too much, it could defeat the purpose of castling to make our king safer. But sometimes moving one pawn is useful or even necessary in order to avoid back-rank threats:
Black is threatening back-rank mate with …Ra1# or …Re1#, so we need to move one of our kingside pawns so our king can move out of check safely. This is called creating luft (German for “air”) for our king. In this case it doesn’t matter too much whether we play 1.f3, 1.g3, or 1.h3 - all three options are safe. But what if we added a bishop for each side?
Now it does matter which pawn we move - 1.h3? Re1# is still checkmate because Black’s bishop is guarding our king’s escape square on h2. Instead we should play 1.g3 and after 1…Re1+ 2.Kg2 our king is safe on a light square where Black’s dark-squared bishop cannot attack it.
This is a good principle to keep in mind in general: the safest luft square is usually on the opposite color of your opponent’s bishop. That’s why in the Game of the Match above we liked Ephraim’s decision to play 11…g6 giving his king the dark square g7 as luft where it was safe from checks by White’s light-squared bishop.
This principle is most useful if your opponent has only one bishop (or only one bishop developed, as in Ephraim’s game). If the opponent has both bishops aiming at your king then you may need a heavier defensive setup than just a luft square in order to stay safe!
Our new World Chess Champion is 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju of India! He won the final match game on December 12 in Singapore to finish 7.5-6.5 against Ding Liren of China. Gukesh is the youngest World Champion in history, but throughout the match and afterward he demonstrated a composure and maturity far beyond his years - he even admitted afterward that he thinks the strongest player in the world is still Magnus Carlsen of Norway, 5-time World Champion and still the world’s top-rated player.
The 2024 National K-12 Grade Championships took place from Dec 6-8 in National Harbor MD, crowning thirteen different grade-level champions from 12th Grade Co-Champions Avi Kaplan of Illinois and Arnav Gupta of Virginia down to Kindergarten Champion Francis Zhou of New York.
The SuperNationals VIII tournament will be held in Orlando FL from May 9-11. Registration is open and there’s sure to be a huge turnout. (Fun fact: the first SuperNationals in 1997 was held in my home state of Tennessee!)
The next Rookly season starts the week of January 27, please inquire with us if you haven’t yet and would like to join!
- FIDE Master Alex King and the Rookly team