Welcome to the Green Dot League newsletter! This is where we share updates on league standings, highlight some great moments from league matches, learn a thing or two from our coaches, and of course, share any news about Rookly.

Our next Rookly League is Wednesday, May 13, starting at 3:45 PM. Over the past few weeks the Rookly Green Dot League has begun in spectacular fashion. Dozens of students from each of Green Dot’s 16 campuses are competing in Rookly’s weekly chess league.

Rookly’s Green Dot League meets weekly, empowering students of all ages and skill levels to test out their chess skills. A few schools and students have separated themselves as particularly advanced, but the season is long.

Let’s look at the current standings. The standings page is public, so please feel free to share with parents, friends, or whoever you think might be interested!

Standings

Now let’s take a quick look our top performers from last week:

Game of the Week

The Game of the Week this week goes to Leonardo G from Ánimo Ralph Bunche Charter (playing as White) for this short but sweet 9-move attacking masterclass. Let’s join this game with Black to move on move 2—how would you respond to White’s move Qh5?

In the game, Black played the very natural move g6, but this leads to trouble, as we will see shortly!

Playing g6 looks good because it threatens White’s queen right away, but it gives White a perfect follow up.—Qxe5+, forking Black’s king and rook.

Instead of g6. a better move for Black in this position is d6, which defends the pawn on e5.

Getting back to the game, Black blocks the check with the bishop, but the rook on h8 is still vulnerable.

Once the rook falls, Black has to deal with a new problem—the knight on g8 is under threat, and it’s also pinned, so it can’t escape.

The black king moves to f8 to defend.

White plays d3, creating an opportunity to get the dark-squared bishop involved while also strengthening the pawn on e4. Black plays f6, throwing a question to White’s queen on h8.

White finds the excellent move Bh6+, checking the black king and threatening once again to win the knight on g8.

Black has no good options here and tries blocking on g7 with the bishop.

While this doesn’t give up the knight on g8, it does allow white to capture the bishop instead.

The black king tries to escape to e7.

But this leads to a devastating attack from White. Bg5+ skewers the black king and queen!

White can now capture the queen, but as the saying goes, if you see a good move, look for a better one. What’s better than winning a queen?

Checkmate, of course!

What a great attacking game! You can check this one out in full below.

Move of the Week

The Move of the Week this week goes to Frankel L from Ánimo Watts Academy for this brilliant attack while playing as Black. Can you spot the winning idea in this position?

Did you find Nxc2+?

Taking on c2 with the knight forces White to give up the queen, since the white king has nowhere to run.

Black now captures White’s queen, decisively tilting this game in favor of Black.

White is down a queen and now has to deal with a mate-in-one threat on c1 from Black’s rook! Excellent work by Frankel to find this beautiful series of moves.

We are looking forward to an excellent week of chess this week and moving forward. Tune in this week for more amazing games! We will see you every Wednesday afternoon.

If there’s anything that you need help with this week please feel free to get in touch with Coach Matthias at Matthias@​rookly​.com.