- This Week in Rookly
- Posts
- It's the Last Week of The Rookly Summer League!
It's the Last Week of The Rookly Summer League!
Your weekly recap of league standings, plus our Move of the Match.
Lucas Thompson
August 03, 2026
Welcome to the newsletter for the Rookly Summer League 2026! This is where we share updates on the league standings as well as some exciting moments from our incredible players’ games each week.
Our next and FINAL match is Today, Monday, August 3rd at 2:00 PM ET/11:00 AM PT.
The Summer League continued last week with an excellent match that saw the Knights extend their lead to 13 points.
On this final day of the Summer League, will the Rooks catch up will the Rooks catch ip or will the Knights cement their victory? Tune in for the match today at 2:00 PM ET/11:00 AM PT to find out!
Don’t forget that anyone is welcome to watch the Summer League live. They can use their team’s spectator link:
Standings
Match Date | Rooks | Knights |
|---|---|---|
July 6 | 10 | 10 |
July 13 | 9 | 13 |
July 20 | 10 | 13 |
July 27 | 10 | 16 |
August 3 | ||
Total | 39 | 52 |
Move of the Match
The Move of the Match this week goes Jaxson T from the Knights for not only a great move in the endgame, but also a cool checkmate.
Let’s check out the move first—can you spot the winning idea here for Black?
Black to move
Did you find Rb1? Black has now forced the promotion of the a-pawn.
Rb1
One option for White is to capture on b1, which allows Black to recapture with the pawn and promote it at the same time.
If White captures
Or, as we had in the game, White can get the rook off the first rank and allow the promotion to happen.
Rf2
Which of course Black does!
a1=Q
Let’s zoom ahead to the final moves of the game, because this one has a really fun finish. We rejoin this game on move 43 with Black forcing the white king to the edge of the board.
Ra7+
White had two moves options here: c8 and e8. If the king went to c8, it would have been checkmate on the next move after Qc7#.
Unfortunately for White, e8 only prolongs the inevitable.
Black plays Qb8+.
White is forced to block with Rd8. It’s now mate-in-one, can you spot the finish?
Did you find Qe5#?
Qe5#
Aside from being a stylish checkmate (with even the black king contributing), this one is also quite interesting.
Despite Black’s big advantage, if the white rook was unobstructed by its own king, this would be a forced checkmate for White.
Rd8+
The black queen would have to block on e8.
Qe8
And then checkmate for White after rook takes on e8.
Rxe8#
Interesting ending position, if you ask me! You can check out the full game below.
Thank you again to all of our players for continuing to make the Rookly Summer League such a blast! If there’s anything that you need help with before our final match please feel free to get in touch with Coach Lucas at Lucas@rookly.com.