Welcome to the final Fall 2025 weekly newsletter! This is where we share a weekly update on league standings, highlight some great moments from each week’s games, learn a thing or two from our coaches, and of course, share any news about Rookly.

First let’s look at last week’s scores. You can click on the title of a league to view the full standings for that league. The standings pages are public, so please feel free to share with parents, friends, or whoever you think might be interested!

And now, without further ado, here are the results of the ninth week of the Fall 2025 season:

Week #9 Standings

The Winter 2026 Season Schedule

Before we get into any stellar moves from our players, let me remind/inform you of the schedule for next season!

Our Winter 2026 league will run the week of February 2nd to the week of April 27th.

If you have any questions or concerns about these dates please let Coach Lucas know at [email protected].

Move of the Week

The Move of the Week this week goes to Casey S from The Advent School for this beautiful checkmate using the bishop pair! Also note the perfectly placed black king, who on g5 is watching over the f6 square, not allowing the white rook to move to f6 in order to provide defence for the white king.

Game of the Week

The Game of the Week goes to Finn B (The Study Academy) and Connor W (Scarsdale) for this well fought game that, in 39 moves, saw zero blunders and some excellent play by both Finn and Connor.

On move 13, Finn was able to get the dark square bishop to d6, support it with a pawn, and that bishop was so strong that didn’t need to move again for the rest of the game. Despite some valiant defence from Connor, Finn refused to give ground and only made one mistake in the entire 39-move game.

Well done to both players! You can check out the full game here, and we will also go into the positions in more detail in Coaches’ Corner below:

Coaches’ Corner

Let’s try something new this week! Instead of a mini lesson, let’s take a closer look at our Game of the Week between Finn and Connor.

There were so many instructive moments in this one that I wanted to go over this game in more detail.

Let’s start here on move 9, with white attacking black’s vulnerable pawn on d6.

It is important to note that the d6 square is a very weak square in black’s position, as it is unable to be defended or challenged by any black pawns. White did a superb job in this game recognizing this weakness and working to establish white’s dark square bishop on d6 immediately.

Black responded with an appealing looking counterattack, targeting both white’s dark square bishop and threatening to take on c3 with check.

White addressed both of those threats with Bb4, counterattacking black’s queen at the same time. With the dark square bishop on b4, white also keeps pressure on black’s weak d6 pawn.

The black queen falls back to c7 to dodge the attack and defend d6.

White seizes the opportunity to develop the queen with check!

After black’s light square bishop defends and counterattacks, black can get the queen to a3 where it wanted to be all along.

Now white has queen support for the bishop attack on d6, and black doesn’t have good way to defend. Black actually played the best move available in this position, Nc6.

After a black offered (and white accepted) a queen trade on a5, white’s bishop is supported by an e5 advance, which also throws a question to the black knight on f6.

White’s bishop is now so strong on d6 that it doesn’t need to move at all for the rest of the game!

Three moves later both players have castled and white has set both rooks to work. The e1 rook supports e5, and the b1 rook takes control of the semi-open b-file.

A few moves after that and we’ve had a knight trade on d4 which fixed white’s doubled pawns and removed a potential threat to white’s dark square bishop on d6.

After white pushed d5 and black recaptured with the e-pawn, white’s light square bishop was able to land a check on f5 and trade for black’s remaining knight.

A few moves later and white has complete control over this game despite being up only two points of material. White’s central pawns, bishop, and rooks force the black king to e8 and make it even harder for black to get both rooks involved in this game.

White has now stacked both rooks on the 7th rank, and black lacks any substantial defence.

After some clever discovered checks from white’s bishop, black’s kingside pawn structure has fallen to white’s rooks.

Finally, the white bishop provides some crucial support to the white rook on e7 while the rook on h8 delivers the mate.

The key takeaway of this game is that establishing a well supported piece in a hole in the opponent’s position (the white bishop on d6 in this game) is often a winning strategy.

This game may have looked a bit one sided, but black actually made very few errors and more often than not played the best move in each position. White simply found a winning strategy early and played flawlessly for the first 32 moves.

Kudos to both Finn and Connor for this brilliant game!

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

Looking forward to a great final week of the Fall 2025 season!