October 12th Holiday Scheduling Note

Our Monday leagues will be running as per usual today! Students are more than welcome to play from home if they aren’t at school.

A Message from the Rookly Team

Welcome to the Rookly Fall 2026 Season newsletter! This is where we share a weekly update on league standings, highlight some great moments from each our leagues’ games, learn a thing or two from our coaches, and of course, share any news about Rookly.

Thank you so much to all of our players, faculty sponsors, parents, and school administrators that helped get Rookly’s Fall 2026 Season off to such a strong start. The first week for the Fall 2026 Season was our busiest to date: 1,348 players competed across all of our leagues and we expect an even bigger turnout this week.

First let’s look at the standings after the Week #1 of the Fall 2026 Season. 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!

Without any further ado, let’s get to it!

Fall 2026 Season — Week #1 Standings (Top 3)

Rookly Quest

Brand new this fall: Rookly Quest!

Rookly Quest combines story-driven elements with our chess curriculum, taking students from complete beginners to league-ready (and beyond) while having fun along the way.

The world of Rookly Quest is split up into six zones, each increasing in difficulty and building off of the one before it. Each zone culminates in a boss battle, which tests skills learned in the corresponding zone.

Students start in the Village where they learn chess from the very beginning. More experienced students will quickly find valuable and instructive curriculum material in later zones.

Rookly Quest is available to all students at your school, not just your chess team. It’s a great way for anyone who is interested in chess to learn the ropes.

Please see the following instructions on how students can sign up for/log into their accounts on Rookly.com so they can begin playing Rookly Quest:

Your school code is accessible on the Home tab of your admin dashboard:

Please see the below instructions on how to log into your admin account on Rookly.com. From here you can do many useful things, such as managing your team’s roster, viewing all of your team’s games, and checking on your students’ Rookly Quest progress. Let us know if you have any questions on how to navigate your dashboard!

Game of the Week

This week’s Game of the Week goes to Trebor L from Pennfield (White) and Rhys T from Ransom Everglades (Black) who reached this very interesting position on move 51. This is actually a drawn position despite it seeming like Black has a winning advantage:

White tries Rf2, but this gives Black a winning move. Can you find it?

Did you spot Re1+?

Black’s rook and king now force the white king away from the defence of the white rook. Blocking check with the rook would allow Black to exchange and then push the h-pawn to promotion.

The white king is forced to move away.

And the black king scoops up the white rook, giving Black an easily winning position.

A great game by both players, and a very interesting endgame position! You can check this one out in full below.

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