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.

First let’s look at the standings after Week #3 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 #3 Standings (Top 3)

Rookly In-person Tournaments

In the last two weeks, we have had the great pleasure of running two in-person tournaments: one on Saturday, October 17th at Oregon Episcopal School in Portland and one last Saturday at Windward in Los Angeles.

We were thrilled to have over 100 students participate in these events, including about 50 Rookly students.

Neek G (OES), William D (OES), and Cyrus G (St. Francis) all played amazingly well in the OES Tournament! At Windward, we broke the competition into groups:

• Group 1: Colin T (Windward) won, and Andrew D (Laurence) and Connor R (OFL) tied for 2nd.

• Group 2: Ronen S (Laurence) won, and Damian R (OFL) was 3rd.

• Group 4: Oliver S (Lycée Français) tied for 2nd.

• Group 5: Deziray R (OFL) tied for 2nd.

• Group 6: Micah M (Westside Neighborhood) won.

• Group 7: Asha G (Laurence) was 2nd, and Lucien F (Brentwood) tied for 3rd.

Thank you so much to OES and Windward for hosting such a wonderful events at their beautiful campuses!

Game of the Week

The Game of the Week this week goes to Alan A from UICCP (White) and Jasper H from RALI (Black) for this incredibly fun game from our Wednesday league.

We join this game at move 21 with Black to move.

Black is in a tricky spot here. White’s recent Bd2 move not only threatens Black’s rook on c3, but it also x-rays Black’s bishop on b4.

Black doesn’t have a convenient move available to defend both pieces. What would you play in this position?

Would you have played Rxf3? Black recognizes that they are going to go down on material no matter what, so they decide to try to undermine White’s king safety while they are at it.

It is worth noting that the computer’s suggested move in the earlier position is for Black to play Rfc8, allowing White to capture on c3.

Despite giving White a material advantage, the evaluation after Rfc8 remains essentially unchanged and almost perfectly balanced: +0.1.

Back to the game—what would you play as White in this position?

The best move in this position is to play Bxb4, putting pressure on both black rooks at once.

In the game, White captured immediately on f3, doubling their pawns on the f-file and creating a half open g-file for Black to work with.

Who do you think has the upper hand now? In this position, would you value a material advantage or king safety more?

Take a moment to consider before clicking the link below to see how this game plays out. Thank you to Alan and Jasper for such an interesting game!

Rookly Quest High Scores

A new high score has been achieved on the first Rookly Quest boss battle against Rankles. Connor from Scarsdale has taken the top spot away from Connor from OFL!

We are now left with two questions:

Will anyone surpass a score 142?

And does being named Connor give you an advantage in the boss battle against Rankles?

Find out in next week’s newsletter!

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