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 20, 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 is a short but action packed matchup between Jesus M from Ánimo Leadership (White) and Micah A from Ánimo Florence-Firestone Charter (Black)—the two teams currently tied for first place in the league.

Let’s join this game with White to move on move 4. There’s already a mate-in-one opportunity for White—can you spot it?

Did you spot Qh5#?

Black got away with one here—in the game we had bishop to c4 instead.

Black plays d6, which actually gives White a mate-in-six if the white queen moved to h6!

However, in the game, we had queen takes f5, now swinging this game in favor of Black, since the white queen is vulnerable to Black’s bishop!

In the game, Black played b6, and White begins the attack with a check from the queen on f7.

White is back into a mate-in-six position, but this one actually ends nine moves later, with this very nice final position for White.

Congrats to both players and both teams on an excellent week! You can check this game out in full below.

Move of the Week

The Move of the Week this week comes to us from a game between Angel C from Ánimo Leadership (White) and and Angel S from Ánimo Pat Brown Charter (Black).

Black did some awesome work getting into a winning position in this game, but just when things looked totally lost, White had a trick up their sleeve. We join this game on move 48 with White to move.

Where would you move? White spots a stalemate trap and moves the king to d4.

Notice that White doesn’t have any legal moves to make, but also isn’t in check? Black has to be very careful here. Black needs to either check the white king or give it an escape route (perhaps by moving the queen.

Black doesn’t notice how precarious this situation is, however, and instead wants to push the h-pawn!

After h3 from Black, this game is over! Great work by White to play a very clever stalemate trap in a game in which Black played very well to get ahead.

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.