A Note Before we Begin

This is a long newsletter with many images! Your email may have trouble rendering everything correctly, so it may be better to read this newsletter on the web here:

Read newsletter in browser here!

A Message from the Rookly Team

Thank you so much to all of our players, teams, parents, faculty sponsors, and school administrators that helped make the Winter 2026 Season so much fun! We sincerely appreciate everybody’s hard work and dedication over the course of the season. We can’t wait until the next one.

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

Welcome to the final Rookly Winter 2026 Season 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 the final standings for the Winter 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!

Regular Season Final Standings

Top Individuals Tournaments

Rules and Scoring

Our Top Individuals events used a double-elimination format, meaning that once players lost twice they were out of the running to win the event.

Wins counted as one point; draws and losses were worth zero. The player with the highest score (and fewer than two losses) would win the event. If two players had an equal score (i.e. wins) the player with more games played won the tiebreak.

We intentionally scored the individual tournaments this way so that players were always incentivized to play more games rather than sit on an undefeated record.

Our automatic scoring favors win percentage over total games played, so please note that there may be a mismatch between rankings on this newsletter vs on the tournament results pages!

K-5 Top Individuals Tournament

The K-5 Top Individuals Tournament had 73 participants, 50 spectators, and 125 games played.

The winner of the Tournament was David L from Hackley who went an impressive 7-0! Vivaan S from WIISER also had an incredibly impressive run and went 8-2—winning more games but being eliminated after accruing two losses.

Top Game — K-5 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Game for the K-5 Tournament goes to Andrew D from The Laurence School in California (White) and William L from Miami Valley School in Ohio (Black). This game saw White trap Black’s queen as well as sacrifice the white queen for the win. Let’s check it out.

Let’s join this one on move 6 after White plays Bb5, pinning Black’s knight on c6.

Black pushes back White’s light-squared bishop, breaking the pin, but note that the black queen is now rather hemmed in by its own pawns.

A few moves later, and each side’s dark-squared bishop has been developed, though White’s is better placed. Can you find the best move for White in this position?

Did you spot Nxd5? This awesome move unleashes a discovered attack on the black queen while also covering covering its escape route on b6.

Black’s best move in this position to block the attack with pawn to b4, but that leads to its own version of trouble after the white queen gets involved with a check on e2.

In the game, Black captured on d5 with the knight.

White captures the queen on a5.

And after the dust settles, White picks up the knight on d5 with the bishop and begins the attack on the black King by stacking the rook and queen on the open e-file.

Black has no good options, and castles to try to get the king to safety.

This leaves Black’s bishop undefended, and the white queen swoops in.

Black tries to get a rook involved, but White has other ideas. Can you find the winning move for White?

Did you spot the queen sacrifice on f7?

Black is forced to recapture with the rook, since if the king retreats then Qxf8 is checkmate.

However, it doesn’t matter much, as now Black’s rook on f7 is pinned by White’s bishop, and White brings the rook in to e8 for the checkmate.

What a game! I would like to note that Black made zero blunders in this game, and often played the best defensive move available, but White’s attack in this game was simply too strong. Check this one out in full below.

Top Move — K-5 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Move of the tournament goes to Cooper N from Frederica Academy for achieving a very rare feat—the elusive smothered mate. A smothered mate is when an unassisted knight checkmates an opponent’s king who is trapped by its own pieces.

We join this game on move 17 with Cooper playing as Black and just landing check with the knight on e2.

White’s king is forced to h1.

Black repositions the knight to f4, coordinating with the queen for a mate threat on g2.

White bolsters the defence of g2 with the rook. Another option for White was to play f3, interfering with the black queen’s vision of g2.

Now the white king is stuck in the corner. Black wants nothing more to get a knight onto the f7 square, but White’s knight on c5 is making that difficult by watching over the d3 square.

Black opts to sacrifice the queen to remove the defender of d3!

White captures the queen, of course.

The black knight makes it to d3.

White has a chance to save this game here (Rf1 is best) but misjudges the threat. Instead of watching out for f2, White plays Ba3, defending the pawn on c5.

And just like that, this one is over! After Black plays knight to f2, this game ends in checkmate.

Out of all games ever played on Rookly, only 0.0000287% have ended via smothered mate.

6-9 Top Individuals Tournament

The 6-9 Top Individuals Tournament had 216 participants, 82 spectators, and 430 games played.

Congratulations to Sarang S from WIISER for the win! Amazing performance by Amir N from Matthews Charter as well to go a 9-0, but as per the tiebreak rules of the tournament, the player with more games played gets the win, so congrats to Sarang!

Top Game — 6-9 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Game of the 6-9 Top Individuals event was this absolute nail-biter between Benjamin F from WIISER in Washington (White) and Connor W from Scarsdale in New York (Black).

This game lasted 112 moves, and came down to a situation where both players had mere seconds left on the clock when the game ended as a draw due to the 50-move rule.

It cannot be emphasized enough how quickly both players had to play in order not to lose on time. Both players entered the final 50 moves with just under a minute on their clocks, and each had to hit 50 moves for for this game to draw.

Benjamin and Connor each used roughly one second per move for 50 consecutive moves without making a mistake!

Here’s the game at move 62.

And 50 moves later, at the final position on move 112.

Congratulations to both players for such an impressive display of speed and precision in such a high pressure situation! Check this one out in full below.

Top Move — 6-9 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Move from the 6-9 Top Individuals tournament comes to us courtesy of Neil S from Hackley in New York (White) and Ellis N from UPrep in Washington (Black).

We join this game on move 11 with White to move. While Black’s move Bf5 looks completely natural, it actually leaves an opening for White. Can you find the best move for White in this position?

Did you spot Qa3?

At first glance this might not look so bad, but Black has exactly zero good options here.

Black tries a6 to kick the knight on b5, but after Nd6+ from White, Black resigns.

The best continuation here is to play Kd8, and allow the Nxf7+ fork to happen. Black’s other options are to play Ke5, giving White an even better fork on c8, or to play Kf8, leading to a mate-in-five.

This was a very even and wonderful game up until move 11. Amazing work by White to spot the winning move in the position! Check out this game from start to finish below.

10-12 Top Individuals Tournament

The 10-12 Top Individuals tournament had 86 participants, 32 spectators, and 160 games played.

Congratulations to Finn B from The Study Academy for the win! Finn was also the winner of the Top individuals event for the Fall 2025 Season back in January.

Top Game — 10-12 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Game of the 10-12 Top Individuals Tournament goes to Sidharth N from Upper St. Clair in Pennsylvania (White) and Nick J from Salesianum in Delaware (Black).

Both players played perfectly for the first 18 moves. Black was able to take advantage of a few inaccuracies and mistakes from White, and we join this game on move 26, where Black has a mate-in-nine available. Can you find the first move in the sequence?

Did you find Rxe1+?

White recaptures with queen.

Black captures on f3 with the knight, forking White’s king and queen.

The computer actually suggests playing Kh1 and giving up the queen, but White recaptures with the g-pawn.

Now the black queen comes in.

White plays the best move available in this position, Kf1.

Black takes on h3 with the queen, cutting down what little defence the white king has left.

The white king flees to e2, as the other option g1 leads to checkmate-in-one from the black queen on g2.

But now the rook joins the party and lands a skewer on White’s king and Queen.

The white king is forced to d1.

Instead of taking on e1, Black finds something better. Qd3+ leads to mate-in-one, no matter what White tries.

This was a wonderful game, and while we focused on Black’s attack here, don’t forget that White played a perfect game of chess for 17 moves. Check this game out in full below.

Top Move — 10-12 Top Individuals Tournament

The Top Move of the 10-12 Top Individuals Tournament goes to Andres R from iMater Academy in Florida (White).

White found a really nice way to break down Black’s pawn structure here. Can you find the best continuation for White?

Rook to a8 to start. The check from the rook and the coverage of f7 from White’s g6 pawn means that the black king is forced away from the defence of the g7 pawn.

Black plays king to e7.

White can now get behind Black’s g7 pawn with the rook.

At this point, it’s already checkmate in 13 moves. The black king can’t move anywhere, and the black rook can’t get off of the 7th rank to avoid the upcoming trade (except for giving itself up on c8, which is worse). Black tries c5.

White takes on g7 with check, skewering Black’s king and rook.

The black king moves to e8, and the rook on c7 falls.

Black recaptures with the bishop.

Now White is free to advance the g-pawn to promotion, and there’s nothing Black can do about it!

This is where Black decided to throw in the towel. Check this awesome game out in full below:

Top Teams Tournament

The Top Teams Tournament had. 36 teams, 144 players, 54 spectators, and a whopping 650 games played.

Congratulations to the WIISER team for such strong performance! They also had the highest total score during the regular season of all teams across our eight leagues.

Top Game — Top Teams Tournament

The Top Game of the Top Teams Tournament goes to Kuzey D from Moreland in California and Aiden Z from Lakeside in Washington (Black).

White was head for most of this one. This is the position on move 42 before this game went from +6.0 for white to a 0.0 evaluation. What would you play here?

In the game, we had Kb1. The computer prefers Kc3.

A few moves later, and we’ve reached the next critical position. What’s the best move for White here?

In the game we had Nxb3 to relieve some tension, but best for White is actually to play g4 and put some pressure on the kingside.

As we’ll see, the white king is now too slow to join the fight for control of the kingside of the board. Black first recaptures the knight on b3.

White now plays g4, but it’s too late.

The black king makes its way over.

While the white king has to take care of the pawn on a3, the black king can go on offence.

Black now has two new passed pawns, and this one is over!

A few moves later we reach the final position, as White has realized that there is no stopping these pawns.

An excellent game by both players! White played very strongly and was in a winning position from move 10 to move 41. Black played some solid defence, and did very well in the endgame to find the win. Check this one out in full below:

Top Move — Top Teams Tournament

The Top Move of the Top Teams Tournament goes to Luca V from Cathedral School NYC (Black) who finished this game off in style.

What’s better than promoting a pawn?

Promoting a pawn into checkmate!

These are just the final moments of a great game. Check it out below:

Thank you again to all of our amazing players and teams for such a fun playoff run!

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