Diane Savereide

Diane Savereide was the dominant U.S. women’s player through the 1970s and 1980s, and only the second American woman to achieve a master’s rating; as such, she inspired a new generation of American women chess players. A native of Santa Monica, Calif., she won the Marshall Chess Club Women’s Invitational in 1976 and 1977, placed 5th at the 1979 Alicante Women’s Interzonal, and attained the Women’s International Master title in 1977. In the early 1980s, she was ranked among the world’s top ten female players.

She is a five-time U.S. Women’s Champion, finishing clear first in 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1984, and sharing the title with Rachel Crotto in 1978. She played first board for every Women’s Olympiad team between 1976 and 1984, and on second board in 1988. After a failed attempt to turn professional in the mid-1980s, Savereide gave up chess in favor of a more lucrative career, first as a computer programmer with NASA and then as a software developer in Los Angeles. However, she remains one of the strongest female players in an overwhelmingly male game. As a testament to her impressive career, Savereide was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2010.