{"id":25630,"date":"2025-10-27T14:22:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T18:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/?post_type=story&#038;p=25630"},"modified":"2025-10-27T16:21:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:21:56","slug":"from-good-mate-to-checkmate","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/27\/from-good-mate-to-checkmate\/","title":{"rendered":"From good mate to checkmate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-intro\">Alumni speaker to recall his friend and Clark chess champ<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1996, then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov won a six-game series against IBM\u2019s Deep Blue supercomputer. A year later, Kasparov and Deep Blue faced off in a rematch, and the computer prevailed. It was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer under tournament conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Kasparov wasn\u2019t the first chess master to lose against a computer in a tournament. That honor belongs to Allan Savage \u201973 (pictured above), who was roundly defeated by HiTech, a computer developed by Carnegie Mellon University, at the 1987 Pennsylvania State Chess Championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group alignright boxout has-gray-100-background-color has-background is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-12dd3699 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Clark\u2019s Greatest Chess Master: Allan Savage \u201973<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>A talk with Mark Wieder \u201972<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83d\uddd3\ufe0f Thursday, Oct. 30, 4 to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\ud83d\udccdLurie Conference Room, Higgins University Center<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>That wasn\u2019t Savage\u2019s only chess first \u2014 he was also the first person to teach a for-credit college course in chess. And he did it at Clark in 1972 while he was still an undergraduate. About 70 students enrolled in the winter session course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mark Wieder \u201972, a good friend of Savage and co-founder of the Clark Chess Club, is coming to campus on Thursday, October 30, to share his memories of Savage, who passed away in 2022. He\u2019ll also discuss the history of chess at Clark and the current state of the game (including the impact of AI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The event is co-sponsored by the Clark Chess Club and University Advancement, and celebrates a gift from Savage\u2019s widow, Donna, that includes a new chess table and chairs for Goddard Library and resources to purchase books on gaming and game theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wieder says that when he arrived at Clark in 1968, he didn\u2019t know much about chess. But he soon met David Lane \u201971, who was the U.S. Junior Open Chess Champion as well as the Ohio state champion.&nbsp; \u201cI basically spent my freshman year majoring in chess,\u201d Wieder says. \u201cBy the end of that year, I was probably a top 50 junior \u2014 that\u2019s how much David was able to transfer to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-1024x768.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25641\" style=\"width:450px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-1024x768.avif 1024w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-300x225.avif 300w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-768x576.avif 768w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-1536x1153.avif 1536w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-2048x1537.avif 2048w, https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/Mark-Wieder-and-Hikaru-Nakamura-1200x900.avif 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mark Wieder \u201972, left, with five-time U.S. Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Lane was a strong player, but when Savage arrived at Clark in 1969, Wieder realized he was \u201cmore professional and serious and stronger\u201d than all of them. Wieder, Savage, Lane, and another friend, Glenn Erickson \u201972, ended up creating a Clark team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The four teammates played in tournaments in the Boston area and also traveled to Evanston, Illinois, for the Pan Am Intercollegiate Tournament, the foremost college team chess championship, featuring competitors from North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. \u201cPeople would refer to Clark as \u2018the worst team nobody wants to play,\u2019 \u201d Wieder says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clark finished eighth, with Savage winning the individual title, Wieder recalls. \u201cNot bad for a school of Clark\u2019s size.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Savage went on to earn status as a National Life Master (U.S. Chess Federation), International Chess Federation Master, and Correspondence International Master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During his Oct. 30 talk, Wieder plans to share not only his memories of Savage and the Chess Club, but examine some of their more dramatic matches. He\u2019ll also talk about how he and Savage telephoned Bobby Fischer after he had dominated the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHe took the call,\u201d Wieder says. They talked for 20 minutes, and Wieder ultimately became good friends with Fischer\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited to learn more about the legacy of chess at Clark,\u201d says Olivia Thompson \u201926, an executive board member of the current club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The psychology major started playing the game in high school, taught by her grandfather. \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot from watching other people play,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t just born good at chess. It\u2019s something you have to practice and devote a lot of time to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Chess Club hasn\u2019t played in any tournaments during her time at Clark, but Thompson says some members have played well in individual competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All Clark students are welcome in the Chess Club, Thompson says, adding that a purely analytical mind isn\u2019t required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChess is for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alumni speaker to recall his friend and Clark chess champ In 1996, then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov won a six-game series against IBM\u2019s Deep Blue supercomputer. A year later, Kasparov and Deep Blue faced off in a rematch, and the computer prevailed. It was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":25632,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"var(--clarku-color-darker-blue)","story_headerImg":25632,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[223],"displayed_author":[258],"featured":[494],"topic":[232],"class_list":["post-25630","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clark-community","displayed_author-melissa-lynch-95-mspc-15","featured-secondary","topic-alumni"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>From good mate to checkmate | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/27\/from-good-mate-to-checkmate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From good mate to checkmate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alumni speaker to recall his friend and Clark chess champ In 1996, then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov won a six-game series against IBM\u2019s Deep Blue supercomputer. 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