The Roanoker Sept/October 2023 - 36

arts & culture
Roanoke Valley
Chess Club
Celebrates its 75th
Anniversary
The Roanoke Valley Chess Club (RVCC) is
celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.
The organization is the oldest continuously
operating chess club in the Commonwealth.
The club, which is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit
organization, meets every Wednesday night
at the Raleigh Court Branch Library in Roanoke
at 5:30 p.m. Evenings can run until around 10
p.m. The Library is located in front of Patrick
Henry High School at 2112 Grandin Road SW
in Roanoke. Meetings take place in the
Community Room. Free food is available at
the weekly gatherings.
" The chess scene has never been so buoyant
or robust down here, " Rusty Potter says.
Potter is the chairman of the RVCC board and
a three-time Virginia state chess champion.
The popularity of The Queen's Gambit, a
2020 Netflix miniseries based on the Walter
Tevis novel, has no doubt played a role in
introducing or reintroducing the game to
players. The Queen's Gambit was one of the
most streamed programs of the stay-at-home
phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover,
the pandemic also encouraged many people
stuck at home to try out the game or to give
it another chance.
Before the pandemic, a typical week at the
chess club drew eight to 12 players. Recently,
20 to 25 players on a Wednesday night have
become the norm. Never before has regular
attendance been so strong, even during the
chess boom of the 1970s that was brought
on by Bobby Fischer's international success,
according to Potter. Several interesting events
dot the remainder of the 2023 calendar.
Macon Shibut, the editor of the Virginia
Chess Newsletter and himself a three-time
state champion, will be visiting the RVCC and
giving a lecture. The date of the lecture will
be announced shortly. In addition, the annual
Walter Muir Memorial Tournament will be taking
place on October 13-14 this year. The club
is enthusiastically seeking entrants.
Players of all ages and abilities belong
to the Roanoke Valley Chess Club, which
is actively seeking new members and has
a very informative website. Details on the
club's upcoming events can also be found on
the website: roanokechess.com.
36
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023
Correspondence chess had tens of thousands
of devotees across the United States
for much of the twentieth century. While the
availability of internet chess has cut deeply into
the appeal of correspondence chess in the last
two decades, Walter Muir created for several
generations of chess players a community of
likeminded individuals that transcended borders.
Correspondence chess is the clear forerunner
of the kinds of online gaming that are
now enjoyed by millions of people the world
over. Muir was rightfully known as the " Dean
of American Correspondence Chess. "
Muir was born in Brooklyn in 1905
and raised in upstate New York, the son of
Canadian parents. He studied engineering at
Cornell University, where he came upon his
two greatest passions. As a sophomore, he
started playing correspondence chess, then a
small and disparately played game with little
in the way of formal organization. He also met
a history major named Dorothy Sanders who
became his lifelong companion. Walter and
Dorothy married in 1932 and they remained
together for the next 62 years. Like Walter,
Dorothy was a chess enthusiast. She was a
three-time national women's correspondence
chess champion (1958-1960).
Muir's chops as an over-the-board (in person)
and correspondence chess player were
impeccable. Being a dual American-Canadian
citizen, Walter competed in and dominated
play in the Canadian Correspondence Chess
Association, winning nine national titles
between 1928 and 1942. Twice he won British
Commonwealth correspondence chess titles
and won nine ICCF Master Tournaments. His
bona fides were also strong as an over the board
player. He won the Roanoke city championship
on three occasions and finished second in
the three Virginia state tournaments in which
he chose to compete-all of which took place
in Roanoke. For in-person tournaments, Muir
dressed to the nines, wearing a white dinner
jacket and black bow tie for gameplay.
In 1971, he earned the title of International
Correspondence Chess Master. Perhaps
Muir's most famous match was a 1960 victory
over Soviet correspondence chess champion
Peter Atjashev, making the Salem resident one
of the first Americans to defeat a Soviet player
of that caliber.
In 1972, the University of Louisville's
library acquired Muir's vast collection of chess
books. Muir donated more than 500 books
and magazines, which he delivered personally
to university librarian John Demos. The collection
includes many antique British chess
magazines and books which were not previously
available in the United States. Thousands
of records of Muir's games are included in the
files, which would be most beneficial to the
international chess community if they were
made available online.
It was work that brought the Muirs to
the Roanoke Valley. Walter spent more than
40 years working at General Electric (GE).
He began at the industrial giant in the late
1930s, working in GE's Industry Control
Department in their base of operations in
Schenectady, New York. Muir moved to the
Roanoke Valley in 1955 as part of the first wave
of corporate transplants who helped establish
the Salem facility. He served as a senior design
engineer until his retirement in the mid-1970s.
Muir lived in the city of Roanoke for a time
before settling in Salem, not far from the GE
plant. Walter and Dorothy never had children
but made a remarkably rich life for themselves
in Salem. They were enthusiastic gardeners and
arborists. " Muir Woods " on their property
included apple trees, maples and elms as well
as more exotic trees from around the world,
including their prized Manchurian elms. Both
Walter and Dorothy were excellent bowlers,
having played on several General Electric
teams that won company championships.
Walter was also an enthusiastic football fan.
He kept records of all the high school, college
and professional games he attended between
the 1920s and the 1980s.
Muir took great pride in the chess community
and found great fellowship with his
co-workers at General Electric. In later years,
he took on an ambassadorial role in both communities,
often driving long distances with
Dorothy to attend the funerals of longtime
colleagues.
The most lasting local legacy of Walter and
Dorothy Muir can be found at the RVCC,
which holds an annual tournament in his
honor.
" The Walter Muir Tournament is our biggest
tournament of the year. Pre-pandemic,
it drew as many as 30 players but, since the
pandemic, numbers have been down to around
20, " club officer Mike Huff says.
The estate of Walter and Dorothy Muir
created a memorial fund which helps support
the Roanoke College library, arts and humanities
programming in the region, as well as an
annual chess tournament administered by the
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The Roanoker Sept/October 2023

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