Salme Rootare was an Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

n chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 master.

She was fifteen times Estonian Champion

Estonian Chess Championship

The first unofficial Estonian Chess Championship was held in 1903, organized by a chess club formed in Reval in 1903 and named for the famous Russian master Mikhail Chigorin. After the World War I, when Estonia became an independent country, official Estonian championships started...

 (1945, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972).

Salme tied for 4-5th at Plovdiv 1959 (Candidates Tournament, Women’s World Chess Championship). She beat Ludmilla Rudenko, the all-USSR women's champ 1950-1953, at least once, in 1956 in recorded tournament play, when Rudenko, believing she was would be mated on her next move, resigned. It wasn't until later that both players realised that Rudenko had a saving move.

Awarded the WIM (Women's International Master) title in 1957.

Salme was married to Vidrik Rootare

Vidrik Rootare

Vidrik "Frits" Rootare was an Estonian chess player. His wife, Salme Rootare, was also an Estonian chess player, 15-time Estonian Champion and a Women's International Master ....

, known as Frits, and they had a daughter, Reet.