Sunday 5 July, 2020
This week we received the sad news that Donato Mallari has passed away.
Donato was an enthusiastic, popular player and was a respected member of various chess clubs during his chess career, including Rooty Hill Chess Club.
He was one of the most active players in NSW in the last ten years.
His greatest achievement was being awarded the FM title at the 2017 Oceania Zonal Championship in Auckland with a score of 6 out of 9.
Other achievements included shared first in the 2012 Rooty Hill FIDE Open and winning the 2013 North Sydney Chess Club Championship ahead of a strong field, including a young (but already very strong) Anton Smirnov, who he beat in their individual game.
For Donato playing chess was lots of fun and even a painful loss would hardly effect his good mood, because there was always the next game to look forward to!
One of his chess skills that stood out was to keep looking for hidden tactical resources to escape defeat in lost positions and often against the odds he would succeed in doing so.
He will be greatly missed and we wish his family lots of strength during this difficult time.