Thursday 28 July 2011

John Mackie - RIP

Canberra chess identity John Mackie passed away earlier this week. He was active as an over the board player in the 1960's and 70's, before concentrating on correspondence chess from the 1980's onward. He was the Director of Play for the Doeberl Cup in its early years, and was the editor of International Chess Forum, which was the spiritual predecessor of Australian Chess Forum. His chess involvement declined over the last few years due to health issues, but he still had a number of friends in the Canberra chess community, who will mourn his passing.

1 comment:

Bill Egan said...

Sad news - John was probbaly Canberra's equivalent of John Hanks; always ready to explain firmly but politely his strongly held views on a range of topics - computer chess was one I recall.
He gave me material from his collection to help with my Doeberl book, which I planned to return on completion of the book, Sadly too late now but I'll try to find a good home for it