Team copes with coach’s sudden death

High school chess team copes with coach’s sudden death from meningitis

East Bay Newspapers
East Bay, RI
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

BARRINGTON — Max Malyuta taught his players that in the game of chess, patience and planning would open up a move that could take your opponent by surprise. In real life, however, those same students, including members of the Barrington High School chess team, whom Max coached, must now deal with a move that none of them saw coming. On March 24, Max, 25, died of meningitis, leaving behind a fiancée, family and many friends and students.

Known throughout the state for his passion for chess and natural ability to teach it, Max’s impact on the state won’t soon be forgotten, said his friend and colleague, Frank DelBonis, a former coach of the Barrington High School chess team.

“It’s been a tremendous loss for the entire chess community,” he said. “He touched so many people in a positive way.”

Rob McQueen, a junior on the Barrington High School chess team, was one of many players to seek Max’s guidance as a seventh grader.

From his earliest sessions with Max, Rob said that his teacher had a rare ability to make simple sense of a complex game.

“I heard somebody say that it’s not a game, it’s a study,” Rob said. “[Max] always had patience for everyone. Even if you didn’t understand the concept well, he wouldn’t give up on you — he was just always positive.”

After Max became coach of the Barrington chess team two years ago, he began introducing his own personal methods of training that have produced champions in the last three state high school tournaments. He would often pit teammates against each other in games of memorization and other contests that were “not really [like] playing the game of chess, but he’d make it his own,” Rob said.

Max would also teach his students more traditional approaches, such as which openings to look for on the chess board and how to employ and prepare for different styles of play.

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