“The Italian Fury”. Thus the international press nicknamed Italian Grandmaster Sergio Mariotti after his shining performance at the Zonal Tournament in Praia da Rocha (Portugal) in the fall of 1969, where he missed by half a point the qualification to the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal Tournament. His executioner was South African Master Donnelly, who all of sudden buried his positional masterpiece against Bulgarian Grandmaster Milko Georgiev Bobotsov and his six-Pawn bayonet assault to Yugoslav Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić’s King’s Indian! Here is how American International Master Israel Albert Horowitz introduced Mariotti’s “Immortal Game” in his The New York chess column:
Mariotti’s original, sustained assault was achieved without once having moved his King-Knight from its original square. Shades of Phiidor, Morphy and Capablanca! Or, on the other hand, can it be that White did not know how to move his Knight?
The New York Times, June 18, 1970