Macskasy was born in Arad, which at the time was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but was shortly afterwards ceded to Romania by the Treaty of Trianon.
Perhaps his best Hungarian result occurred in 1952, when he won a Master tournament ahead of Árpád Vajda, István Bilek and Károly Honfi.
[4] Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he emigrated to Canada, where he secured a position as professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
[9] In the early 1960s, he had a Canadian Chess Federation rating of 2400, indicating a player of International Master strength; however, he was never awarded the FIDE title.
[10][11] He remained a strong player throughout his life, maintaining a master's rating of over 2200 until his final tournament, the 1989 Paul Keres Memorial in Vancouver.