Larry Parr

Who was Larry Parr?

Lawrence "Larry" Parr was a chess player, author and editor.

Born in 1946 and originally from Bothell, Washington, Parr served from 1985 to 1988 as editor of Chess Life magazine, the official publication of the United States Chess Federation. Later, Parr was the editor of Glasnost magazine, an anti-Soviet periodical. Politically, Parr, known to be a passionate anti-communist ideologue, classified himself as a libertarian.

He was a close friend of Grandmaster Larry Evans and they often collaborated on projects. Parr played relatively little tournament chess, preferring instead to write books about the subject. In 1995, he collaborated with GM Arnold Denker in writing The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories.

Parr died in 2011 in Malaysia.