05 April 2011

Another Larry Disappears

I've been a follower, if not a fan, of Larry Parr for as long as I've been following chess on the Internet, and was saddened to learn of his recent death: Larry Parr 1946-2011 (Chessninja.com). Editor of Chess Life (CL) from 1985 to 1988, Parr was an excellent writer and had an insider's knowledge of USCF politics and personalities. His last article for CL was an obituary for his good friend Larry Evans, The Grandmaster Who Did It His Way (USchess.org):

GM Evans was arguably the most versatile figure in American chess history. If Siegbert Tarrasch enjoyed the title, Praeceptor Germaniae, then Larry Evans was the Chess Teacher of America.

Through sheer force of habit, I visit rec.games.chess (rgc) once in a while to catch up on any interesting discussions. Today I found The rumor of my death is somewhat exaggerated or premature, signed parrthenon@cs.com. Parrthenon is an rgc nickname for Parr, but the post turned out to be the sort of tasteless joke that has turned rgc into a colossal waste of bandwidth.

Parr's occasional posts were one of the main reasons I kept returning to rgc. Although there will be no more from Parrthenon, his legacy lives on in the rgc archives:-

While preparing this post I encountered a few of Parrthenon's rgc posts that I had enjoyed in the past.

There are many more. Thanks, Larry! RIP.

Posted by Mark Weeks at 4/05/2011 05:14:00 PM

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