Larry Melvyn Evans (March 22, 1932 – November 15, 2010) was an American chess player, author, and journalist who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1957.

[2] He learned much about the game by playing for ten cents an hour on 42nd Street in New York City,[citation needed] quickly becoming a rising star.

By age 18, he had won a New York State championship as well as a gold medal in the Dubrovnik 1950 Chess Olympiad.

In the latter, his 90% score (eight wins and two draws) on sixth board tied with Rabar of Yugoslavia for the best result of the entire Olympiad.

[6] He won the national championship three additional times: in 1961–62, 1967–68,[7] and 1980, the last in a tie with Walter Browne and Larry Christiansen.

[12][13][14] Evans' best results on foreign soil included two wins at the Canadian Open Chess Championship, 1956 in Montreal, and 1966 in Kingston, Ontario.

He tied for first–second in the 1975 Portimão, Portugal International[15] and for second–third with World Champion Tigran Petrosian, behind Jan Hein Donner, in Venice, 1967.

[16] However, Evans' first, and what ultimately proved to be his only, chance in the World Chess Championship cycle ended with a disappointing 14th place (10/23) in the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal.

Noted chess author and trainer International Master John L. Watson made the following observations on Evans's books and columns: "huge bias"; "long histories of ignoring and distorting evidence" and "Evans' absurd arguments".

[22] Leading chess historian Edward Winter, however, has noted numerous factual errors in Evans' work as well as several examples of possible plagiarism.

[23] On page 175 of Evans' book, Modern Chess Brilliancies, he claims Lodewijk Prins adjourned a clearly lost position against Cuban master Quesada and was lucky enough when the latter died of a heart attack the "next day".