Vernon Rylands Parton was an English chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 enthusiast and prolific chess variant

Chess variant

A chess variant is a game related to, derived from or inspired by chess. The difference from chess might include one or more of the following:...

 inventor, his most renowned variant being Alice Chess

Alice Chess

Alice Chess is a chess variant invented in 1953 by V. R. Parton which employs two chessboards rather than one, and a slight alteration to the standard rules of chess...

. Many of Parton's variants were inspired by the fictional characters and stories in the works of Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

. Parton's formal education background, like Lewis Carroll's, was in mathematics.
Parton wrote a series of nine monographs published from 1961 to 1974 detailing his inventions. Parton died at age 77 on 31 December 1974. The same year, variant inventor Philip M. Cohen

Philip M. Cohen

Philip M. Cohen is the inventor of several chess variants. He authored the column Olla Podrida in the periodical Nost-algia published by the correspondence game club kNights Of the Square Table...

 created the variant Parton Chess in his honor.

Cubic Chess

In this 6×6×6 3D variant

Three-dimensional chess

Three-dimensional chess is any of various chess variants played on three-dimensional boards. Three-dimensional variants have existed since the late 19th century, one of the oldest being Raumschach , invented in 1907 by Dr. Ferdinand Maack and considered the classic 3D game...

 by Parton, boards are denoted A (bottom level) through F (top level). Each side has six pieces: king (K), queen (Q), bishop (B), unicorn (U), knight (N), and rook (R); and twelve pawns.

Game rules

Pieces move the same as in Raumschach, except that pawns move and capture one step forward (either orthogonally, diagonally, or triagonally

Space diagonal

In a rectangular box or a magic cube, the four space diagonals are the lines that go from a corner of the box or cube, through the center of the box or cube, to the opposite corner...

), but not directly upward or downward. As in chess and Raumschach, the objective is checkmate

Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

.

• White's
  White and Black in chess
  In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...
  
   starting position: KAa1, QAb1, BAc1, UAd1, NAe1, RAf1; pawns on Aa2–f2 and Ba1–f1

• Black's starting position: KAf6, QAe6, BAd6, UAc6, NAb6, RAa6; pawns on Aa5–f5 and Ba6–f6

Variation

Parton made a variation of Cubic Chess for the same gameboard: In Compulsion Cubic Chess, capture is compulsory, there are no checks, and the object is capture of the opposing king.

Mad Threeparty Chess

This variant is for three players on a 10×10 board. Each player has a standard set of pieces in his own color, including an extra but no pawns

Pawn (chess)

The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...

.

Rules

The board starts empty. Players take turns, in clockwise rotation around the board, placing one of their pieces on any vacant square. Kings are placed last, but must not be placed in check.

The two kings of each player are marked differently. (For example, of a player's two kings, one might be marked with a star.) Each player attacks the marked king of the opponent to his left, and the unmarked king of the opponent to his right. It is not permitted to check the opponents' other kings.

The first player to checkmate

Checkmate

Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...

 a king wins the game.

Chess variant inventions

• Checkers Chess (1950s)
• Decimal Four-Handed Chess (1950s)
• Idle Kings' Chess (1950s)
• Nightrider Chess (1950s)
• Scaci Partonici (1950s)
• Rettah Chess (1952)
• Decimal Rettah Chess (1952)
• Double Rettah Chess (1952)
• Tweedle Chess (or Twin Orthodox Chess) (1952)
• Alice Chess
  Alice Chess
  Alice Chess is a chess variant invented in 1953 by V. R. Parton which employs two chessboards rather than one, and a slight alteration to the standard rules of chess...
  
  (1953)
• Kinglet Chess (or Imperial Fiddlesticks) (1953)
• Neutral King Chess (1953)
• No-Retreat Chess (1954), co-inventor J. Boyer
• Black & White Chess (1955)
• Degraded Chess (1958)
• Contramatic Chess (1961)
• Complete Contramatic Chess (1961)
• Damate (1961)
• Dunce's Chess (1961)
• Gryphon Chess (or Complicacious Chess) (1961)
• Jabberwocky (1961)
• Knightmare Chess (1961)

• Linear Chess (1961)
• Racing Kings (1961)
• Scacia (1961)
• Royal Scaci Partonici (1961)
• Simpleton Chess (1961)
• Twin Chess (1961)
• Unirexal Chess (1961)
• Chimaera Chess (1969)
• Mock Chess (1969)
• Ambi-Chess (1970)
• Butters (1970)
• Best Decimal Butter (1970)
• Blot-Straight Chess (1970)
• Capricorn Chess (1970)
• Centaur Royal (1970)
• Cheshire Cat Chess (1970)
• Co-Regal Chess (1970)
• Cubic Chess (1970)
• Demigorgon Chess (1970)
• Dodo Chess (1970)
• Ecila (1970)
• Gorgona Chess (1970)

• Identific (1970)
• Looking-Glass Chess (1970)
• Mad Threeparty Chess (1970)
• Meddlers' Chess (1970)
• Semi-Queen Chess (1970)
• Sphinx Chess (1970)
• Timur's Cubic Chess (1970)
• Wyvern Chess (1970)
• Circean (1971)
• Dabbabante Chess (1971)
• Decimal Oriental Chess (1971)
• Imitante Queen Chess (1971)
• Synchronistic Chess (1971)
• Royal Fury (1972)
• 2000 A.D.
  2000 A.D. (chess variant)
  2000 A.D. is a chess variant created by V. R. Parton employing fairy chess pieces on a 10×10 board. The inventor describes his variant as "the game for Future Players in the Next Millennium", feeling that to be sufficiently challenging for later generations a variant should possess a larger board...
  
  (1972)
• Gorgon Chess (1973)
• Megasaur Chess (1973)
• Mimotaur Chess (1973)
• Rangers Chess (1973)
• Triscacia (1974)

Checkers variant inventions

• Good-for-Nothings
• Dragon
• Kinger, Simple Kinger, and Grand Kinger

Monographs (with section headings)

Curiouser and Curiouser, (1961), 31 pp.

• Scacetic
• The First Lesson in Chess
• Dunce's Chess in Three Grades
• Imperial Fiddlesticks
• The Queen's Relations
• The Dodo's Chess
• Rettah
• Simpletonry
• Alician
• The Black King's Complaint
• Tweedledee and Tweedledum
• Mock Turtle's Pseudomprphy
• Damification
• A New Pudding
• Podospherism
• Contramatic
• The Rules According to the March Hare
• Knightmares
• Gryphon's Fancy and Fun
• The Realm of Circum Morus
• The Caterpillar's Idea of C.C.C.

Challenge and Delight of Chessical and Decimal, (1970), 14 pp.
Chesshire-Cat-Playeth Looking-Glass Chessys, (1970), 27 pp.

• The Queen of Hearts' Chess
• Capricorn Chess
• The Black King's Complaint
• The Rules According to the March Hare
• Identific
• Synchronistic Chess
• Jabberwocky Chess
• Dodo Chess
• The Chesshire Cat's Grin
• Scaci Partonici
• A Chess Reflection
• Demigorgons
• The Mad Tea Party
• Knightmares
• Scaci Partonici

Chessical Cubism or Chess in Space, (1971), 16 pp.

• Cubic Chess
• Tamerlane Variation of Cubic Chess
• Sphinxian Chess
• The Compulsion Sphinx Chess Variations
• Ecila Chess

100 Squares for Chess + Damante, (1972), 16 pp.

• Capablancan Chess
• Decimal Falcon-Hunter (Schulz Chess)
• Half-Queen's Chess
• Decimal Oriental CHess
• Decimal Imitante Q Chess
• Centaur Royal
• Damate Game
• Damatic Chess
• Decimal Duffer's Chess
• Wyvern Chess
• Dabbabante Chess
• Decimal Butter
• Decimal Obstacles Chess
• Chimaera
• Gorgona
• Circean
• Ambi-Chess
• Decimal Scaci Partonici

My Game for 2000 A.D. and After, (1972), 12 pp.
Enduring Spirit of Dasapada, (1973), 19 pp.

• Dasapada

Idea for a Personal Game, (1973), 12 pp.

• The Basis of Pawn Partonici
• The Idea of Scaci Partonici

Chessery for Duffer and Master, (1974), 23 pp.

• Chessery for Duffer and Master
• The Game of Rettah Chess
• Semi-Queen Chess
• The Diversion of Zerta
• Meddlers Chess Game
• The Alice Chess Game
• The Idea of Gryphon Chess
• Royal Fury

External links

• "Vernon Rylands Parton (1897–1974)" by Jean-Louis Cazaux, The Chess Variant Pages
• BrainKing.com play Racing Kings online