David Parlett | |
---|---|
Born | London, England | May 18, 1939
Occupation | Games scholar, historian |
Nationality | British |
Subject | Card games, board games |
Notable works | The Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, The Penguin Book of Card Games |
David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) [1] is a games scholar, historian, [2] and translator from South London, who has studied both card games [3] and board games. [4] [5] He is the president of the British Skat Association.
David Sidney Parlett was born in London on 18 May 1939 to Sidney Thomas Parlett and Eleanor May Parlett, née Nunan. He is one of three brothers. During the Second World War, Parlett lived in Barry, Glamorgan. Parlett was educated at Battersea Grammar School and the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth. He has a BA in Modern Languages. Parlett was a technical writer with PR companies and later a freelance writer for Games & Puzzles magazine. He is married to Barbara and they have a son and a daughter. [6]
His published works include many popular books on games such as Penguin Book of Card Games, [7] as well as the more academic volumes The Oxford Guide to Card Games and The Oxford History of Board Games, [8] both now out of print. Parlett has also invented many card games and board games. The most successful of these is Hare and Tortoise (1974). Its German edition was awarded Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) in 1979.
Since 1974, David Parlett has published numerous games, including the following: [10]
Parlett has invented more than 70 original card games that can be played with a standard deck of playing cards. [11]
Klondike is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play. It has spawned numerous variants including Batsford, Easthaven, King Albert, Thumb and Pouch, Somerset or Usk and Whitehead, as well as the American variants of the games, Agnes and Westcliff. The distinguishing feature of all variants is a triangular layout of the tableau, building in ascending sequence and packing in descending order.
Clock or Sundial is a luck-based patience or solitaire card game with the cards laid out to represent the face of a clock. It is closely related to Travellers.
Russian bank, crapette or tunj, historically also called the wrangle, is a card game for two players from the patience family. It is played with two decks of 52 standard playing cards. The U.S. Playing Card Company, who first published its rules in 1898, called it "probably the best game for two players ever invented".
Gargantua is a patience or solitaire card game that is a version of Klondike using two decks. It is also known as Double Klondike.
Agnes is a patience or solitaire card game that emerged in England about the same time as Klondike appeared in the US. The classic version has the unusual feature of packing in colour, a feature it shares with Whitehead. By contrast, the later American variant appears to have been influenced by Klondike with packing is in alternate colours. The classic game has been described as the best single-pack patience yet invented.
Royal Marriage is a patience or solitaire game using a deck of 52 playing cards. It is an eliminator game in the style of the solitaire game Accordion. The game is so called because the player seems to remove anything that comes between the Queen and the King of the same suit for them to "marry." It also goes under the name Royal Wedding or Matrimony.
Beleaguered Castle is a patience or solitaire card game played with a deck of 52 playing cards. It is sometimes described as "Freecell without cells" because its game play is somewhat akin to the popular solitaire computer game of that name but without extra empty spaces to maneuver. Beleaguered Castle is also called Laying Siege and Sham Battle.
Labyrinth is a patience or card solitaire game which uses a pack of 52 playing cards. Despite the fact that the word labyrinth is synonymous with maze, this game is very different in its manner of play and dealing from the game of Maze, and should not be confused with it. Labyrinth does however have similar play to the game of Babette – both being blockades – and the spatial puzzle in which cards become available is also reminiscent of Crazy Quilt.
King Albert is a patience or card solitaire using a deck of 52 playing cards of the open packer type. It is a conventional building game, and is said to be named after Albert I of Belgium and is a variant of Somerset. It is the best known of the three games that are each called Idiot's Delight because of the low chance of winning the game.
Sir Tommy, also called Old Patience, is a patience or solitaire card game using a single pack of 52 playing cards. It is said to be the ancestor of all patiences, hence its alternative title. It is a half-open, planner type of patience game in the same family of card-building games as Calculation and Strategy. It is also known as Try Again and Numerica. Ednah Cheney (1869) calls it Solitaire and says "it is the simplest form of patience".
Hare and Tortoise is a Eurogame designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games. In 1978 it was released by Ravensburger in Germany, and received generally positive reviews critically and won the 1979 Spiel des Jahres. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages. The current editions are published by Gibsons Games in the UK, Ravensburger in Germany and Rio Grande Games in the United States.
Duchess or Glenwood is a patience or solitaire card game which uses a deck of 52 playing cards. It has all four typical features of a traditional patience or solitaire game: a tableau, a reserve, a stock or talon and a wastepile. It is relatively easy to get out. It is a reserved packer, the same type of game as Canfield or Demon. Arnold describes it as "an interesting game with a fair chance of a favourable outcome."
Precedence is a patience or card solitaire game which uses two packs of playing cards. It is a building game where the playing does not have to worry about a tableau or playing area.
Gay Gordons is a patience game played with a single deck of playing cards. Gay Gordons is also known under its alternative name Exit, and was invented by David Parlett.
Intrigue is a solitaire card game which is played using two decks of playing cards. It is similar to another solitaire game called Salic Law, but it also involves the queens and building in the foundations goes both ways.
Amazons is an old patience or card solitaire game which is played with a single deck of playing cards. The game is played with a Piquet pack minus the kings or a standard 52-card pack that has its twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, and kings removed. This game is named after the female-led tribe, the Amazons, because the queen is the highest card, and all queens are displayed if the game is won.
Fortune's Favor or Fortune's Favour is a patience or card solitaire which is played with a deck of 52 playing cards. It is so-called probably because the chances of winning are completely on the player's side. It is a significantly simplified version of the game Busy Aces, a member of the Forty Thieves family of solitaire games.
Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are intended for play by a single player, but there are also "excellent games of patience for two or more players".
Algerian or Algerian Patience is a unique and difficult patience or card solitaire using two decks of playing cards. The object of the game is to build 8 foundations down from King to Ace or up from Ace to King in suit.
Rosamund's Bower, also called Rosamund, is a pictorial game of patience or card solitaire that uses a single pack of 52 playing cards. Peter Arnold, author of the 2011 book Card Games for One, connects it to Rosamund Clifford, known as "Fair Rosamund", the mistress of King Henry II of England. The aim is to unite Rosamund and Henry at the top of the single foundation pile. Meanwhile, the "sinister object" of the Jack of Spades is to dispose of Henry and the guards and capture Rosamund.