Tiddlywinks

Tiddlywinks is a competitive game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called winks, a pot that serves as the target, and squidgers, which are also discs. Players use a squidger, now typically made of plastic, to flick a wink into the air by sliding the squidger across the top of the wink and then over its edge. The offensive goal is to score points by sending one’s own winks into the pot, while the defensive objective is to prevent opponents from potting their winks by squopping them—shooting one’s own winks to land on top of an opponent’s wink. Strategic play often involves squopping opponents’ winks and building, maintaining, or breaking up large piles of winks.

Although sometimes dismissed as a simple children’s game, the modern competitive version made a strong comeback at the University of Cambridge in 1955, featuring far more complex rules and consistent high-grade equipment. The game involves four colours of winks—blue, green, red, and yellow—with red and blue always partnering against green and yellow. Each colour has six winks, starting in the corners of a felt mat six feet by three feet, with the pot placed at its centre.

Play can be in pairs, with four players each controlling one colour, or singles, where each player controls two colours in alternation. Players take turns, aiming to squop opponent winks or pot their own. Potting a wink of one’s own colour earns an extra shot, allowing a skilled player to pot all winks in one turn.

A squopped wink, even partially covered, cannot be played by its owner, though the top wink can be played. The game ends when all winks of one colour are potted, or after a time limit, usually twenty-five minutes, after which each colour gets five more turns, followed by scoring based on potted and unsquopped winks. The game uniquely combines physical skill, like that in snooker or golf, with the strategic depth of chess, requiring anticipation of opponents’ moves and adaptation to missed shots. Equipment is standardized by the English Tiddlywinks Association, with plastic pots, winks made by slicing extruded cylinders, thick felt mats, and custom squidgers, often plastic, filed to a sharp edge.