An unusual game. International, one might say, as it is played in at least the States, England and Scotland. The English strongholds are the University clubs at Oxford (OUTS) and Cambridge (CUTwC). (You can get from most winks web pages to most others, but the CUTwC page is an excellent place to start).
| "It's only played by..." | ...Or is it? |
| Children | Not at all - don't confuse this with the children's game!. We use the same pot and winks that one may have used as in the children's version of the game, and we often want to get our winks into the pot, but the similarity ends there. It is a tactical game, and the strategies can take a while to master. However, some fairly young (8 years old perhaps) children have played in national tournaments (Mr. Dean Jr.) |
| Men | Statistically, there are more men playing the game than women. Tiddlywinks truly is a game which can be played by men and women alike, with no advantage to either gender (in fact small hands are often useful!). The English Tiddlywinks Association (ETWA), the governing body in this country, until recently had a female chairman (her emphasis, not mine). |
| Nerds | What is a nerd? Tiddlywinks is played mainly at British universities, so it is played by, amongst others, 'intellectuals'. Many, but not all, are scientists. This proves very little. We have a sense of humour, we have many other hobbies, we are definitely social creatures, we do have a life. And yes we do even have boy/girlfriends, husbands or wives, shock horror! (OK some don't) |
| Some other pidgeon hole | Come along to any event, and see if we do fit your catagory? All I'll say is that we are definitely a bunch of winkers ;-). |
Some winkers have an internet presence. You may want to see what else winkers get up to.
Larry Kahn (US)
World Champion (on and off)
Rick Tucker
(US) Winks historian, one might say
Patrick Barrie (Cambridge)
One of the best players in the UK at the moment
Andrew Garrard (Cambridge)
Some possibly embarassing video footage soon...
Ben Soares (Oxford
& St. Andrew's) Yes, there's life north of the border!
Oh - that's not a very long list! But hey, it's not compulsory to have a web site you know!
What you need is a (crank brain into imperial measurements mode) 6'x3' mat, on a flat table obviously, made from either insulating felt (the official material) or a blanket (last resort). 4 players, each having 6 winks, 2 of which are larger than the other 4. In order to flick the things around you'll need some other plastic discs, called squidgers, e.g. cut 4cm diameter circles from a phonecard. All you need now is the simple introduction to the rules of winks, and you're off! The winks FAQ may come in handy too.
One short term distraction is to sing one of the winking songs. There are many songs, ranging from traditional to the, um, whatever the opposite of traditional is! Every winks club or society seems to have its anthem, and they are all collated on Ben's Traditional Tiddlywinking Songs Page. However, life would be boring if we stuck to traditions, and there are other songs which in the past noone dare publish. It is with much trepidation I now present...
It is rumoured that some winkers drink beer, and other intoxicating substances. After doing so they have been known to sing more loudly than ever before, and sing some fairly imaginative drinking songs. Good taste prevents me from even listing them here, you'll have to look at my Winks Drinking Songs archive.
There are few things more boring after a Tiddlywinks tournament than to dwell over games won and lost. We have discovered that there is a very good medicine for speeding up the process of forgetting. The medicine will not work on its own, the subject needs to use simple meditative exercises, such as counting, sorting small hands of playing cards, or simply rolling dice. Scientific tests have shown that this medicine must be taken in exactly measured doses, the size of which seems to depend on how the meditative exercises are progressing. Many are impressed by the treatment, and have described it as 'fine'. For some unknown reason they have been called the Tiddlywinks Drinking Games
The only research I have any results from is the following web search
Results from an AltaVista search for .
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