For my birthday my wife and daughter randomly got me a set
of the game "Tiddlywinks." It was a quirky decision made on
a momentary whim. Little did I know, it would turn out to
be an amazingly fun journey into a strange and storied
subculture.

Tiddlywinks was originally a "childrens" game where a
player tries to flip small plastic discs into a cup in
the center of the table. This is done by pressing down
onto the wink (plastic disc) with a squidger (larger
plastic disc) and sliding the squidger off the back edge
of the wink, causing it to pop up into the air.

In the 1950's, students at Cambridge University added a
rule: squopping. Squopping is the covering of an opponents
wink with one of your own. More winks can potentially pile
on as well. Only uncovered winks can be played. So a good
bit of skill and strategy was introduced: you can try for
the cup, but opponents may try to squop you and prevent you
from getting there. The game is played under a time limit
and squopped winks--at the end of the game--are worth zero,
unsquopped links that have been played but are not in the
cup are worth one, and winks in the cup are worth three.

Harvard had a lot of good players in the 60's apparently.
There are a number of universities with teams. It is thought
of as a sport more than a game (in that it requires some
physical as well as mental skill). Groups have apparently
made attempts to get the International Olympics Commision
to include the game (but have not heard back).

It is really a very fun game. The feeling you get when you
get a wink in the pot from the baseline, or when you bomb
a pile of winks and free your squopped wink, is great!

We have been playing each day lately. We play on a bit of
felt I cut to size (I had it lying around with other fabric
in my craft supplies). The felt lets us play on our hard-
wood floor (the winks wont pop into the air too much from
a very hard surface).

For more info, here are some links:

Wikipedia Entry
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiddlywinks

Tournament Rules
- https://iftwa.org/the-official-rules-of-tiddlywinks

A Video "How to Play" Guide (Youtube)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLATMOt70gw