The game of tiddlywinks
Tiddlywinks is a game of strategy and dexterity for two to four players.
In the popular children's game of tiddlywinks, the aim is to flick small counters (which we call "winks") into a pot with a larger disc (which we call a "squidger"). The players take turns, but if a wink goes in the pot then that player gets another go. The first player to get all their winks into the pot wins.
The adult game emphasises a minor component of the rules of the children's game: that if a wink lands on top of another wink, the lower wink may not be played. From this simple statement leads a world of strategy; the adult game is about controlling your opponent's winks, building and attacking piles of winks, creating a strong defensive or threatening position and building a lead before the game ends — all while demonstrating the skill of play to execute your shots as intended (and making your opponents' shots as difficult as possible). A player still wins if all the winks of that player's colour are potted, but many games reach the end of the time limit without this happening.
More information about the game
Utilities
- A browser-based timer is available for winks use. Please see the (extensive) guide to use.
- There is also a statistics timer for measuring shot duration and recording relative slow play.
- When running tournaments, it may be useful to be able to predict the results of an unplayed game fairly; there’s a utility for that.
- There is a utility for sharing game state when playing remotely, and a webcam-based live version if preferred.
There are also extensive facilities for managing draws for tiddlywinks tournaments, but these place a load on the server and are a security risk — so are not linked publicly. Please reach out to the web site maintainer if you wish to use them.
Julian Wiseman’s web site contains the tournament draws used for fixed-format tournaments; please consider these (or at least a simpler version) if running an all-play-all tournament (otherwise it’s possible to get stuck).