50+ Years of Tiddlywinks Glory

View an audio-described version of the video here.

Have you ever heard of a winker using a squidger to pot a wink? Do you understand the challenge presented by a nurdle and the risk of being squopped out? If so, you may be an aficionado of tiddlywinks, a tabletop game in which small colored disks (squidgers) are used to propel other, smaller disks (winks) into a cup.

No mere child’s play, tiddlywinks can be fiercely competitive—and MIT alumni have been at the highest ranks of the game for decades. “There’s a lot of strategy involved,” says top player (aka winker) Larry Kahn ’75, SM ’76, who holds 24 world championship titles in singles competition and 20 in pairs. “It’s like playing a game of chess, only you have to shoot your piece to where you want it to go.”  

Kahn and his friends David Lockwood ’75 and Rick Tucker ’80 (both of whom have also won championship titles at various levels) all trace their passion for the game back to MIT, where they joined the then-thriving tiddlywinks club. (The club is not currently active.)

“Tiddlywinks appealed to me from the beginning because it was such a different thing,” says Tucker, who discovered the game during his first day on campus. His residence hall, MacGregor House, had some expert players and Tucker was soon hooked. “We played all the time. We went to tournaments. It took me to other places. So, I just enjoyed it,” he says.

When Lockwood arrived on campus, he says he thought tiddlywinks “was kind of a joke.” Then the tiddlywinks team captain drew him into the game—and connected him with a community he still cherishes. “This winks community over the last 54 years has been one of the greatest experiences of my life,” he says, noting that he meets his friends at tiddlywinks events several times a year. “These are the friends we’ve kept.”

Kahn agrees. “I've known these people all my adult life. Grown up with them, know their kids. … It’s just a really nice bunch of people.”

For these alums, that’s what really keeps them in the game. “I’m 71; how many more years I can play at the top level is yet to be seen,” Lockwood says. “But the camaraderie, the community of tiddlywinks is something I will embrace for my whole life no matter how old I am.” 

Note: For those new to tiddlywinks, a nurdled wink is one that is too close to the cup to easily pot (aka, get into the cup). Squopping is the act of covering one wink with another, which puts the covered wink out of play. If all of a player’s winks are covered, that person can no longer play and is deemed to be squopped out. For more on the language of tiddlywinks, explore Tucker’s Lexicon on Tiddlywinks.