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Directions for Tiddlywinks

Tiddlywinks became popular in Victorian England, and gets its name from a British slang term for an unlicensed drinking establishment. Played between two individuals or two teams, players hold a disk-like shooter that they press down onto the edge of a round disk, causing the disk to flip up and, ideally, land in a central cup. The game was originally for adults, but later came to be seen as a children's game. Today, it is popular with university students, especially those at England's Cambridge and Oxford universities and Harvard and MIT in the United States.

Players
- In a two-player game, each player gets two colors of game pieces, either red and blue or green and yellow. When four players play, each gets a color, but the player who chooses red will be partners with the player who has blue. The yellow player is the green player's partner.
Game Pieces
- There are six plastic discs of each of the four colors, which are referred to as "winks." There are four shooters, called "squidgers," that are used to press on the edge of a disc, causing the disc to flip up into the air. A mat is placed on the playing surface (usually on a table). A small, plastic or glass cup, called the "pot," is the goal into which players try to flip their winks.
Who Starts
- To begin, players must hold a "squidge-off," or a contest to see who will play first. Place the pot in the center of the mat and have each player place his winks in a separate corner of the mat behind the starting line. Clockwise, blue winks are in the first corner, green are in the second, then red and then yellow. Each player takes a turn using his squidger to try to flip one of his winks into the pot. The player who gets his wink into the pot or nearest the pot gets to play first. Winks are returned to the starting position behind the starting line.
Playing
- Play moves clockwise. The first player attempts to get her wink into the pot. If she does, she goes again. If a wink flips off the mat, the player must place it back on the mat in the same place it was.
  
  The first player to get all six of his winks into the pot wins. For teams, only one partner needs to get all of his winks in to win for the team.
  
  Time limits are sometimes set, usually around 20 to 25 minutes.
Terminology
- A wink that lands in the pot is called a "potted wink" and is not removed from the pot.
  
  A "squopping wink" is a wink that has come to land vertically upon another wink. It cannot be played until it is knocked free by another wink.
  
  A "squopped wink" is the horizontal wink underneath a squopping wink. It cannot be played until the squopping wink is knocked off it.
  
  A "free wink" is one that is not in the pot or squopped or squopping. This is the type of wink that can be played.
  
  When all the winks of one color are in the pot, that color is "potted out."

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