---
title: 'Can I get into the Top 100 of tiddlywinks in one day?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=AQqVcdTH5bQ'
video_id: 'AQqVcdTH5bQ'
date: 2026-09-21
duration_sec: 1558
channel: 'Tom Scott'
---

# Can I get into the Top 100 of tiddlywinks in one day?

> Source: [Can I get into the Top 100 of tiddlywinks in one day?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=AQqVcdTH5bQ)

## Summary

In this video, Tom Scott learns to play the modern, competitive version of Tiddlywinks, a game far more complex than the childhood toy. With coaching from Cambridge University students, he practices basic and advanced shots, learns the game's strategic depth, and competes in a tournament, ultimately achieving a top 100 world ranking.

### Key Points

- **Setting the Challenge** [00:00] — Tom Scott meets Abby and Harley at Downing College, Cambridge, to learn Tiddlywinks with the goal of reaching the world's top 100 rankings by the end of the day.
- **Modern Tiddlywinks Basics** [01:20] — The kids' game is different from competitive play. Key terms: 'squidgers' (the big counters), 'winks' (the small counters), and the equipment is larger and more professional.
- **The Squop: A Tactical Shot** [03:31] — A 'squop' is when a wink is covered by another, taking it out of play. This rule is the foundation of the strategic depth, allowing players to control the table and block opponents.
- **History and Evolution** [05:16] — The modern rules date to 1955, but the game was patented in 1889 by Joseph Atherton Fincher as 'Kiddledy Winks'. The Cambridge club famously challenged Prince Philip and BBC comedians in 1958.
- **Game Rules and Scoring** [10:12] — Played in pairs (2v2), the game has a 25-minute clock. Potting a wink scores 3, a table wink scores 1, but a squopped wink scores 0. Minimizing opponent points via squops is often better than potting.
- **Tournament Play** [14:52] — Over 20 players attended the tournament. Tom loses the first game badly (7-0) but learns from his mistakes. He plays with different partners, experiences the 'John Lennon Memorial Shot', and wins his third game.
- **Equipment Crisis** [19:50] — The club faces an equipment shortage: no one makes quality winks anymore. The club's supply is decades old, highlighting the niche nature of the sport.
- **World Ranking Achieved** [23:23] — Tom finishes 15th on the day, which translates to 97th in the world, achieving his goal of a top 100 ranking. He notes it won't last as rankings require yearly play.

## Transcript

Downing College is one of the more modern colleges of the University of Cambridge, by which I mean it's only about two centuries old. I parked up there and met Abby and Harley, two students who were going to teach me to play Tiddlywink,
with the goal that by the end of the day, I would have a top 100 place on the world rankings. Some of the folks watching this won't know the game of Tiddlywinks, but I suspect that quite a lot of this audience will think,
like I did, that they know the game. And they really don't. So I remember the basics of this from when I was a kid. I had a little Tiddlywinks set. Yeah. And you take the big thing.
Yeah. And use it to flip the little thing into the cup. Except these are much bigger than I remember. This is a copy of the same Tiddlywinks set that I had when I was a kid. Same design, same everything.
Like, this was a bit nostalgic when it arrived. I haven't played with one of these in decades. So, if you've heard of Tiddlywinks, a version like this is probably what you know. There are targets to hit. The cup.
Hey! It's worth 100 points. You take turns around the table, and then... There. After everyone's had a few goes, you're done. You can get better at it, but it is a simple half-skill, half-random kids' game.
Modern Tiddlywinks, it turns out, is a bit more than that. The first thing I needed to learn was the words, starting with the big counters. So we call these squidgers. Everyone has their own set of squidgers. I've got a set of them.
Yeah. Okay. This is a sort of Cambridge University Club commemorative one. Oh, yep. I did hold that up to the camera, and the camera completely failed to focus on it. We'll get to why they've each got multiple squidgers later.
There's counters that we say we call these winks, and there are big ones and small ones. There are big ones and small ones. That has no bearing on the scoring, on the play, on anything at all. It's just that some are big and some are small.
Right. You should try and have a go at popping some wings. Okay. So just have a sort of... This way around. I haven't seen this really solid table. There's a particular... No. Um... So we use sort of a wool felt. My first attempt gave me, frankly, unjustified confidence.
Okay. That is very good. That was... That was bad. That is very good. That was a great first shot. I'm going to replay that in slow motion. That was very nearly in. I haven't played that since I was very small.
the next shot's not quite so good. I'm trying to get my eye in here, and it's getting worse. Honestly, that's pretty good.
I'm happy with the... I'm thinking in terms of, like, ballistics here, but I'm happy with the strength. That's good, that's it. The term I was looking for was grouping, how tight your shots are in artery or sharp shooting.
Next thing to practice, a potting shot, getting your wink into the pot from closer up. We find it easiest to pot towards yourself. Oh, like that?
Yes. Okay. Saying straight on means that you can see the angle right most well. You can see the whole wink that you're saying and you can see the pot. And if you line up the centre of the squidger, the centre of the wink and the centre of the pot,
then it should. That's it. That's it. So that's the thing to try. It took a few attempts. There we go! Okay. You can pot. It's time to look at the other type of basic shot.
Okay. This is called a squop. If a wink is covered at all, you know, not completely, but even inter-internationally, it's out of play. Right.
If yellow has been captured, we say squopped. Yellow is not allowed to play this ring. So, the second type of basic shot is squapping, where you just gently land your wink on an opponent's wink.
Right. So, I practiced squapping, which is tricky. Right. So, you place it on and just slide it carefully back until... Yeah, not enough. There we go. Okay.
Once you have squapped a wink, the terms will only get weirder from here. Not only can it not be played by its owner, but as long as you use one smooth motion, you can play both your own rink on top and the one underneath that's squat.
So you can send your opponent's rink flying off the wrong way, off the table, which is called a umduck. So does that come back on the table? It comes on the edge. On the edge. All right.
If it's your opponent's rink or your partner's rink that goes off, you're fine. If it's your own rink that you've sent off, you miss a turn. Right, OK. OK. OK.
And so trying to put one nearer, the more vertical you want the stridger to be. Oh! So that gives you a lot of distance. That gives you a lot of height. Yeah. Right. There we go.
That was nearly vertical! I kept drilling those basic skills for as long as I could. In Cambridge, we've been playing with the club since 1955, but there was some tiddlywinks going on in Cambridge before that.
That is, 1955 is what we think of as the start of the game as we play it, when the rules began and were settled into this version of the game. Tiddlywinks was patented in 1889.
I pulled that patent from the archives and it turns out it's really simple. The rules aren't even in there. The inventor, Joseph Atherton Fincher. just patented the basic idea of a game where you use one counter to flip another counter.
That, turns out, was a novel idea in 1889. It was called Kiddledy Winks. There's an extra D in there. Lovely shot. There's some child and muscle memory coming back to me here.
You obviously did quite a bit. It's hard. It's really quite... Oh, that's true. I wouldn't try that. I wouldn't try that. Now... There are people who can do that. Yeah.
So the way that a lot of people will make those really close shots is with a squidger made out of different materials. Oh! Simple. NHS travel advice.
This is someone old health insurance card That right As long as the squidger won damage the weeks it can be made out of whatever you like Although most people go for a standard manufactured one for most shops This feels like, and I say this as someone who was in plenty of student societies that got out of control in York.
Oh, yes. This feels like a student society that got a bit out of control. Students, or at least students back in the 20th century, have the joy of three things. Spare time, friends with spare time, and very little worry about what might happen if some project or idea failed.
Nowadays, the twin curses of tuition fees and smartphones are probably put paid to that, but back in the 50s, those weren't something to be worried about. The teens in the 50s, they'd softened up their rope to all sorts of people to try and play against them.
That's not of interest. Their main targets were Spike Milligan, Harry Seacombe, and Peter Sellers, who had a surreal and somewhat perversive BBC radio comedy show. And the reply the students got was, no. Which, to be fair, is what most people will do when some student weirdos email you and say,
do you want to try our thing? Yes. Until a spectator of an article titled, does Prince Philip cheat at tiddlywinks? Incredible. I wonder if I can pull that from the archives.
Yes, I can pull it from the archives. Turns out it's nothing to do with tiddlywinks. It's very knowing. It's an article written to criticise criticism of the royal family.
Reading this, I got the same kind of feeling as when I read a physics or maths paper that's way beyond my eyes. It just kept sliding over the words. I just didn't understand it. But anyway, Prince Philip was the husband of the then recently crowned Queen Elizabeth II.
He was only in his thirties at the time. So the club wrote to Prince Philip and they said, We don't think you do, Chief. Would you like to recommend some royal champions to defend your honour? Oh, they didn't ask him to come along.
They just asked him to name a champion. They asked him to name some champions, and he wrote back and said, who do you suggest? Which means that in 1958, those radio comedians turned up and played tiddlywinks, at least partly in character,
and there's footage of that. Oh, I should dance. They had a custom cup made. They play in the Cambridge Guildhall. This is the same sort of steadily escalating student shenanigans that still happens.
The sort of thing that begins as a very small idea. The reason they started it in the first place was to try and have something that they could play against Oxford at, but that didn't take too much effort.
I'm just about to say that. And then that small idea just keeps growing. A wonderful report from the third issue of Rinking World that says... It's a long-distance turnout. Third issue of what?
Winking World. I've got the most recent issue. If that hasn't appeared on the Vigour New Fee with some point, and it hasn't. Oh! We are very delighted if it ever is. We'd love them to.
But yeah, in a very early issue, there was a sort of report saying, Oh, disappointing turnout at the Northern Junior Tournament. Only 80 pairs arrived to compete. What? Extraordinary, you know.
I did fact-check that. The issues of Winking World are online. This is one of the more recent ones. Harley is actually translating a couple of reports there. But the point is, what started as a small student thing became dozens,
occasionally hundreds of people turning up for tournaments. With my basic skills in place, it was time for a test game. Blue, green, red, yellow. I mean, given that I'm wearing the red, I should probably take the red. Okay.
And given you're wearing the blue, you should take the blue. That means I'm your partner. It's four player. Okay, I did not know it was four player. Not only is the game four player, it's played in pairs. two versus two, starting out diagonally opposite each other.
Now, there is a victory condition. If you get all six of your winks in the pot, you win. In most games, that won't happen. The scoring seems weird at first. A wink that's in the pot is worth three.
A wink on the table is worth one, unless it's been swapped, unless another wink is on top of it. And that one rule is what changes this from a kids' game into something surprisingly tactical. We had 25 minutes on the clock, after which each of us would get five additional moves each.
We start off with the switch off. This is like rolling the dice to see who gets bigger. You've just driven the green off. Both stars, yeah. That's pretty good. No. Then you take turns in colour order, alphabetically.
I don't know why, I feel like it should be rainbow order, that feels natural, but no, the order is blue, green, red, yellow. and we're in pairs, so my eventual score will be the same as my game partner, and we should work together.
So Holly's my partner, right? Yes. Okay. Yes, Holly's the partner. So I should not attempt to cover your correctness. I should try and cover yellow and green. Okay. I didn't, but I got close. Too close, because it meant the player with the green winks can just cover my counter,
swap my wink, on his turn. Okay. So I can't play that, and it won't count on the scores at the end, unless I can... Unless you rescue it. Yeah. Okay. And this is what turns it into a tactical game.
At the end of the game, you only get points for uncovered counters on the table, and the ones in the pot. At first, it seems like you should always try to pot, because that's worth three points, and you get another go immediately. Sure, if you make a miracle shot straight from the corner,
which is apparently called a penhaligon, that's true. But otherwise, that three points isn't really right. An uncovered counter on the table is already worth one, so potting it only puts you up two,
and that's if you make the shot and get it in. Covering an opponent's counter is usually easier. It takes their score down one point and it means they can't move or pot it. And on top of all that, a counter in the pot means you have fewer tactical options on the table.
So often, usually, the best move is to squat. Nice. As Polly just demonstrated. So I could bring in again. Yes. But I have two in play in time. Need to rescue myself here.
There's no rush. It's not that I'm guards. Okay, that's a faint. Yeah, it's just on its own. Alright, so it was... If they had started to bring in Coast Guard, who might attack it directly, I would bring in... A aim for... Yes, sort of thing.
Yeah. Sounds really good. That's really good. To be clear, most of my shots were terrible. But the gameplay gets surprisingly tactical.
If I were to bring in a Marine right here Then the two Blues ready to And the two Blues I seeing right now you know it quite a risky position If yellow could come in here I might try to take this area As the game develops it becomes much more of an area control
It does, doesn't it? We played on. A late touch. Yes. Yes! The timer expired, so we now have five moves each. And our opponents played a devastating move.
This is actually a little bit tricky. It is. You could cover two of mine with that. Absolutely got it. Absolutely got it. Right, so what do I do to come back from that? Pot.
Pot. Pot. At this stage, pot. Come on! That is jacked! When our moves ran out, we totaled up the scores. Conveniently, the wide camera had got knocked and pointed itself at the white board we were using to hold up the other camera, so we'll put some graphics on that.
Blue is in first place. Where did it go? Six. Six, yeah. What, just six? Pot. Six on the board. Yep. Simple as that. Six uncovered counters, a score of six tiddlies. For me as red, I have two counters on the board and one in the pot for five tiddlies.
And yellow has five tiddlies. Five on the board, yep. So, green, zero. I had zero last day. All of the green counters, the green winks, had been swapped, so zero.
Those scores then get converted. First place gets four points, two for second, one for third, nothing for last. Yellow and red are tied for second place. So we have three points each that we're supposed to... Three points that are split between us?
Correct. Four, one and a half, one and a half, zero. But remember, it's a team game. The two players on each side have their scores added together because that means you can have situations where one player makes sacrifices, scores nothing,
but their team still wins and that should be reflected in the final scores. So the score is five and a half, one and a half. That was an explain with graphics. Then it was time to play in an actual tournament.
There were more than 20 people who arrived for the afternoon games. Not bad when it's outside term time. And this is where I have to admit that those 20 people are a significant proportion of the people on the world rankings. There are more than 100 people on those rankings.
Not that many more, but there are more than 100. I would have to play at least decently to rank. The pairs for the tournament were randomly selected and changed each game. Can we be Jack Murphy with Mick Hingles?
Oh, Mick Hingles. There's probably some drama at Mick's here. Aaron, no, Daniel and Tom Stott. Somebody's going to need to explain why everyone laughed at that.
Because they took the part of Frank's people in the corner. Table one's gone well. What's your name? I'm Aaron. Aaron, that's amazing. Alright, let's do the next question.
You know what, let's beat it. Let's beat it. I'm not playing this game before today. Ah, don't behind me, Frank. Let's do it. With that completely safe confidence, we started the first game of four.
I was playing yellow with Aaron in green. And after a few rounds, I decided to play aggressively because it's a bit funnier. My plan was to push the yellow towards any one of those blues in order maybe to cover one, maybe to rescue my own yellow.
Oh, no! Oh, that's a disaster. That's a disaster! Awwww! Just to show that in an instant replay, my yellow counter swapped itself, subbed itself, under the others.
Right, so I've minus one pointed myself. That's... That's gone badly. At the other end of the skill scale... Look at that, it must be a top blue. But I'll thumb down onto the red, and I don't think that's as red as it's underneath.
Because remember, blue and red are teammates. Yeah, I thought I don't get an extra shot at least. Oh! But if you give us a chance, yeah? Here's my plan, here's my plan.
This one's a tear, I'm going to try and pop it. Because if I miss, I'm hitting the blue wall that's over here. Still clear. Or I shoot wildly over the top and miss both.
Well, the thing is, my... I'll say the details and leave the embarrassment. We lost. We lost so badly in game one that our opponent, playing red, got all the red winks in the pot, which is called potting out.
Some special rules kicked in. We just had to pot the remainder as best we could. And we also lost that. And in that situation, the score ends 7-0. Actually, our opponents there were not just the best in Cambridge, but also both in the world top 20.
Game two of four. I was paired with Agnes at that point, number 21 in the world. and things start to look up just a little. I'm back on the red counter here. Yes! I said that way too loud.
I said that way too loud. Everyone look round at that. We also have the first umpire call of the tournament. The umpire is just whichever experienced player happens to be three and closest. Oh!
I think we call an umpire for that. Umpire. Yeah. Oh, the fingers pointed in! It wasn't entirely clear whether that blue was over the top of the yellow or not.
I think one of those spots had sneered at us. Oh! So, this is a surprisingly powerful game. I mean, I don't know if it... For me it's surprising.
Do everyone here it's kind of normal? But this is... There's a lot of... arguments going on about my strategy here. It wasn't quite clear there, but I did completely cover an opponent's wink, and I found myself actually starting to talk strategy
and sometimes carrying it out. Not always, but sometimes. And Agnes managed to cover one opponent's wink while also sending another one off the table. Hooray! Which it turned out has a name.
What? Oh, the John Lennon Memorial Shot. The what? The John Lennon Memorial Shot. The John Lennon Memorial Shot. The John Lennon Memorial Shot. I did not ask why. Anyway, with the help of Agnes, I managed to somehow tie for first place in that one, although the cost of that was Agnes coming last.
Our team just lost, but it was very close. Game three of four, and I'm paired up with Harley, who taught me the basics. Our opponents are also one skilled player and one novice. I'm still on red, Captain. Presumably what I want to do is move the red from blue to the green Exactly Why do you think the odds are of me actually doing that They great Because You need to overplay it rather than underplay it Yes And that will not be a problem
Okay, well, in good news, I came off the blue. And blue plays before green. Yes. Oh, lovely. Okay. That's the advantage of teamwork. I cleared the path and hardly successfully played it. And then, while we're playing, he mentions that there is a wink shortage.
No one makes the equipment that they play with anymore. I thought you could just pick these up in my toy shop. The stuff that you buy in the shops is of lower quality. It doesn't work properly. They don't play consistently.
They don't play well in the way that we... in the intricate way that you can see that we... So no one's buying factory rings anymore? No. This lot... When were this lot bought?
In the 80s. In the 80s. Yeah, wow. From a company in Italy. The government just didn't know. We've brought a job lock of thousands of these in the 80s. Oh, right. Okay. And we're down to the last hundred or so.
To 50%. We've lost all the token away. We keep getting bought by people who use them. Right. Okay. You know. Oh, so you have set some stuff for people to... And they send them away when they don't want to. Everyone here will have one.
Yep. At home. So I'm going to come down like this. Yep. As hard as I can. Well, we've lost a gel off the table.
That's fine. Well, that works. I mean, I'm doing really well now. I'm doing really well. There's a lot of reds that have suddenly been freed up there. Yeah. A lot of blues that have been freed up as well.
So, that's that bit of drama. I'm not entirely sure what the scores are, but I appear to be accidentally doing quite well thanks to that bashing. How do you have all your leads, Gray Witches?
Yeah, I hope you said pretty well. I'm currently in the lead by default. So, could nibble on top of the green? I could. That would be useful. All right, that's a simple enough shot.
I'm going to take a simple, easy point at this stage. Sure. Would you mind? Of course. There we go. Nice, lovely.
Oh, that might change what I do. I help. The timer expired, and with our last moves, both of us managed to pop quite well. Oh, OK, OK, I'll take that. But that's really good.
So that puts it on ten. We're both on ten. We're both on ten. Andrew is on seven. So he needs to pop two. Oh! Oh, I think I know what he thinks.
It's been a while. Thank you. Thank you. Well played. Well done. I got the shot when it counted. I'm happy about that. So that is six one to us.
I'm really good about that. And then the final game. I won the squidge off at the start. My skills were progressing. I was paired with someone who's played a few times before and I was playing green. Can I bring this home and win?
Well, that's not a great start. That's quite bad. Guys, no. I boondocked myself on the very first move. Nice. Wow. Not even close.
That's a dunk. God damn it. I've lost it. Whatever knack I had, it's donked. Oh, God. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Well, there's nothing we can do about that. I mean, I've done way better. Yeah. There's nothing we could have done about that. Well done, Finlay. With everything done, all that remains is to find out where I ranked on the day and in the world.
First, I was asked to present the trophy to the winner, who was actually someone that had stayed quietly in the background and that I hadn't talked to all day. Did I say that Alina has a nice Victoria? Oh!
Congratulations. So where did I land? On the World Piggly Weeks rankings on the list of active players.
I was 15th out of 25 players on the day thanks to a lot of luck, but also I think a bitter childhood muscle memory. And that meant after one game, I was officially 97th in the world,
top 100. Staying on that list requires playing at least one ranked game a year, so it won't last long, but I will cherish just for a little while that I was in the world's top 100 of tiddlywinks.
As you're watching this, not only is the next episode of my series out on Nebula, not only is there a load of other stuff available on Nebula, there is also the next episode of Jet Ride the Game. That's us.
We make that show. What's the show? For the people who don't know about it, what season am I on? You are on season 19, Japanorama, where we race from the southernmost train station in Japan to the northernmost train station in Japan.
and why would someone watch that on Nebula rather than just on YouTube? Because it comes out early and we do the layover companion podcast there and we put the cut for time stuff on there and because you love us.
Adam, am I regretting not bringing an actual microphone when we're going to record this? You know, I think it was a bold call but I think it's all going to work out. I've got to say, personally, I'm thrilled to be in a Tom Scott video.
Very fun for me. I always wanted to do that and now I'm counting it. This counts. if you would like to join Nebula subscriptions are currently 50% off that is only $30 for the year the link on screen
on the QR code the description there's a lot of stuff I think we got that did we get that? I think we nailed it I think we nailed it alright get Nebula did we say we were 50% off? by the way the CEO of Nebula
is the guy behind the camera here he's been doing artistic shots and I've just been having fun with the zoom while you were saying that last bit Bye, everybody. Bye. Next time, or right now, on Nebula,
a marvel of engineering, spectacular circus tricks, and a hidden swimming pool.