Nobody can “squop” a wink like Larry Kahn can. He is, in fact, the tiddlywinks champion of the world.

Tiddlywinks is no longer the children’s game of flipping discs into a cup (“‘potting”) that it used to be. Cambridge and Oxford University students in England, during the mid-fifties, developed the game into one of skill and strategy. They added the concept of “squopping”—shooting one’s discs onto opponent’s winks so as to immobilize them.

The new, improved tiddlywinks was brought to America by an Oxford team which defeated everybody but taught others how to play the game.

Harvard University fielded a good team in the early sixties, but the game nearly faded out of existence until players at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cornell University built the game back up in the late sixties.

Cambridge, Boston, and Ithaca, N.Y., remain the hotbeds of American tiddlywinkism, though the game has spread to both coasts by alumni of these schools who did not want to stop “winking” after college.

Larry Kahn, originally from Miami, and a 1975 graduate of MIT, is the unquestioned singles tiddlywinks champion of the world. He won the two most recent pairs tournaments held in England and he came away the singles victor at last month’s “Continentals” at MIT.

Now a naval computer engineer for EG&G Inc., Larry lives in Nathan’s Hill in Montgomery Village. He has two other loves, bridge and frisbees, and is a leader in metro area frisbee competition.

“I’m great with plastic discs,” he says.

However, tiddlywinks remains his favorite pasttime, and his most important piece of furniture is his table with his wink mat on top.

The plastic, slightly convex-concave winks are red, blue, green and yellow, with four small and two large winks in each color. Usually two people play against two other people. Winks are flicked with a larger disc called a “squidger.” Although the object of tiddlywinks is to pot all your team’s own winks first, in tournament play, potting is secondary to the strategy involved in squopping (immobilizing) opponents and setting up strategy zones.

A top squopper like Larry Kahn can break up piles to free winks through three kinds of shots—the “‘blow-out” to scatter the pile; the “boondock,” a controlled blowout which keeps one’s own winks close by; and the “piddle,” a delicate, shot where only friendly winks are freed from the pile.

Larry has been known to squop a wink from three feet and has a daring policy of taking the long shot for the most delicate operations. He got to this top spot by playing with the best.

His partner through much of college was the legendary Dave Lockwood, the media star of tiddlywinks who has won every title and set the most records. Kahn says that he and Lockwood, his top rival, are like “McEnroe and Borg… Dave’s McEnroe.” Kahn keeps his cool in the world of winkism where a ready wit and an elite jargon form, bonds between the individual players.

If Tiddly winkers are known for being a bit eccentric, they only relish the fact, for they are all extremely individualistic. Kahn says they range in politics from Nazism to communism and in professions from banking applications analyst to dulcimer builder, but they all get along well, calling each other cherished nicknames.

Few women enter the game and most players tend to be the math-computer type, but Larry thinks that’s because most recruits come from MIT and Cornell. He says he’d like to recruit more women.

“Tiddlywinks appeals to about one percent of the people,” he said. “I don’t know why. I like it because it involves physical dexterity as well as mental concentration. It’s a cross between chess and billiards.”

Larry considers many of today’s college students to be “nerds,” too serious about getting good grades and jobs to take the time to learn to wink. He believes when the economy turns up, so will the number of winkers. Mean-while, as “GenSecShip” for the North American Tiddlywinks Association, Larry helps fellow winker Rick Tucker put out the “Newswink,” a newsletter linking together known winkers.

There are only 50 American tournament tiddlywink players and under 200 in the entire country. Britain (which manufactures most of the hard-to-find equipment) and Canada, are the only other two countries where tournament winkers are found.

“We really are one happy family,” said Kahn, who enjoys meeting his old friends at tournaments several times a year. “The thing is, wherever I go, if I can find another winker, I’ve got instant friends, because he’ll have a network of winkers.”

A network of winkers is what Larry Kahn wants to set up in the Montgomery County area. He says anyone can learn to be technically adept at the game after just a couple of months of practice, but that strategy can only be learned through playing. Larry and other winkers are willing to teach the game to others.

Willing novice winkers may call Larry Kahn at 258-1129.