• Publisher: North American Tiddlywinks Association
  • Publication title: Newswink
  • Whole number: 23
  • Publication date: 24 September 1988
  • Publication location: Falls Church, Virginia USA
  • Editor: Rick Tucker
  • Preparation: WordPerfect 1988 for PC
  • Print production: printed in black and white on 8½” by 11″ white paper
Newswink 23
 24 September 1988 · Falls Church, Virginia · Rick Tucker, editor

An official publication of the North American Tiddlywinks Association

Kahn Regains World Singles

The two veterans circled the boxing ring warily, contemplating the difficult position before them. A few in the crowd recognized that this was something different—this was not their usual game of tiddlywinks. Jon Mapley and Larry Kahn represent 44 years of winking experience (27 + 17). The environment was cacophonous; the Olympics competed for attention. The commentator was a new addition and therefore unfamiliar to both participants.

Jon, the Englishman, had won the previous two World Singles matches against Larry, the American. The venue was the cavernous Baltimore Original Sports Bar near Inner Harbor. The date: 17 September 1988. A video camera trained on the match brought tiddlywinks to TV monitors throughout the complex. Cheers erupted every time the commentator, Dave Lockwood, announced that the American winker won a game. Televised reports appeared on two local television stations. Free drinks were offered to both contestants.

The scorecard for World Singles 28:

Larry Kahn 4 1 7 2 6 6 - 26
Jon Mapley 3 6 0 5 1 1 - 16

More will be written about this match in a future but suffice it to say that Larry’s magic aura conveniently reappeared after a long absence. Larry’s bounce-in of his sixth green wink in the third game gave Larry a psychological lift and the lead. Jon managed to pull off an incredible comeback in the fourth game, skilfully earning a 5 in a game in which Larry at one point had all of Jon’s winks squopped in a single pile. This 5 evened the match, but subsequent exciting moments were mostly Larry’s as he took the next game and stood ground for the sixth game to retake the World Singles after a long drought.

T-Shirt Debuts at 16th American Singles

This Newswink is being issued at the 16th NATwA Singles. So is a T-shirt commemorating the “1988 British Tiddlywinks Invasion of America”. Here are the results of previous Singles:

Year Place             First          Second          Third
1972 Lake Mohegan      Bob Henninge   Severin Drix    Bill Renke
1973 Lake Mohegan      Bill Renke     Ross Callon     Bob Henninge
1974 Cambridge MA      Severin Drix   Ross Callon     Dave Lockwood
1975 Cambridge MA      Severin Drix   Ferd            Jim Marlin
1976 Cambridge MA      Sunshine       Dave Lockwood   Jim Marlin
1977 Silver Spring MD  Dave Lockwood  Bob Henninge    Severin Drix
1978 Baltimore MD      Dave Lockwood  Bob Henninge    Larry Kahn
1979 Cambridge MA      Severin Drix   Joe Sachs       Dave Lockwood
1980 Silver Spring MD  Pam Knowles    Larry Kahn      Dave Lockwood
1981 Cambridge MA      Larry Kahn     Arye Gittelman  Dave Lockwood
1982 Cambridge MA      Larry Kahn     Arye Gittelman  Severin Drix
1983 Cambridge MA      Dave Lockwood  Arye Gittelman  Severin Drix
1984 College Park &
Gaithersburg MD        Arye Gittelman Larry Kahn      Dave Lockwood
1985 Silver Spring MD  Larry Kahn     Dave Lockwood   Arye Gittelman
1986 (Not played)
1987 Cambridge MA      Larry Kahn     Dave Lockwood   Rick Tucker
1988 Falls Church VA

Newswink Editor and Publicity
Rick Tucker, 5505 Seminary Road # 1206 N, Falls Church, Virginia 22041 USA
Home: 703-671-7098 · Work: 703-883-6699 · Also: 301-933-3840

The 18th NATwA Pairs Championship

On the day Mats Wilander beat three-time defending champion Ivan Lendl in the US Open, Dave Lockwood and Jim Marlin ended the four consecutive, nine total year reign of defending NATwA Pairs champion Larry Kahn. The victory sparked memories of the ’85 American trip when Dave and Jim took 31 out of 35 to lead America to a 70-35 thrashing of Britain with a round to spare. The smart money, however, in this very competitive Pairs championship had to be on Larry, the dominant American player in both Pairs and Singles for the past four years. But… it was not to be.

It was probably the Brits (who outnumbered the American players 9 to 7) who really took Larry out early. Larry and Rick Tucker played the 9 British in their first five games and only got one good win to average 4.6 without a loss.

This contingent of British players is tough, competitive, and contains several future national champions. The play of Richard Moore and Geoff Myers, in particular, was tenacious. The pair won 13 of 14 squidge-offs (who says the British don’t keep stats?) and achieved third place. Tony Heading, the odd man out, was, with Brad Schaefer, the odd man in after five games in which this stunning Anglo-American success story led the field with 24.

Dave and Jim had their own problems early, losing in the first game to Tim Roscoe and Chris Andrew, 4-3. In their next game, against Alex Satchell and the dangerous Peter Wright, Peter missed the last of 4 easy pots in the 5th to lose 2-5 instead of 3-4. It wasn’t until a 6 in round 3 gave Dave and Jim a piece of a three way tie for the lead at 14 that they gave any indication of what was to come.

The low point of the tournament for the eventual winners was in round 5 when they lost 6-1 to Bob Henninge and Ferninand [⨳ sic, should be: Ferdinand ⨳] “Ferd” the Bull. That left them at 20 in 5 games with Brad and Tony at 24 and Larry and Rick at 23. From there, though, Dave and Jim made their statement, got 31 in their next 5, and coasted.

The final rankings were:

                              W-L   Points
Dave Lockwood & Jim Marlin   11-3   69 1/2
Larry Kahn & Rick Tucker     10-4   59 1/2
Richard Moore & Geoff Myers   7-7   54
Bob Henninge & Ferd           9-5   53 1/2
Alex Satchell & Peter Wright  5-9   44 1/3
Brad Schaefer & Tony Heading  6-8   44
Stew Sage & Nick Inglis       5-9   38 1/2
Tim Roscoe & Chris Andrew     3-11  28 2/3

Results from previous Pairs:

Year Place         First                            Second
1970 Ithaca NY     Ferd & Bob Henninge              Rosie Wain & Andy Tomaszewski
1971 Ottawa        Ferd & Bob Henninge              Severin Drix & Phil Villar
1972 Cambridge MA  Severin Drix & Andy Tomaszewski  Craig Schweinhart & Ross Callon
1973 Cambridge MA  Bill Renke & Ross Callon         Bob Henninge & Betsy Smith
1974 Cambridge MA  Bill Renke & Ross Callon         Sunshine & Severin Drix
1975 Cambridge MA  Dave Lockwood & Severin Drix     Ferd & Don Fox
1976 Cambridge MA  Severin Drix & Larry Kahn        Dave Lockwood & Indian
1977 Cambridge MA  Severin Drix & Larry Kahn        Sunshine & Ferd
1978 Ithaca NY     Severin Drix & Larry Kahn        Bob Henninge & Mary Kirman
1979 Ithaca NY     Severin Drix & Joe Sachs         Sunshine & Bob Henninge
1980 Cambridge MA  Larry Kahn & Arye Gittelman      Bill Renke & Ross Callon
1981 Ithaca NY     Larry Kahn & Severin Drix        Ross Callon & Arye Gittelman
1982 Ithaca NY     Joe Sachs & Charles Frankston    Sunshine & L
1983 Ithaca NY     Larry Kahn & Arye Gittelman      Joe Sachs & Charles Frankston
1984 Ithaca NY     Larry Kahn & Arye Gittelman      Severin Drix & Rick Tucker
1985 Ithaca NY     Larry Kahn & Arye Gittelman      Brad (solo)
1986 (Not played)
1987 Ithaca NY     Dave Lockwood & Larry Kahn       Severin Drix & Jim Marlin
1988 Cambridge MA  Dave Lockwood & Jim Marlin       Larry Kahn & Rick Tucker

NATwA Congress

On the Saturday evening of the Pairs, a NATwA Congress was convened at the Joyce Chen restaurant after dinner. A major reorganization of NATwA was the result. The new officers of NATwA are:

President: Dave Lockwood
Vice President: Larry Kahn
Treasurer: Jim Marlin
Publicity & Newswink: Rick Tucker

NATwA annual dues were raised to $10 per household. Entry fees for tournaments will be considered, particularly for events which require room or table rental. The new mats from England cost $25.

Rules revisions were approved to move NATwA and ETwA to nearly identical rules, pending ETwA approval. NATwA retains its current practice of the failure-to-free rule, and retains objection to the mat size provision in the latest ETwA rules. On most other differences between NATwA and ETwA, NATwA agrees to the currently published ETwA rules. Dave Lockwood will write an article on rules revisions for the next Newswink.

Are Dave Lockwood and Alan Dean Back?

The leaders of the winning pairs combinations this year in Britain and the US were Alan “The Supreme Dean” and Dave “The Dragon” Lockwood (in the year of the dragon, no less), veterans of many campaigns. The losers were, significantly, Jon Mapley and Larry Kahn, the respective British and American leaders in career national Pairs titles. Are the stars of the 1970s replacing their replacements atop the heap? Are Dave and Alan back?

The real tests are yet to come at the NATwA and ETwA Singles Championships but we find interesting evidence up to now. Both Dave and Alan have been getting more practice recently than they have for many years. Alan is rumored to play his daughter Heather two games a day with a handicap to make the games close. Dave has been in the Washington, DC, area for almost a year now and gets regular practice from Jim Marlin, Larry Kahn, Rick Tucker, and Brad Schaefer.

The battle for domination of the 1990s begins now. Is it to be Jon, Alan, Larry, or Dave? Will Mike Surridge gain confidence from his Pairs win and be the next World Masters qualifier (i.e., win a national Singles)? What about the new Cambridge contingent? All of us continue to write winks history. We have no previous experience with winkers who have 20-30 years experience with which to compare ourselves. My forecast is for the current stars to continue dominating with only a few (5-10%) upset champions for at least three years.

Interestingly…

In the 1988 North American Pairs:

Rick’s second place finish tied his best yet; for Larry, it was his first second place finish in the Pairs.

The final score distribution for the eight pairs was almost perfectly symmetrical around 49 points (3.5 ppg).

Richard and Geoff lost their first 4 games.

Richard and Geoff got 25.9% of their total points in two 7s against Stew and Nick.

Bob and Ferd had the largest improvement from the first round robin to the second, getting 32 after 21 1/2.

Rick and Larry’s four losses were to the other 2 all-American pairs; they did not lose to any British winker in the Pairs.

Stickiness of the winks turned out to be a major problem, as upstairs games were degenerate and downstairs games were, well, interesting…

 

On the game show Jeopardy, under category games, with a value of $400 in Regular Jeopardy, the answer was: “Game in which a player can achieve squopping with his squidger, the larger disc”. No one attempted to supply the question. (Late July 1988.)