The Missing Wink 1 • May 1974

Perhaps the one thing that separates Tiddlywinks from other organizations is the fact that everyone, to some extent, knows everyone else personally. However, the feeling of solidarity seems to be escaping us. For the most part the people who have been friends since the beginning of NATwA are still getting together and generally there is a strong bond. But can we say that the only reason that the remainder of the winkers are not part of this bond is solely because of their newness to the game?

Or could it be because they share different interests (such as bridge vs. penny football or loud music vs. soft)? It is my thesis that the “new breed” is having a tough time getting incorporated (even after two or more years) because they don’t realize what Tiddlywinks is all about.

Tiddlywinks is more than a game of mental strategy and physical skill. It is more like a separate reality. The Gandalf effect is certainly a part of this reality but the other part (appearing as strategy in our everyday reality) is the way the game unfolds. A few winkers can “see” a certain score after the game is only minutes old while others can glance at any game and “see” how many points a pair has a potential for. Therefore all this obnoxiousness that is creeping (or is it too late for that tense?) into NATwA is really a failure to see the harmony that exists between all four winkers and all twenty four winks.

Now let’s look at some examples to prove my point. When a game is just finished the High (meaning in that other state of consciousness, not intoxicated) winker will want to discuss the game over while the new breed will rush to the scoring table to record the score. In the case of a hairy shot or an accidental shot the new breed will invariably pour on the ugliness and cause the opponent to either get pissed off or nervous and consequently spoil his game. What these winkers don’t realize is that one cannot upset a natural balance without suffering the consequences sooner or later (remember all those games that you should have won except the opposition came up with some unbelievable shots and…). The psyche out is as important in Tiddlywinks as in any other game however this can be accomplished in less ugly ways such as pulling off a fantastic shot or by clever use of one’s little idiosyncrasies such as mode of fashion. I remember a case of being so psyched-out by what the opposition was wearing that I blew a sure 6-1 singlehandedly and ended up with three points.

After looking through past Newswinks I have found nothing about this issue. I feel this is an issue whose time has come and indeed in the congress of the ’73 Continentals there was much heated discussion on this very matter. However, the guilty ones have not changed. It’s about time we let the stats take care of themselves and started seeing the harmony that truly does exist in this fine game of ours. There are four people and twenty four winks in every Tiddlywinks game and when we learn to recognize this the level of competition will be heightened tremendously along with the feeling of solidarity.