美国国家公共电台 NPR Not Just Child's Play: World Tiddlywinks Champions Reclaim Their Glory（在线收听）

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The World Championship of Tiddlywinks is going on in Britain's University of Cambridge this weekend. Let's get ready to rumble - or at least to pot that wink.

(SOUNDBITE OF BILL CONTI'S "FANFARE FOR ROCKY")

SIMON: Carrying the hopes of an American team into the doubles championship are two winkers Sports Illustrated has called the Ali and Frazier of tiddlywinks - Larry Kahn and David Lockwood.

DAVID LOCKWOOD: Tiddlywinks is not what you did when 5 five years old. Tournament tiddlywinks is a fascinating combination of physical skill at the micro level and positional strategy, and the community of winkers is a wonderful thing.

SIMON: That's Dave Lockwood, who met Larry Kahn when they were MIT students in the 1970s and began to wink. Larry Kahn, the Ali of this daunting duo of winkers, has won 114 world and national tiddlywinks titles - the most in history. Dave "The Dragon" Lockwood, as he's called, is second with 41. They're playing for their sixth doubles title.

LOCKWOOD: We have been the world pairs champions before. We won it five times in a row in the '90s - last 21 years ago, so we're trying to reclaim the title 21 years after we last won it. Larry's got lots of titles, but I'm dropping in the ratings.

SIMON: Let's see how this works.

LARRY KAHN: Blue and red are always - are partners against green and yellow.

SIMON: We watched them practice recently in a suburban basement outside of Washington, D.C. They dress like suburban dads at a theme park - Dave Lockwood in a T-shirt, scarlet track pants and running shoes, Larry Kahn in shorts and sandals and, yes, worn with white socks. The winkers used a quarter-sized disc called a squidger to plink small, colorful discs called winks that are about the size of a dime toward a cup that's about the size of a shot glass.

(SOUNDBITE OF POTTING)

LOCKWOOD: Wow.

SIMON: Tiddlywinks was patented in 1888 as a parlor game for adults. And over decades, it was taken up by children. And students at Cambridge, Oxford and MIT took over tiddlywinks in the mid-1950s, drawing contestants from the kind of math and engineering prodigies who probably didn't want to wring their heads playing football. The object of the game is to sink the most winks. That's called potting.

LOCKWOOD: It's basically two things - the pressure for the distance, and you got to cut the section of arc between in the cup.

SIMON: But players can try to block a pot with a maneuver called a squop - flicking their winks on to an opponent's.

David Lockwood has one of his red chips he's going to wink towards the cup. Oh, that's a beauty - just short of the cup. Kahn - Kahn covers Lockwood.

KAHN: In the line.

SIMON: That was a good shot, right?

KAHN: Well, good and lucky but mostly good.

(LAUGHTER)

SIMON: Ali and Frazier - I'm sorry - Kahn and Lockwood say their engineering background helped them understand the angles and probabilities of the game, even though some tiddlywinks terms sound like they're from the mouths of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.

Larry, what's a piddle?

KAHN: Piddle is when you are on top of another wink and you choose - it's in relation to a pile, and you try and squeeze that wink out from under everything else. It's a very fairly gentle, delicate, high-precision shot.

SIMON: Before you make even gentle fun of egghead engineers playing a child's game, come to our website, see video of Dave Lockwood and Larry Kahn in action. Tiddlywinks is fun to watch. There's something lovely in the flight and tumble of a well-shot wink. The game is quicker than baseball, easier to follow than hockey, and if you want a beer, you don't have to pay $10. Just get one out of the fridge.

Tiddlywinks has really enriched your lives, hasn't it?

LOCKWOOD: Greatly. To have instant friends who do the same weird thing that I do has been an amazing addition to my life. It opened the world to me.

KAHN: Well, in some ways, it's really cool. I'm in the Guinness book of world records for having the most world wins and recognition among my peers. On the other hand, it doesn't make much of a difference. I mean, it doesn't improve your health.

SIMON: You nervous about going over and playing for the championship together in Cambridge?

KAHN: Not really.

LOCKWOOD: But I really want this.

SIMON: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF POTTING)

SIMON: Dave "The Dragon" Lockwood and Larry Kahn join us now from Cambridge on Skype. Gentlemen, what happened?

KAHN: We won. At the very end, Dave came through, potted three winks. We potted out and came from behind.

SIMON: Oh, that's terrific news. Good work, Dave. You potted three winks.

LOCKWOOD: Yeah, we were down 11-3 after two games and came back to win 27-22.

SIMON: Oh, that's terrific. Larry, I do think America has an important question for you this morning.

KAHN: OK.

SIMON: Did you wear socks with your sandals?

KAHN: Well, I wore socks but no sandals.

SIMON: Oh, OK (laughter). Larry Kahn and Dave Lockwood - the Ali and Frazier of tiddlywinks champions once again. Thanks so much for being with us, gentlemen.

KAHN: Thank you.

LOCKWOOD: Thanks, Scott.