mscroggs.co.uk
mscroggs.co.uk

subscribe

Comment

Comments

Comments in green were written by me. Comments in blue were not written by me.
Hello Matthew Scroggs, I was wondering if it would be possible to make a "menace" with the game chopsticks? If you don't know what chopsticks is, then here are the rules listed on Wikipedia
Each player uses both hands to play the game, the number of fingers extended on a hand shows the number of points that the hand has.

Both players start with each hand having one point — one finger extended on each hand.

The goal of the game is for a player to force their opponent to extend all of their fingers and thumbs on both hands or to force the player to extend all their fingers and thumb and one hand if their other hand is already out. The score has to be exactly five. If the resulting number is more than five, the player is not out no matter what. For example, if a hand with 4 points is tapped by a hand with 2 points, the hand with 4 points becomes a hand with 1 point. This rule is called a 'roll over'.

Players take turns to tap their live hand(s) against another live hand (either their own other hand or one of their opponent's).

You can tap any live hand per turn, but only one

The number of points on the tapping hand is added to the number on the tapped hand, and the player with the tapped hand extends their digits to show the new score. The tapping hand remains unchanged.

A player may tap their two hands together to transfer points from one hand to the other. This is called a split. If a player has one hand out (0 fingers) and two fingers, on the other hand, they could split to have one finger on each hand. (This counts as a turn).You are not allowed to "swap hands" or switch the number of fingers between hands without splitting (going from 4 on one hand and 2 on the other to 2 on one hand and 4 on the other).
               
@JT: Yes, you could. You need a matchbox for each possible combination of fingers on the players' hands, an beads in each box for each move that could be made in that position.

When I have some time, I'll have a go a write a javascript version of it...
Matthew
on /blog/19
               
@Matthew: where do you buy your matchboxes at? Because I need 1296 and the best deal I have found is 1300 for $147.57 two packs of 500 for $49.65 each and three packs of 100 for $16.09 each.
               
@JT: correction, the best deal I have found is $120.48
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F6PY9XF/r...
               
@JT: I bought "craft matchboxes" (without the matches inside), but it looks like your bulk normals ones work out cheapers.
Matthew
on /blog/19
               
@Matthew: would it still work with the "roll over" rule? or would that just make it run out?
               
@Matthew: Thank you so much, could you email me a link for it once you make it.
               

Archive

Show me a random blog post
 2026 

May 2026

World Cup stickers 2026

Apr 2026

A new puzzle every day
Mixing Wordle with other games

Feb 2026

Christmas (2025) is over
 2025 

Dec 2025

Christmas card 2025

Nov 2025

Christmas (2025) is coming!

Sep 2025

The partridge puzzle

Aug 2025

TMiP 2025 puzzle hunt

Jun 2025

A nonogram alphabet

Mar 2025

How to write a crossnumber

Jan 2025

Christmas (2024) is over
Friendly squares
 2024 

Dec 2024

A regular expression Christmas puzzle
Christmas card 2024

Nov 2024

Christmas (2024) is coming!

Feb 2024

Zines, pt. 2

Jan 2024

Christmas (2023) is over
 2023 
▼ show ▼
 2022 
▼ show ▼
 2021 
▼ show ▼
 2020 
▼ show ▼
 2019 
▼ show ▼
 2018 
▼ show ▼
 2017 
▼ show ▼
 2016 
▼ show ▼
 2015 
▼ show ▼
 2014 
▼ show ▼
 2013 
▼ show ▼
 2012 
▼ show ▼

Tags

big internet math-off london cross stitch recursion european cup data visualisation world cup 24 hour maths captain scarlet platonic solids kings dinosaurs matrices misleading statistics pi logs reddit friendly squares determinants approximation football coventry gerry anderson propositional calculus machine learning news datasaurus dozen frobel chalkdust magazine noughts and crosses advent calendar golden ratio dragon curves rugby wordle javascript polynomials electromagnetic field christmas tmip game of life stirling numbers pizza cutting final fantasy bempp pascal's triangle matrix multiplication numbers talking maths in public sobolev spaces puzzles cambridge mathsteroids binary inline code tennis video games guest posts oeis mathslogicbot convergence sport countdown boundary element methods anscombe's quartet sorting regular expressions matt parker kenilworth christmas card alphabets game show probability youtube chess bots runge's phenomenon speed estimation hannah fry geometry bubble bobble arithmetic quadrilaterals mean weather station crochet statistics royal baby live stream radio 4 inverse matrices bodmas plastic ratio crossnumber preconditioning phd palindromes rhombicuboctahedron rust realhats royal institution sound curvature fence posts manchester science festival numerical analysis data hexapawn folding tube maps chebyshev fractals gaussian elimination ucl a gamut of games braiding draughts stickers warwick menace flexagons mathsjam thirteen logo logic pi approximation day dates national lottery nine men's morris coins folding paper london underground interpolation crossnumbers tetris exponential growth people maths edinburgh triangles matrix of minors finite element method raspberry pi pokémon correlation errors python partridge puzzle hats standard deviation dataset games turtles reuleaux polygons trigonometry pythagoras graph theory latex matrix of cofactors ternary programming graphs map projections pokémon wordle golden spiral pac-man gather town fonts craft manchester newcastle error bars hyperbolic surfaces squares computational complexity harriss spiral books simultaneous equations accuracy go nonograms databet wave scattering signorini conditions martin gardner wool php weak imposition bluesky probability arrangement puzzles asteroids zines finite group the aperiodical crosswords light geogebra

Archive

Show me a random blog post
▼ show ▼
© Matthew Scroggs 2012–2026