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Chopsticks is a game of strategy and a small portion of math. It has its roots in Japan and is also called Finger Chess, Swords, Split, Magic Fingers, Chinese Fingers, Cherries,Sticks, and Twiddly Dinks. This article will show you how to play it, and outline a few variations to make it more challenging.



  1. 1
    Both you and your opponent must hold out one finger from each hand.
  2. 2
    Pick someone to go first. Let's assume that someone is you.
  3. 3
    Tap one of your opponent's hands with one of your fingers. Your opponent must then hold out one additional finger on the hand you tapped (for a total of two) because the hand you used to tap them with had one finger held out.
  4. 4
    Let your opponent tap one of your hands.

  5. 5
    Keep taking turns tapping hands and adding fingers, but when a hand has five fingers held out, that is called a "dead hand". Put dead hands behind the player's back. The person who reaches two dead hands first loses.
  6. 6
    Make the game more interesting by adding new rules.

    • Splits. Instead of tapping the opponent's hand, you can split your hand, which counts as a move. For instance, let's say one hand has four fingers and the other has two. That equals 6. During your turn, you can "redistribute" those fingers, so that each hand has 3 fingers held out (you wouldn't want to do a 5/1 split because then the hand with 5 would be a dead hand). There are a few ways to govern splits:
      • The players can split the finger count any way they want. If they have a 4/1 distribution, they can split that to 3/2.
      • The players can only split a finger count in half. If they have 2/0, they can split it 1/1. If they have 3/1, they can split it 2/2. If they have 3/2, they can't split it because there's no way to split five fingers in half.
      • A player can be allowed to "revive" a dead hand by splitting.
    • Nubs. A finger can be divided into two nubs, or "half fingers". A nub is signified by curling the finger. Nubs are created by splitting an odd number of fingers. E.g. A 3/2 gets split into 2.5/2.5. This makes the game last longer.
    • Leftovers. Normally, if someone's hand gets tapped so that they would have to hold up 5 fingers or more (like if someone with 4 fingers gets that hand tapped by an opponent's hand with 3 fingers) they would lose that hand. With leftovers, that hand would remain in the game with 2 fingers (because that's what's leftover after 5). So in order to knock someone's hand out of the game, you have to make it so their hand gets an exact total of five fingers, no more. If your opponent's hand has 3 fingers, for example, the only way to make it a dead hand is to tap it with two fingers. If you tap it with three fingers, their hand will have 1 leftover finger and remain in the game.
    • Exact play. Players can only tap a hand if the total fingers doesn't exceed 5. For instance, if your opponent has 3 fingers, you can only tap them with a hand with 1 or 2 fingers (and the latter would make their hand a dead hand). But you can't tap their hand if yours has 3 or 4 fingers because that would make for a total over 5. This rule opens the possibility of stalemate, if both players have two hands of four points.



  • This game can be played by more than two people. Each player should have taken a turn before the first player can play again. This is easily done by giving a turn to each player, starting clockwise or counterclockwise.
  • In some game variations, the game may loop when strong play from both sides result in the game starting over. When this happens, either make different moves from the last time you played or call the game a tie.


  • When holding out your hands, try not to position your palms like you would do while clapping. This can be annoying since it makes it harder for your opponent to see how many fingers are on each hand.
  • Do not make up the rules as you go along unless you're playing with someone you know very well. A desperate player will often add the "nubs" variant when s/he is about to lose.
  • This game requires a lot of attention on your part. Don't play Chopsticks if you need to focus on something else that's really important.
  • The variants of Chopsticks that do create loops usually takes a longer time to play.
  • Changing your moves because of a loop tends to give your opponent a chance to force a win.

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Español: jugar a los palitos, Русский: играть в Китайские палочки

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