Guide

How we used to play

Two pens on a desk, turns, knock theirs off. Best of three was common. Lifting the pen was not allowed.

31 August 2026 · 12 min read

If you have never seen it, here is a match from the start. Two people sit at the same desk. Each puts one pen on the wood. It can point any way they like. Someone goes first. That person flicks only their own pen, trying to hit the other one so it goes over the edge.

Then the other person shoots. You keep going until one pen is off the desk. That round is over. A lot of groups played first to three rounds and called that the match. Some played a single knock-off and left it there. The last pen still on the wood is the one that won the round.

There is no referee. There is no marked court. The edge of the desk is out. If you are playing on a notebook instead, the edge of the page is out. For what the game is, see what is pen fight. For how kids picked it up, see how kids learned it.

Sitting down

You do not need to clear the whole desk. Notebooks get pushed back a little. Two pens lie in the space between. The person on your left or right is the opponent, because that is who shares the plank. Front-row desks can play too. They just get seen faster.

Who shoots first was never standard. The person who was challenged. The owner of the desk. Whoever already had a pen out. You found out by sitting down with that group, not by reading a poster.

The few things most rooms agreed on

Keep the pen on the desk. If you pick it up and throw it, that is not a flick. Do not hit twice in one turn. A pen that has gone off the desk is out. That is the core. Everything else was local.

A pen hanging on the front lip was the usual argument. Some rooms counted any overhang. Some waited until it actually fell. Some put it back and continued. A spin that did not leave the wood was another fight. None of this was written down. The group you were in that year decided.

How long a match lasted

First to three is the version you hear most. That is a best of five, in practice, and it fits inside a period if nobody takes forever on a shot. Some groups played until the teacher turned around and then pretended they had been writing. Some played one knock-off at lunch and that was the whole thing.

You only flick your own pen. You do not touch theirs with your hand. You do not block the edge with a book, in rooms that cared about that. Extra rubber on the grip was allowed in some groups and banned in others, because a heavier hit is easier to land and harder to answer.

The pen on the line

Some matches were only a score. First to three, nobody loses a pen, both go back in the pouch. Some matches were played with the actual pen as the stake: if you lose, they keep the one you just played. A cheap 045 was the usual thing to put down. A heavier pen was a bigger deal. There was no money on the table.

If your group staked pens, you thought about which one you put down before you sat. That is why a Trimax or a Parker still comes up in stories, and a third 045 from that week does not.

The shot

One finger, pull back, let go, stay on the wood. That is the motion. Heavier pens take more of a shove and stay put better after they are hit. Light round ones roll. You learn your own barrel after a few misses, the same way you learn a bat: not from a diagram.