Ping Pong- anybody else love to play?

[Lamar Doom]

I had a couple friends who had ping pong tables growing up but never got into it hardcore. I moved to New York City in 1999 and found a room for rent in this beautiful loft in brooklyn with this french cabaret singer and these two filipino brothers who were big into capoeira and other movement (one was in the show "De La Guarda" and the other was a receptionist at a dance studio). anyways we had this big open space in the apartment so they could hone their respective crafts, but we also had a really nice ping pong table and we used to play copious amounts of pong almost every day, rotating with each other, smoking bongs, and listening to music. good times. for a while there i was pretty f*cking phenomenal at ping pong but i inevitably would move west and away from the game.

I work on that show "Life" and had been talking a big game to our lead actor Damian Lewis, who also claimed to be "near-olympic". He just bought us a table to have on set a couple weeks ago and the fever is back. We work in these huge sound stages at Universal Studios which makes a wonderful space and backdrop for ping pong. I ended up going out and buying a table for the house this weekend as well (though it's a little crampy in our space).

had just been playing with the cheap-o paddles so far but i splurged on ebay and got four decent/nice paddles (2 seemiller, 1 brian pace, 1 carlos chiu if you're hip to the butterfly line of products). My first paddle just showed up and I'm gitty.

Any other big ping pong fans out there? what's your playing style? big slam kill shots? close to the table defensive? forest gump/balls of fury style?

Check this out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrp-FT51zPE)

hahah, ridiculous (i'm nowhere near this good) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8IVASo0umU&feature=related)

http://www.about-portlandor.com/wp-content/uploads/table_tennis_and_ping_pong1.jpg

[sulsuvtut27]

They had a ping pong table at my high school and you could go there and get a game a lot. Always asians there and they would always dominate.

[gts]

love ping pong, nothing serious just playing against friends drinking beer it's a good time

[InspiredLebowski]

I played the hell out if back in my Boy's & Girl's Club days. Sometimes the gym would be too full and games would devolve to 8 on 8 type stuff or massive games of 21 so I'd hit the bumper pool and ping pong.

I haven't played in years, but it was great fun. Won a couple tournaments at our B&GC. Never got serious enough to think about buying my own paddles or anything, and everyone I know with a table uses it for beer pong now, but if I ever get a crib with a basement a ping pong table'll be an investment for sure, they're pretty cheap from what I recall. It gets misconstrued as a darts sort of game where it "isn't a sport," but I'd be hard pressed to name a game that requres better hand eye coordination.

[wTFaMonkey]

dont even try it unless your asian.

the chinese won all the medals possible in the olympics.

:D

[dnyk1337]

Friend taught me. He's from West Asia. He's really good, and his uncle was a professional ping-pong player. I'm a big spin guy and I love smashing. My holding style is penhold. Haven't played in a year though. I was just breaking through into the average level, but now I must suck.

[Hawker]

How can you play ping-pong hold it like a pen? I never understood it and I tried to hit it with top spin that way but I could never do it. I just stuck with the tennis-grip.

I love top-spin and playing under the table. Pisses the hell outta people. It forces people to block it back and after they do it enough times, the ball bounces high enough to smash it in their faces.

[dnyk1337]

How can you play ping-pong hold it like a pen? I never understood it and I tried to hit it with top spin that way but I could never do it. I just stuck with the tennis-grip.

I love top-spin and playing under the table. Pisses the hell outta people. It forces people to block it back and after they do it enough times, the ball bounces high enough to smash it in their faces.

It's a very technical skill I guess. There are weaknesses and strengths (which I have forgotten). I do know it is harder to hit a ball going towards your left side. My friend kept teaching me for months until I got like 1 out of like 10 balls, using this method where you keep the paddle at an angle of 45 degrees.

[Lamar Doom]

yeah i play flared-handle/handshake style too, never got into pen grip, but it's not unanimously regarded as the "pro" way to play. I play awfully defensive and almost entirely backhand with a gross amount of spin, i'm working on my forehand kill shots now. well not right now, now i'm typing to you about it.

[gigantes]

i used to play table tennis at a dedicated club in the mid-90's and took lessons from PA's top-ranked player at the time, enoch green. i started to get into tournaments but life changed and i was never able to get into the game as deeply as i wanted to.

just watching master-level players play is amazing. that would be 2000-level and up- the same rating system that's used in chess and some other sports. at the master level the control of topspin, underspin and sidespin gets pretty amazing and would totally bewilder all but the very best amateurs.

when the olympics were on this summer i recognised the US men's athlete representative, david zhuang. he used to come to our club for tournaments and i got to talk to him once or twice about serves.


How can you play ping-pong hold it like a pen? I never understood it and I tried to hit it with top spin that way but I could never do it. I just stuck with the tennis-grip.
penhold grip actually produces the best forehand and is very good for serving but like you say, you probably can't get quite the level of topspin as with a shakehands grip. the backhand is naturally very awkward but with practice can actually get pretty good. a lot of the world's top players still use penhold grip, so there's still an argument to be made for it.

i used to serve penhold and then quickly switch to shakehands to play the point out. it worked particularly well for doubles play where you had extra time to revover.

just hit up youtube to see top penholds players playing. there is even a backhand super loop using the flip side of the paddle.

[Rebel INS]

I can play ping pong for hours on end. I see myself as a pretty good recreational player but when i play at ping pong clubs i get owned. My main strengths are topspin and defense. Ping Pong is definitely a top 5 sport that i like to play.

[Rebel INS]

yeah i play flared-handle/handshake style too, never got into pen grip, but it's not unanimously regarded as the "pro" way to play. I play awfully defensive and almost entirely backhand with a gross amount of spin, i'm working on my forehand kill shots now. well not right now, now i'm typing to you about it.

Ive seen so many players that are categorized as your style. From what i notice at the pro level they use a powerful forehand a lot more than their backhand. My backhand is more consistent but theres more variety to my forehand.

[InspiredLebowski]

Reading these last few responses makes me feel like I'm reading about the intricacies of Zulu mythology.

[Lamar Doom]

Reading these last few responses makes me feel like I'm reading about the intricacies of Zulu mythology.

I like to play with a zip lock baggy of baby's tears in my left pocket and my shoes on the wrong feet.

[InspiredLebowski]

I like to play with a zip lock baggy of baby's tears in my left pocket and my shoes on the wrong feet.

When I shoot hoops I like to have a quarter (GW side up) in my right shoe. I'd tell you why if I knew.

[dnyk1337]

ping pong has been called "chess at 100 miles an hour" and indeed, at our club we used to play a lot of chess between games.

if you're interested in learning about this zulu mythology then find the nearest table tennis club and spend some time hanging out there and asking questions. your college may even have its own club.

Yea. Ping-Pong is a very interesting sport and it will get you sweating a lot if you're moving everywhere. You need to be quick and think on your feet. You have to have precision also. Dare I say, it is one of the most technical sports out there. Haters will hate though.

[KeylessEntry]

I was playing ping pong in ding dang...

[gigantes]

best return of serve i've ever seen:


http://img.izismile.com/img/img8/20150320/1000/daily_gifdump_804_23.gif


the server starts with a tricky sidespin serve that bounces a little high and slightly long. the receiver loads up like he's going to powerloop, but instead of hitting on the front side of the paddle, he hits on the back... producing a sky-high underspin lob.

the receiver coolly backs up to see if the ball lands safely and prepares for a potential smash. he doesn't look up, which might give it away.

the ball lands on the other side, then the underspin carries it back to the receiver's half, giving the server almost no time to touch it. point over.

[Cocaine80s]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view1/2236305/drake-and-josh-ping-pong-o.gif

[ArbitraryWater]

best return of serve i've ever seen:


http://img.izismile.com/img/img8/20150320/1000/daily_gifdump_804_23.gif


the server starts with a tricky sidespin serve that bounces a little high and slightly long. the receiver loads up like he's going to powerloop, but instead of hitting on the front side of the paddle, he hits on the back... producing a sky-high underspin lob.

the receiver coolly backs up to see if the ball lands safely and prepares for a potential smash. he doesn't look up, which might give it away.

the ball lands on the other side, then the underspin carries it back to the receiver's half, giving the server almost no time to touch it. point over.

That's horrible.. will be caught by most and is an invitation for getting smashed on. There is nothing you can point to for a "perfect" return.

Anyway, I'm in a table tennis club, and pretty good... Well, used to be even better, was one of the top players age wise in my city, took a 3-year break or so, and since then have never got back into a consistent rhythm, mainly because I don't train enough. I won bunch of tourneys when I started ('07).

[gigantes]

That's horrible.. will be caught by most and is an invitation for getting smashed on. There is nothing you can point to for a "perfect" return.

Anyway, I'm in a table tennis club, and pretty good... Well, used to be even better, was one of the top players age wise in my city, took a 3-year break or so, and since then have never got back into a consistent rhythm, mainly because I don't train enough. I won bunch of tourneys when I started ('07).
any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

[Thorpesaurous]

I was a pretty good ping pong player in my day. My grandmother had a table in her basement for a while, and I was definitely the best of all my cousins, and there are a ton of us. But I was also probably in the sweetest age range for it, like 12 - 16. But I was still pretty damn good.


We set up a table at my shop about five years ago. It has since come down. But there were three or four guys definitively better than me. I guess they used to have table here a hundred years ago, and one of the old timers used to win constantly, and he was about 65 at the time, and was still incredibly good. He played crazy defense and really really soft. He'd just barely poke the thing over the net.

But we do have one guy, also in his sixties, who played on a Jamaican national team. He wrecked his hip and his knee in a car accident 20 or so years ago. Still has sort of a Verbal Kent in step sort of limp. But even with that, the guy was unreal. He holds the paddle backhanded, and everything he sent over had some crazy english on it. And after a few months of getting his touch back, if you pushed him to a side, he would consistently hit the points on the side of the table. It was really crazy to see.

[ArbitraryWater]

any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

Well, I called it bad because you won't hit it that well most of the time.. here obviously it's perfect, the back spin carries it immediately onto his side again.. but I just think I would catch it, and if you do, most of the time it will be an easy one to convert. And by the way he casually serves the ball, it looks like he isn't even taking the game that seriously, tbh.

USATT rating? No idea.

In Germany a rating system was just recently (like 1-2 years) ago introduced.. before that you didn't have one in the youth stages, just overall groups (age wise and then like the top 3, A-C), I haven't checked mine recently, and I haven't participated in a tournament in maybe 5 years, since I wanted to get back to a comfortable level where I trust my game and know I can compete, but since they tracked all the former tournaments before the system was introduced, my rating is still pretty high.

As for my playing style?

I'm really an all around guy.. I have insane touch, which I maximise for defensive purposes, placement, topspin.. I can attack and open up points, but I don't do it enough, wait most of the time.. I see my serve as a weakness since its not a strength. But your serve should be a strength, one that gives you an inherent advantage for opening up the point, since I don't have that, I see it as weakness. My forehand is easily my good side, my back is great for blocking, defensive stuff, but I feel uncomfortable attacking with it.

[gigantes]

@arbitrarywater,
what about ITTF rating? could you make a rough guess there?

so do you like to punch-block, do drop shots, throw in some chop? (underspin deep off the table, not sure what you call it in german)

anyway, cool... i try to be all-around as well. for example-- close to the table / mid-range / long-range... positional blocks like JO waldner / clean countershots like timo boll / ferocious power loops and brush loops like many... high energy / low energy... whatever the situation requires.


@thorp,
many guys show up at the clubs who have been playing basement ping pong for a long time. they're king of their domain so to speak and 'want to take it to the next level.' which is cool with me.

problem is-- it's usually a major shock to them how poorly their skills translate to club-level table tennis. not because they don't have years of well-honed skills built up, but because a good clean counterstroke as taught at the club level is something they've rarely if ever seen. they don't know how to deal and usually lack the humility / motivation required to re-train their strokes... especially considering what brought them to the club in the first place.

now i don't know if this is an american problem or a worldwide problem, but i always try to work with these 'kings of the basement' players and welcome them to clubs. the transition tends to be brutal for them, and most don't last long.

but i think things are changing now with the internet. i mean, now you can go to youtube and whatever, find pingskills and stuff, and realise on your own how much more technical and correct the game is at the tournament level.

it works in chess anyway... and they have the exact-same rating system as us.

[ArbitraryWater]

gigantes, I'll try to reply to your other points later..

Usually, basement warriors don't/can't get to the level of club players.

They're good among casuals, but for example when I play in school against other casuals, that before told me "yeah I'm very good at table tennis" perhaps even "dominated their communities", they get shredded.. people are amazed at how I play, they don't see that much.. and thats right now, and I'm not happy with where I'm at and know I could/should be much better.

Back before my break (lost interest, had a bad interaction with someone), there was like a 1-2 punch here on the team, me and my friend were like the "talents"... He left the club at one point to go to the premier team where all the talent is at, I returned back at the same club (we have another guy who's 12 and just played the german cup for 17-18 y/olds, HUGE talent), meanwhile my former friend, partner, is now playing at an adult level, one of the better players for his age city-wide (Berlin).. I get pretty pissed when I think of this and my opportunities.

[wakencdukest]

https://youtu.be/SncapPrTusA


The true master :lol

[ILLsmak]

any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

I think it was luck maybe... but I did think of how it would be hard to hit it back because of spin.

I never really played table tennis seriously. I had some friends who would be like LETS PLAY and kick my ass. I don't think I'm terrible, but I'm definitely not good. I'm good for never playing by myself, I guess, or was.

The first thing you realize is DAT SPIN when you play against good people. I can imagine that a ball on that kind of hit would be hard to slam because of the spin.

-Smak