Are you good at ping-pong?

[swolfe]

[TheShootah]

I crush everyone except one or two kids on campus. I play penhold style. A guy I know that runs chess tournies around Cleveland came down and crushed me though. He was once Top 100 in the US and got invited onto the Olympic Team. Quite embarassing really..... /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[jakethebake]

When I was 6 I pwned the neighborhood. I never lost. I totally dominated. I haven't played since then, but I'm pretty sure I'd still dominate anyone here.

[SossMan]

funny you ask, i just got back from round 2 of our company wide ping-pong tourney. pwned some chick who got a lucky draw in round 1 and was talking mad sh!t until I busted out my Stiga paddle.
Next up is the CEO who is a self proclaimed "avid table tennis player" according to his bio piece in the San Jose Mercury. I have a terrible feeling that I'm about to write my own pink slip...

[SossMan]

I think table tennis is like pool. 'good' is all relative to who your opponent is.

[jakethebake]

Anyone who calls ping pong "table tennis" should have the [censored] kicked out of them.

[ QUOTE ]
funny you ask, i just got back from round 2 of our company wide ping-pong tourney. pwned some chick who got a lucky draw in round 1 and was talking mad sh!t until I busted out my Stiga paddle.
Next up is the CEO who is a self proclaimed "avid table tennis player" according to his bio piece in the San Jose Mercury. I have a terrible feeling that I'm about to write my own pink slip...

[/ QUOTE ]

[deacsoft]

Durring the winter months of my college days a couple friends and I played ping pong all the time. i had one in my basement growing up and played tennis for many years so I had a good background. We all went out and bought top of the line paddles that were customized to our style of play. After a couple weeks of playing it was like Forrest Gump stlye ping pong for all of us. We were awesome. We dominated a tournament for the college, and all took our turns beating each other daily. This was years ago, and I haven't played recently. However, I'm willing to bet that I'd get back on the horse pretty quickly. I still have my paddle around here somewhere.

[swolfe]

yeah, i have the paddle with the thick, smooth rubber on one side for my backhand spins and the pocked hard rubber on the other for my forehand slams. i love that paddle.

it's been a few years since i've played very seriously. i learned to play at a rec center where they had a few tables and some old guys that played a lot. at some point when i was beating up on the kid crowd, they let me start playing against them. eventually i was beating all of the old guys too.

i looked around for tournaments, but couldn't find any in the area.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
i looked around for tournaments, but couldn't find any in the area.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have have an inside contact to find the underground tournaments in your area.

[astroglide]

on an 'active' week i'll play ping pong 5-8 hours at work. several of us are highly competitive with it.

we have a donic stress net with a tension rope, and most of us play with premium paddles. most of them have custom components which are assembled/glued upon ordering. i use a prebuilt yasaka gaiten mark v (http://www.megaspin.net/store/default.asp?cid=rackets&scid=yasaka&pid=y-gat-mv).

we play with standard rules regarding serves (pitch from an open palm at least 6 inches into the air and you can't hit it ascending), play to 11 points, change serves every 2 points etc. i'm the best in the office, beat my family up at it, etc but i'm not sure where i would stand on an tournament competitive level. i am confident that i can beat most people who say they're good at ping pong.

[InchoateHand]

I share Astro's confidence. As if in some bad Kung Fu movie, at resorts across Asia there are ping pong tables. I bring my paddle. After trouncing a few staff members, someone invariably goes into the kitchen and gets an elderly chinese chef. The crowd grows. I seldom lose, and when I do, I make an excuse.

[mostsmooth]

[ QUOTE ]
I think table tennis is like pool. 'good' is all relative to who your opponent is.

[/ QUOTE ]
isnt this the same for almost every sport?

on a side note, i was watching some big ping pong match on tv the other day, i think it was a swedeish guy and a korean guy. the swedish guy kicked his ass pretty good. heres what a match against those guys would be with me. i serve, he returns, i may or may not return, if i do, he drills the ball past me

[InchoateHand]

The [censored] ITTF changed the rules. I see Astro plays by the current rules. Bring back the 21 and the smaller ball. [censored] this TV friendly bullshit. I play like Kong Linghui--I normally drop >50% of the first ten points, and then power into form as I adjust to my opponents weakness. With the two serve 11 point games, my battle-tested skills are at a huge disadvantage. Not to mention the shifts in service rules take away many of my power pieces. It sucks. [censored] TV.

[swolfe]

[ QUOTE ]
After trouncing a few staff members, someone invariably goes into the kitchen and gets an elderly chinese chef. The crowd grows.

[/ QUOTE ]

i know what you mean. after you've put a beating on a crowd of people they have to go and bring in the ringer.

he (barely) beat me the first game, but i whooped him the next 3.

[thatpfunk]

One of my good friends is a competitive table tennis player and has tried out for the olympic team. It is scary how good competitive players are. I think I am pretty good (beating most average players) and he dominates me left handed /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[housenuts]

i reckon i could beat 95% of the posters on this forum. however that probably does not require much skill.

[MrFeelNothin]

I won the ping-pong tourney on a cruise ship a couple years ago.

The piece of poop on a stick that I beat in the finals started crying when it was about 17-5. Oh wait, it was just something in his eye. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yes, I have a medal.

No, you can't touch it.

[Phat Mack]

Are we talking soft bats (wusses!), hard bats, or clip boards?

[EliteNinja]

I use butterfly style grip. I also too lessons, but still sucked. I play tennis now and it's improved my table tennis skillz0rz.

[astroglide]

what is the "butterfly style grip"? the only "standard" ones i know of are shakehands and penholder, with honorable mention going to seemiller.

http://www.usatt.org/organization/glossary_tt.shtml

[MicroBob]

I'm pretty sure I suck....but I used to play a lot back in the day.
2nd place finish in my high-school's intramural ping-pong championship.


I'm left-handed so that messes some people up.

[kerssens]

I suck but one time I crushed a ping-pong ball between the paddle and the edge of the table, it was a bad shot.

[Bukem_]

I used to play all the time. It is actually a very good workout once you can keep a fast rally going.

There isn't much better than when you get to the point where you can return each others slams.

[Dantes]

uh the whole game is "slams" thats why its fun. Its easy to return slams as long as you have plenty of room to back up in. Thats part of why home ping pong games aren't that great usually - you need TONS of room to back up in order to play a "real" game and most of the time ping pong is in some little room next to an air hockey table 5 feet from the wall.

[TheShootah]

This is quite true. Luckily the one in my dorm has plenty of space on both sides and the backs. It especially sucks for me playing penhold right handed if the left side is close to the wall, because then I can't move to the left enough to play my forehand as much as I should. I just can't play anywhere like that. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Daliman]

I used to be a pretty good player when I was a kid, and when I was 15, I went to the local Y where they had Table ennis nights with instruction. The instructor was a former US womans champion named Faan-yeen Sidor, and there were SEVERAL highly ranked players there of all ages. The first time I played there, in about 6 games, I won 2 points, TOTAL, and those were pretty much given to me. It's insane how much better than the average good player a competitivelt trained player is. Anyways, at the time, the #3 ranked 17-under player was there(TT has rankings similat to chess, and I believe the skill diferences are shown similar to chess to, i.e. a 1500 player wouldn;t score a point off a 2500 player, but would beat a recreational player 21-0 if they played it out.)he was rated about 2150 IIRC, and I became decent friends with him, and through his training and help, one day was able to score 4 points off of him.

I consider this the pinnacle of my sporting life.

[AncientPC]

I embarass my fellow Chinamen.

[EliteNinja]

[ QUOTE ]
what is the "butterfly style grip"? the only "standard" ones i know of are shakehands and penholder, with honorable mention going to seemiller.

http://www.usatt.org/organization/glossary_tt.shtml

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah...
Penholder, butterfly....same difference.

[chainSmoker]

is there anybody from san francisco who, like me, is unemployed and has nothing better to do all day than to play pingpong? got a table at home that spans the living room and dining room, so there's decent room to play. my roommate and i are pretty much down to play at all hours of the day/night.

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
Penholder, butterfly....same difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

except i've never heard or seen it called that in my entire life

[Shakezula]

ping-pong? yeah, you play the ping, and i will own you! i had a chance to play the junior champion from india, when i was a teen, but missed my opportunity. even after a long hiatus from playing, i found my swing in short time; my balance and footwork, impeccable. but you must have room to play. not, NOT playing around your tele. nor a garage. must have room to play. personally, i prefer outdoors on the grass, barefoot. i played with many south americans from work recently. they play constantly, and it's a big sport in their country. i should have wagered some money when they were trash-talking before we played. (yes, I consider myself patted on the back).