
Why Table Tennis is a Great Hacker Sport - jamesjyu
http://jamesyu.org/2009/01/11/why-table-tennis-is-a-great-hacker-sport/
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wallflower
My advice for those who want to be get better is to invest in a good paddle.
For example, the Butterfly brand, $35+. And forget hard rubber "paddles",
without the right rubber, you will never be able to spin the ball effectively.

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jamesjyu
There's a whole style of play called hard bat that people use, in which they
only use hard rubber (or pips out). The fact that they cannot spin effectively
can be an advantage -- they aren't affected by their opponents spin!

Given the right technique, they can be deadly, since basically, any spin that
you give to the ball is reversed when it comes back (very low friction on
their paddle, so essentially their hit does NOT change the direction of the
spin. So, for example, if you give them topspin, it will come back at you with
underspin).

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pixcavator
>if you give them topspin, it will come back at you with underspin

You are describing the effect of "long pips".

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jamesjyu
True, I stand corrected.

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IsaacSchlueter
Though foos is the official sport of Yahoo, I've always preferred the ping
pong tables.

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timcederman
I have the opposite problem. Ping pong is the official sport of Trovix,
whereas I'm a foosball guy (doing a PhD where the staff room has a foosball
table and a Mame machine will both make you awesome at foosball and Yie Ar
Kung Fu)

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narag
Same here. I wonder what's player disposition in the USA? I've played mostly 1
- 3 - 3 - 4 and a little 1 - 3 - 4 - 3.

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wallflower
And for those people who think they need a ping pong table, I bought this as
an impulse purchase while at the bookstore and brought it into my relatively
conservative office. And it's sad but true that that one $10 purchase
generated more positive kudos than anything I'd done recently. Yes, it has
hard paddles and the net is tiny but a ping pong break can do you good - (as
long as the conference room next door (thin walls) isn't in session).

Desktop Table Tennis

Publisher: Metro Books

Pub. Date: March 2008

ISBN-13: 9781435105966

[http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Desktop-Table-
Tennis/Andrew...](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Desktop-Table-
Tennis/Andrew-Kirk/e/9781435105966)

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yargseiks
It's probably not a coincidence that there were ping pong tables in the
Computer Center and Engineering Center buildings of our University; lots of
people played (I never got into it, though; kinda hard to play when you have
tunnel vision).

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rw
Learning to consistently (>25%) hit the very edge of the table, so that the
ball drops almost straight to the floor, is _so awesome_.

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sgibat
You wouldn't be able to do that with someone who plays fast enough. Even if
you could do it on your serve 25% of the time, that's only an 1/8th of all
points. And you'd probably hit a lot of your attempts to hit the edge off the
table.

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mattmaroon
Hell yeah. One of the first things we did in Cali was get a ping pong table.
It was a great breaktime activity.

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logjam
Ron Graham was amazed that an elderly and seemingly frail Paul Erdos could
easily beat him (may have been those damned amphetamines again!). So he
(Graham) bought a ping pong serving machine, and eventually became the table
tennis champion of Bell Labs (he's also an expert juggler and trampolinist). I
think his wife Fan is also a killer player.

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jamesjyu
Yeah, it's amazing the breadth of age in table tennis. Many pro players can
still play in their 40s and 50s, which is unheard of in other sports.

This past weekend I played against this kid in the clubs:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cws4TzPySdw&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cws4TzPySdw&feature=channel_page)

He's 5 years old and can barely reach over the table. But, he's able to back
up 10 feet from the table and hit absolutely _huge_ returns. I was able to
beat him, but he definitely scored lots of points on me. Given that I'm rated
about 750, this is crazy!

Give him a few years and he'll be playing pro in no time.

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mhb
Am I looking at the right video? That kid did not look amazing.

