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One of my new favorite short pips from my single favorite pip-out manufacturer, TSP. I got the 2.0mm, due to my previous experience of TSP Spectol feeling too thin in 1.8 and too thick in 2.2. If only they made Spectol in 2.0mm too.. I don't see why not, seeing as they did for Wang Tao. Anyway, onto the review.

The look: More opaque and unimpressive than any TSP pip I've ever seen! It rivals Chinese-pip cheapness in looks, to the point that it even looks like the mold used to cast the pips looks like it was very slightly overfilled... while all the pips are flat on top and more or less the same shape, some of the tops are slightly wider than others in a way that could not be intentional. Looks like a version of 802-40 with even lower quality control. What I love about it, however, is the slightly conical shape that the pips have (the quality that made the original Spinpips so amazing). because of the wider base and narrower tip, the sides of the pips can grip the ball to maximum potential on spin shots, but still deliver a perfectly flat SP shot on flat shots that only involve the tip of the pips hitting the back of the ball.

The feel: Semi-soft semi-firm rubber comprising the topsheet.. Amazing spin potential for a SP rubber, without excessive spin sensitivity. Again, this depends on where the ball is struck; if you block loops flat it gives a very user-friendly SP-effect block (but nothing like the truly non-spinny pips), while incorporating the sides of the pips gives you control over imparting spin onto the ball. The sponge for this is Perfect.. Somehow, TSP has managed to create yet another sponge on par with Spectol, which is undeniably one of the best sponges for a SP rubber out there. (Wang Tao, Hou Yingchao, and Tan Ruiwu couldn't all be wrong, right?). Very soft, allowing exceptional control on blocks and SP-topspin-drives, yet JUST hard enough to achieve good flat hits (something that I could never do as well with TSP's 21 sponge).

The throw angle: Medium for a SP, which, the more I play with, the more I come to appreciate. A low-throw SP is the most straight-shooting and easiest to block with, however a throw just slightly higher than low provides one with many more attacking options, provided they have good enough control on blocks to keep opponents' high-spin shots on the table. Super Spinpips balanced throw angle and trajectory-length perfectly, giving a very high landing percentage on your shots, and allowing you a greater arsenal of shots, from pretty solid opening loops against backspin, to driving anything from completely dead relatively low balls to high-spin loops.

Against chop: This is the business. Never have I used an SP that could do BOTH hitting through of backspin or looping it with significant topspin with such ease. Again, I attribute this to the conical shape of the pips. A+, TSP.

Serves:Remember Liu Guoliang? Remember his serves? Okay, so I can't serve as well as him, not even close. But the point is this; very, very easy to change your point of contact on the rubber (side of pips or top of pips) to produce what your opponent would perceive as the same stroke, while producing wildly different spin/no-spin variations. The strongest serving SP I've ever used, hands down.

Against Topspin balls:
Heres where it takes a little more skill, and a little more Johnny-Huang'ing of the stroke to be successful. This is not Zhan Jian's Short pip; if you use little-to-no stroke and slap every ball, you'll invariably hit a lot of seriously heavy loops from your opponent well off the other end of his side of the table. Given the softness of the sponge and the spin-potential of the topsheet, you can imagine that this isn't the least-sensitive-to-topspin rubber out there. So think of the stroke like half-way between inverted and SP. Start higher and finish lower than an inverted loop stroke, but still maintain the right-to-left, down-to-up, 45 degree angle stroke of a Real stroke. Digging into the ball like this provides enough friction to counter the opponents topspin and prevent your shot from going off the table, while at the same time making your return fairly dead and allowing you high accuracy for placement on your return. Anyone serious about playing SPs on both sides should study Johnny Huang like the bible, and really get into making a Full SP Stroke with their forehand and backhand. [If you're only an SP backhand player, the whole game and strategy is entirely different, so I wouldn't say this philosophy applies. When I played SP BH Inv FH, my SP backhand was best used place-blocking, punch blocking, and hitting through spin with short wrist snaps, mostly setting up FH loop-kills]

Overall: A rubber for the SP connoisseur.. One who doesn't know a lot about SPs or how to execute a stroke properly with a spinny, soft-sponged SP would hate this, and would be better off going with Haifu Dolphin or RITC 802 (boosted) for polyball slapping. However, the Johnny Huang enthusiast would and should crave this rubber, I highly recommend it. If you aren't playing in ITTF tournaments, boosting would help a great deal in bringing this rubber to its full potential, but I haven't boosted it thus far and I still love it.

Great review Beta

Very interesting how you mention the difference between hitting the side vs the top of the pips. I never really thought about this when it comes to short pips..I thought that was manly relevant to long pips. I guess to use the sides of the pips you just dig it in a little more, vs brushing with the tips?

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Not exactly, but you're almost right. The reason why conical pips are so effective (and the reason why Spinpips were banned) is that a subtle change in ball contact can produce a starkly different ball. In a more cylindrical short pip (like most short pips), the pips are too short (and often too closely clustered) to ever truly hit the side of the pip, whether contacting the ball flat, or contacting at an angle and sinking into the sponge. Therefore, the shots coming off of the pip are fairly predictable; the shot must either be a flat hit with little to no spin, or a spin shot using the sponge (and a slight grippiness of the pips, but not much surface area contact to rely on) to lift and create spin, and subsequently drop the ball onto the other side of the table. Pips like Joola Tango Ultra and Joola Express Ultra are exemplary examples of some of the best pips in this field; although every shot is predictable coming off of them, they give you many benefits of a short pip rubber for a straightforward smash-style short pip player.

However, with the conical short pip, although the pips are short, the diagonal (to however slight a degree) nature of the pips sides from bottom to top allows far more friction to be produced, as there is much more surfact contact with the topsheet and ball when contacted at an angle. When considering this capability of producing spin, and juxtaposing with the fact that the tips of the rubber are still not very spinny (and very short pippy), this not only enables one to make pseudo inverted shots as well as full-on short pip flat hits, it allows one to make subtle variations between flat hits and spin shots, using only the topsheet but no sponge, spin shots using a little more of the sponge to differ the trajectory and spin level, and power drives using the maximum potential of topsheet and sponge. In addition, the diagonal nature of the sides of the pips allows lower balls to be lifted more easily with LESS spin (excellent for tactical placement.. if you're out of position and an SP player, if you try to lift a ball onto the table with spin, you'll only produce a weak enough topspin to be a gift to your opponent going for an easy counter drive). This aspect of the rubber is truly unique compared to low throw cylindrical pip rubbers, and is actually quite vital to players that don't have inverted rubber on either side of their racket. It's no small wonder Liu Guoliang was able to serve some of the best players in the world off the table.

*made some small edits for clarification, haggisv.

Thanks for the explanation Beta, very informative

I'm not sure if I have the skills to experience this for myself, as I'm not a short pip player, but I will try when I get an opportunity.

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I highly recommend it, especially if you're an LP player on your backhand. I started with inverted on both sides, but became enamored with LP when I saw how it could slow down the game and make more shots available for my forehand. However, after playing with LP on the backhand for almost a year, I grew tired of being unable to attack from the backhand without twiddling, and grew weary of winning points due to unforced errors.
The interesting thing about putting the LP on my backhand though, was noticing how rapidly my footwork improved (in trying to cover more balls with my strong forehand). As many of the best table tennis players in the world will tell you, footwork is a hugely essential aspect of anyones game. And once my footwork improved, the slow pace of LP began to bore me even more! I decided to switch to SP, and found my calling. I had a good BH loop with inverted up to a 1900 USATT level, but never enjoyed putting weight into my backhand, because it left me a bit out of position for my forehand. After getting used to the SP setup, I realized something.. while I thought switching to SP on the backhand would require more athleticism(which I was happy about, being a relatively healthy guy in my mid twenties), I was actually wrong.
As long as your technique and strategy is well tuned, the SP backhand actually allows you to attack every ball, while moving as efficiently as you possibly can! Think about it this way; even up to very high levels, you can't be forced off the table with heavy topspin to your backhand, your returns are always aggressive (unlike LP), you can still emergency chop far from the table, and your backhand shots set up your forehands.
For a very contrasting example, take Wang Tao and Tan Ruiwu. Wang Tao's footwork was exemplary, but he didn't move more than he needed to, ever. I'd say he covered a fair half of the table with his short pip backhand, and truly used both wings equally as much to different effect.
Tan Ruiwu on the other hand, is essentially a penholder in a shakehand guise (excepting some matches, for those of you who would want to bring them up, trust me I've seen them, but I'm talking about the player as a whole).
His footwork is out of this world, and he uses his monster forehand to take every shot he can, while using his SP-out backhand to ensure he never gets forced off the table.
Whether you make the short pips a priority or an insurance policy, they can definitely benefit one's all around offensive game.

Disclaimer: SP isn't for everyone! If you value your backhand loop, don't bother.

Thanks for these informative elaborations!
I have been using 802 for awhile and I fully understand what you are saying about being able to produce spin or no spin. Not that 802 is good at this since pips at close togehter, not at all conical and not very soft or grippy. But I want to be able to do different spins with small modifications of bat angle, that was one of my main reasons for changing to SP 2 months ago (also because I was a little bored with LP).

I do have a sheet of TSP Super Spinpips on Chop Sponge 2 1,0 mm. I tried it almost 2 years ago and very shortly 4 months ago without not knowing much how to handle SP. Now I know a little more and I will try it again but I really didn't like the supersoft sponge. I also have a sheet of Globe 889-2 (Wang Yang was said to use this) that looks rather similar to Super Spinpips but with pips slightly less wide apart, and perhaps a little thinner pips. These are my two next pips to test, they will play rather different from 802 I guess.

But I am also very curious about Spectol. How does this pip fit into this picture? Cylindric or conical pips? Widely spaced enough? I know they are vertival aligned and that can do a little for spin production. I uses my SP mainly for chopping and pushing, but also some hitting. I would like to be able to block also, but that has proven very difficult with 802 on a 1,0 mm sponge (at least to block aggressive looping/smashing). I also posted my wonderings in this subject a few days ago in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16270&p=289239#p289239

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Spectol is perhaps the best all-around pip currently on the market. People often fall for the fallacy that 'new technology' makes for the best equipment, but Spectol in itself proves that assertion completely wrong, being decades old and still beating out today's competition.

Spectol's pips are not at all conical and are semi-glossy, as opposed to the untreated look of Chinese pips, and are very small relative to all pips on the market. While they don't have the unique effects of the conical pips of Super Spinpips, they are smaller and more flexible, while being equally clustered (meaning that there is more room between the pips as opposed to Super Spinpips or 802-40, because the pips are smaller), which gives them perhaps the most superior feel and control in passive/active blocking, and most definitely chopping.

Something like Super Spinpips is something I would recommend only to those who play it with penhold FH, or SP FH (best combined with SP BH) with shakehand. The reason being, the variation in shots is useful when you can set up the right follow-up shots to make the most of it. Where it most lacks is in the passive or out-of-position blocking, and even when active blocking, does not produce as powerful a block as a pip like Spectol. That of course being because of its inherent capability for spin variation; you must be in control of the pip to use it to your advantage. This makes it especially suspect for chopping, and while I know TSP has manufactured a Super Spinpips with chop sponge (which I haven't tried), the topsheet indicates that it would be less reliable for controlled manipulation of shots under the duress of facing heavy loops and drives.

Spectol, while slightly more spin insensitive, can produce immense spin against topspin, dead balls, or even backspin. (This is a separate future post, but to sum it up, short pips can produce heavier spin than even inverted rubber if used properly, because the ball does not 'catch' on the rubber and get propelled forward; all the forward momentum is created by the user, as is all of the spin. So a short, extremely heavy chop will travel a lesser distance and with lesser pace across the table, therefore requiring your opponent to apply more of their own force to return the ball back onto your side.) The control of Spectol in defensive shots, as well as in flat-hit aggressive shots, far outweighs that of Super Spinpips.

Super Spinpips most excels being used extremely close to the table (preferably on both sides, or if you must, LP on backhand), because of its incredible short game variation, and its greater potential for a wider variety of aggressive shots able to be employed to finish off a point, or at least stay on the offensive. Anything passive, defensive, or crucially counter-play (which most closely treads the line of offense and defense, and is therefore important to mention) is much better served with Spectol.

When I play with inverted on the forehand, these days Spectol is my first choice, due to its ability to counterdrive loops close to the table, and allow my backhand to be passive so that I can focus my energy on stepping around to take 80%+ of shots with my forehand.

Addendum in regards to Spectol:
I play with Spectol on the backhand of OFF to OFF+ composite blades, and can beat most players under 1850 USATT playing as a chopper, which I'm not very good at at all and rarely practice. Keep in mind these blades are looping blades, fast as all hell, and not at all condusive to a defensive game. Spectol in 1.8mm with its regular sponge has to be the best BH chopper rubber I've ever tried (I've tried countless SP and LP testing this purpose), because of its relative ease of chopping combined with its potential for variation away from the table, and its passive or aggressive potential close to the table.

Thanks! Now you've made me even more curios . I will order a sheet of Spectol at once . Not sure what thickness to chose, since I am using 1,0 mm now. But I think I will go with 1,5 mm, hopingit is not too fast.

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I'd be cautious of going anywhere below 1.5mm unless you have an extremely DEF--- blade. The Spectol sponge can produce enough speed when needed, but really isn't very springy by its nature, so I'd recommend a thick enough sponge to avoid hitting blade too much on heavy chops for more control. Even 1.8mm on a fast blade is fairly controllable on chops for me.

I use a Victas Koji Matsushita, not an extreme def blade. But I ordered a 1,5 mm. It is also a question of weight, but I heard Spectol is a lot lighter than 802 (my setup with 802 in 1,5 mm orange sponge is too heavy).
Since I come from LP I prever slow BH setup, but 1,5 mm will hopefully do fine (I would have prefered 1,2 mm)

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I don't know if its a LOT lighter than 802, but if you have the standard Chinese sponge on your 802, Spectol will probably be a bit lighter. I just weighed a spare sheet cut to a standard blade size; it weighs 32g. Not bad!

i can second the statements from Beta 100%. Spectol forever !

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Defense Blade with pimples on one side ...

Interesting discussion. thanx all.

I'm curious, you talk about the conic shape of the pips being essential. http://www.japsko.se/en/short-pimples/146-dhs-sharping-18mm.html This rubber is also said to have concave pips, have you tried it?

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Blade: Japsko Allround+ | Forehand:LKT Pro XT 1.5 mm | Backhand: Lion Rebirth 0.6 mm
Blade: TSP Black Balsa 3.0 | Forehand:Friendship Fx Supersoft 1.8 mm | Backhand: SpinLord Agenda OX
Blade: Stiga Hypertech CR | Forehand: CTT National Strike 2.0 mm | Backhand: RITC 802 1.5 mm

Me too now, Spectol is a lot lighter.

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