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First of all you need o know if are a natural penholder or not.
You natural grip is something you are born with not something you can choose.
If you are a natural-born penholder then you a smart racket is the ONLY obvious chocie lot mor emor than a shakehand racket.
Why ? Because if you are one side grip player (such as American grip or Penhold) you will eventually have full control of what rubber to use on what side one you reasonably master twiddling .
That said most penholders can also play decent shakehand but the opposite is not true.

So first check by yourselves or with a coach if you are a natural born penholder first.

Then you can decide what type rubber you want to use other than spinny inverted on one side.
Because slim (flex) pips is not the only choice for penholders (there are no "long" pips in ITTF table tennis ...only slim (flex) pips).

If you did not know Liu GuoLiang used wide pips (incorrectly known as short pips on ITTF LARC) on his forehand mostly & spinny inverted on backhand mostly & twiddled.
The current US National Women's Champion ( an RAG player) Hong Lin also uses this combination. But Liu Guoliang was more of HAG (Hybrid Penhold Grip) as he combined TAG (Traditional Penhold Grip) & RAG

But all this is not relevant for you now. First verify if penhold is your natural grip. If not you are wasting your time unless you are an exercise player or non-competitive player just playing for fun

----- wrote: ↑June 27th, 2025, 8:25 pm Are long pimples on the sponge a good option for this?

No. Not at all. (Unless you are a semi-pro or pro chopper)

Only player who will benefit from sponge under the long pips (or ITTF slim (flex) pips) are semi-pro & pro level "away from the table" choppers.
This is because the illegally boosted loops from robotNazis are so heavy at these high levels that the ball will shoot off the wood. So at these levels the chopper needs thick sponge under the pips.

Amateur players should ONLY use OX long or ITTF slim (flex) pips. The level of control & spin variations & spin contrast (against your spinny inverted on other side) of such a smart racket is far superior. An amateur player does NOT need sponge under slim (flex) or long (flex) pips. In fact it is a liability because of reduced control & less spin reversal (this may sound counter intuitive but is very true).
I have go thru these iterations of using spong & OX literally many hundred of time in my life.
So believe me when I say an amateur player should not use sponge for long or ITTF slim (flex) pips.

There is a theory that new players sing slim (flex) or long (flex) pips should use spong first to get used to the pips before moving OX . But this is just a waste of time. Just go directly to OX .

Keep also in mind that if you are going play RAG or HAG , you probably will use spinny inverted on your backhand. So you should no use slim (flex) pips or long (flex) pips on your forehand to start with . You want wide pips (known as short pips on ITTF LARC) or medium pips with thick sponge on your forehand like Liu Guoliang.

Of course if you want to use spinny inverted on your forehand then you can use slim (flex) or long (flex) pips of OX type on your other side. I know many advanced players who do this. There are even a few penhold choppers like this. This could also be a devastating combination because the penholder forehand loops are the most powerful. RAG (Reverse Asian Grip) loops from backhand are not as powerful but they are more effective because of the natural weird side spin angel & deception.

----- wrote: ↑June 28th, 2025, 8:52 pm Forehand has always been a weak part of my game, I took quite a long time to train it, but I still continue to hit the ball more than spin it. Even taking this into account, the forehand with penhold grip seemed more stable to me, even considering that I am used to playing with a different type of inverted rubber. In general, I understood, short pips or medium pips.

So the obvious choice seems to be wide pips or medium pips with sponge on forehand and spinny inverted on the backhand ?

----- wrote: ↑June 28th, 2025, 8:52 pm I adapted to the TPB and RPB game very quickly

TAG + RAG is called HAG (Hybrid Asian Grip) used by Liu GuoLiang

I guess using TPB instead of TAG or RPB instead of RAG is also OK I am not sure

----- wrote: ↑June 28th, 2025, 8:52 pm By the way, a funny moment. The robonazis in my club are strange. They are loyal to long pips,

I have no idea what this means because if a person is a (Click on link) robotNazi , then by defintion they cannot be loyal to long pips. They hate long pips or any pips or anti

Yeah Pluto seems to be popular after all these years as a medium pips rubber for forehand. Let us know how it is working out for you

Are you using jpen or cpen?
Which blade?

----- wrote: ↑July 21st, 2025, 9:19 pm UPDATE: Neo semi-wide pimples didn't work for me (but objectively they are pretty good. I liked the non-linear spin generation due to the bending, but I need the spin contrast and reversal). Ordered two Reach C801 for both my rackets (shakehand and penhold)

C801 should work fine as a backhand rubber for shakehand
But don't see how it will work for a penholder
Let us know how it turns out

----- wrote: ↑July 23rd, 2025, 12:25 am

Tulsi wrote: ↑July 22nd, 2025, 12:28 pm

----- wrote: ↑July 21st, 2025, 9:19 pm UPDATE: Neo semi-wide pimples didn't work for me (but objectively they are pretty good. I liked the non-linear spin generation due to the bending, but I need the spin contrast and reversal). Ordered two Reach C801 for both my rackets (shakehand and penhold)

C801 should work fine as a backhand rubber for shakehand
But don't see how it will work for a penholder
Let us know how it turns out

I don't think it will work worse on penhold for blocking and chopblocking at the table. Quite the opposite, since with penhold you have a more powerful forehand chopblock and you can use long pips for hitting.

Oh OK
I thought you said you will beusing pips on the RPH backhand only.
It should be possible to use long pips penhold for TPH blocking

Zhou Xintong is the best in the business of penhold slim (flex) pips chop blocking. She uses a slim (flex) pips and wide pips racket
Click here for Zhou Xintong YouTube videos

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Chinese-born Luxembourgish table tennis player Ni Xialian also has similar style.
She was on Chinese NAtional Team (CNT) long before Zhou Xintong

Ni Xialian videos

----- wrote: ↑July 24th, 2025, 4:15 am UPDATE 2: Got used to Pluto and played today at my usual level of LP blocker (and all this time I trained only as an LP blocker, I did not have wide pimples) as an MP/SP hitter. Literally with the same score as usual I lost to those who I usually lost to as an LP blocker and also won those who I usually won. It took me only an hour to get used to it. Now I think, do I even need long pimples? Or maybe I should play just like Zhou Xintong?

If you used and MP / SP rackets I do not think it is very useful. I think it is almost aa bad as a dumb racket with minimum spin contrast.

An OX Long pips like C801 or an almost fictionless long pips (maybe Yinhe Young with 1.5 mm AR) one side and a frictionful wide pips on the other side may give the best spin contrast. (This is like Zhou Xintong)
But even a long pips one side & medium pips other side will have better spin contrast than a Medium pips / Wide pips setup

Unless you want to go with spinny inverted one side & C801 on other side for a more versatile racket with maximum spin contrast

----- wrote: ↑July 24th, 2025, 8:42 pm You misunderstood me. I played with a racket with inverted rubber on one side and Yinhe Pluto on the other. Not with two wide pimples. When I wrote "MP/SP" I meant that Pluto is almost like typical wide pimples, only a bit bigger, and not medium pimples like Dr Neubauer KO

I NEVER said you used two wide pimples. I said the MP/WP combination if you used it, is almots like WP/WP combination with very little spin contrast.
Anyway it is ok.
You can just update later on your progress on whatever you are testing currently

----- wrote: ↑August 12th, 2025, 4:29 am EDIT: It turned out to be a soft Hurricane 3 NEO. No wonder then why it is playable without a booster.

Thanks for update.
I thought Neo had soft sponge and that is why you do not need a booster
I do not boost but had only used Neo because of this.
Does anyone know if Hurricane 9 comes in Neo version ?
I like H9 for the colors but have not tried it because I heard it is a failed product

----- wrote: ↑September 14th, 2025, 4:09 pm Another UPDATE: My forehand loop is still crap, and my RPB is much better. Thinking about what to do about it. Considering switching to Spinfire instead of the inverted rubber to keep the loop ability, but also to gain the advantage of easier smashing and some effect of wide pimples. The problem is that my RPB is designed for a deep grip, and with two pimpled rubbers I will have to play a shallow grip.

Not sure.

Given that c801 is high friction (like) , don't you want low friction wide pips on other side to maximize spin contrast ?
Of course you will then sacrifice looping with Spinfire

Unless you want to go with frictionless long pips like Mo Avalox or Mo Wang 3 on one side and Spinfire on the other.

----- wrote: ↑September 14th, 2025, 7:12 pm You can hit quite powerfully flat with RPB, since the rubber is tensor.

I did not realize C-801 was a tensor rubber/ I have no idea what you meant to say here