OUR STORY
Since I was I child I’ve been playing ping pong. I had played in competitions when I was in high school, but after graduation, I never played competitively again. Till this day ping pong remains my main hobby. I do other stuff, sure, but I always make sure to work in a few games any time my friends meet up. And I like making sure I have the best equipment I can afford at any given time. Just because I don’t play in tournaments doesn’t mean I can’t have tournament level gear, right? Especially since some of my friends are really good, so it’s just as intense as any tournament when we get together.
I started Best Ping Pong Tables almost on a whim. Some of my friends were planning to start up a local league and wanted advice on the bets tables and paddles to buy for everyone since I always had all the best stuff. I got to thinking about it, and realized there wasn’t really a single right answer I knew off the top of my head. So I realized I could educate my friends and make a website to help people in a similar boat as them at the same time, and started Best Ping Pong Tables!
Now I’ve expanded to covering other game tables, paddles, and similar stuff but I never forgot the core ping pong focused reasons behind starting the site. Hopefully it helps some of you out there really get into the sport and up your game!
MEET THE TEAM
Charlie Nguyen
Ping Pong Professional & Site Founder
Charlie’s ping pong journey started at a young age, like most people’s did. While it wasn’t his first (or even second) choice for a game table, being the youngest certainly had its drawbacks…not much you can do when all your older siblings and even your parents side against you.
Still, it was probably for the best. Charlie took to ping pong like dog to water. Which is to say he wasn’t exactly as graceful as a dolphin, but he eventually got the hang of it well enough to keep afloat. While he could never quite beat the older, more fit members of his family, for his age he was pretty good, as he found when he joined a middle school league.
From there, he was REALLY hooked. Success will do that to you. Charlie never stopped playing, but his priorities shifted a bit as he grew older (as they often do), tournament play just wasn’t in the cards anymore, but that didn’t mean he had to stop playing and improving.
Being the best often involves HAVING the best. While no true craftsman should ever blame his tools for shoddy work, having good tools never hurts. As Charlie’s dad would often say “Yeah, I COULD just hammer this nail in with my wrench…but why would I? Now pass me that thing.”.
Best Ping Pong Tables was born from that desire. Charlie knew what the best stuff was and how to find it, but did everyone else? All signs point to “no”, especially since it was his own friends (avid ping pongers themselves) that first started asking for help on what to buy. So why not start up a nice little website where everyone can find what they need, no muss no fuss? Starting with just him (with a little help from some friends), the site has slowly grown to encompass several other experts in their field, and now covers not just ping pong, but all sorts of table games!
Likewise, over time the site has evolved from a mere website full of buying guides, to a more general ping pong (and later other table games) education site, because hey: what’s the point of having all this nice stuff if you don’t know how to use it?
Kip Lohner
Shuffleboard Savant
Shuffleboard is not considered a trendy sport by most people. Kip gets that; he didn’t think much of the game for a long time either. There’s a lot of stigma attached to it for being an “old person’s game”; after all, that’s how it’s always depicted in movies, right?
Admittedly, Kip got into the game playing with his grandparents one summer. But he learned the same thing they did real quick: the game is surprisingly addictive. Whether you’re playing on a full sized board (hard to find, in most places) or a shuffleboard table, the game provides a ton of challenge with a huge amount of strategy.
Coming back, he was excited to share this new game with his friends, but it wasn’t exactly easy without all the specialized equipment.
Sadly, the shuffleboarding stayed a summer activity until he grew up, and realized he could share his love of the game with all sorts of people, just by writing about it online!
Running his own blog was good for a while, but eventually it became clear he needed some help to reach a wider audience of potential future shuffle masters, which Charlie was glad to provide.
Now, he writes for us, sharing his wealth of shuffleboard knowledge and strategies, not least of which is his knowledge of maintenance; shuffleboard tables are very finicky pieces of furniture. If you want to learn your hangers from your bumps, hit up some of his fun and informative articles!
Sarah Fowler
Foosball Fiend
Sarah came to foosball late in life, as many people do, finding a love for it in college (where else?). The game was perfect for turning a cramped college dorm room into an even more cramped, but infinitely more FUN college dorm room, and the ability to play it fairly well while a bit, shall we say, impaired was definitely part of the appeal for her and her friends.
But over time it became clear that where the real fun lay was in serious competition. While fun when you’re half in the bag, foosball’s strengths really show themselves when you have a couple of teams of people really putting their all into it, whacking that ball around with wild abandon, and coming up with fun on the fly strategies.
From there, it was only a small step to joining local tournaments, where she enjoyed moderate success and honed her skills even more. After college, her time to play sadly diminished, but not her passion for the game; a foosball table still takes pride of place in her home, wherever she moves to.
When the site expanded, Charlie needed some serious experts in other table sports, and Sarah jumped at the chance to spread her wealth of knowledge to the rest of the waiting public…and make a bit of extra cash on the side, to be honest.
Today, her goal is to spread the love of foosball to as many people as possible, hoping to help bring it back into the public consciousness as a legitimately strategic game, and return it to its heyday of popularity. It may be a fool’s errand, but she’ll try her best!
Tim McPherson
Air Hockey Head Honcho
Of all the arcade classics, air hockey may be one of the most enduring. Video games come and go, even the most popular, but air hockey has stuck around as a permanent fixture.
Like most of these games, people who start young have a lot of chances to get great at the game, and Tim is no different. He practically lived at the arcade when he was younger, and he dreamed of owning his own when he grew up. That…never panned out, as childish dreams often don’t, but he never lost his love for the game.
And unlike a lot of table games, air hockey is not hard to find a match for without your own personal equipment. Tim has had a lot of time to develop his love for the game, and pretty much any table game you can find; some skills are transferrable across many of them, after all.
Tim doesn’t get to play as much these days (it’s hard to find opponents at his level), but he still loves to think about the game and new things to try when he does get the chance. Writing them down for posterity always helps, so…here he is!