I think that this rubber is very good for playing a traditional Chinese penhold style (short pips FH, optional inverted BH). Serving is quite spinny (especially compared to other short pips) but not as spinny as inverted. Chop-blocking is incredible, and allows you to return extremely spinny and confusing balls to the opponent. If you touch the ball lightly, you can create an antispin effect and give your opponent their own spin. If you dig into the sponge, you can create your own spin. Attacking the ball immediately after the bounce is really nice with this rubber. Punching the ball is very accurate and deceptive, especially with penhold.
I usually play with inverted rubber, and have used 802-40 as my first venture into the world of pips. A lot of the reason I like it is because it was easy to learn, coming from inverted rubber.
If you have experience with pips, or if you play with long pips / antispin, then 802-40 will probably feel very similar to inverted rubber.
In addition to 802-40, I've tried Spinfire, TSP Spectol, TSP Super Spinpips, Dawei 388D-1, and Butterfly Feint Long. 802-40 has been my favorite so far.
Spin: 802-40 is quite spinny for short pips. In order to get spin, you need to dig into the soft sponge. Chopping can create much more spin than brushing. Backspin is easy to do, and the soft sponge allows a lot of variation in backspin. A gentle push will create an empty ball, whereas a forceful push will create heavy backspin. If you can make these strokes look the same to your opponent, you can confuse them a lot. Backspin/sidespin serves are very easy to do. Topspin is harder to do than backspin, and you can't create heavy topspin. You need to brush very lightly to maximize contact time.
Disruptive/confusing effects: 802-40 maintains the ability to confuse opponents and play long-pips-style shots while simultaneously being able to create its own spin. For example, Spinfire is grippier and spinnier than 802-40, but loses out on a lot of the disruptive elements of pips because Spinfire is almost like inverted rubber. To me, 802-40 is the perfect balance -- it can play all types of shots. It can create spin or antispin, depending on how you use it. It can also return dead no-spin balls.
Speed: This rubber is not so fast, in terms of pips. The aspect of speed which is useful is the speed with which you can take the ball after the bounce. You can counterattack a topspin ball (and even get some countertopspin) immediately after the bounce, which can be very surprising to your opponent. This aspect of speed is much more useful than the literal speed at which the ball is moving (which is still pretty fast, but there are faster pips available).
Spin sensitivity: When dealing with heavy topspin loops, you have to be very careful. The ball will penetrate the sponge quite easily (because it is soft) and then the spin will be very potent. There are two options: either you must commit to countertopspin and try to smash the ball back, or you must try to touch the ball very softly to avoid digging into the sponge. If you block, you must block actively. Passive blocking will be very sensitive to spin.
Chopping: I would not recommend 802-40 for backhand chopping because it is so sensitive to spin. There are better options.
Product information
