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27-850: The United States Table Tennis Association was created in 1933. The phrase "Table Tennis" was created because the name "Ping Pong" had already been trademarked by Parker Brothers . Though the legal name of the USATT remains the "United States Table Tennis Association, Inc.", the non-profit corporation adopted "USA Table Tennis" as their d/b/a name effective 1994. Although about 19 million Americans play for recreation, USATT has only about 14,000 members, as of November 2024. There are two main membership types, associate and general. General members can participate in USATT sanctioned events and leagues with no additional rating fees while associate members have no membership fee but may not participate in USATT sanctioned leagues and can pay per USATT sanctioned event. The pricing for

54-590: A joint partnership with Milton Bradley in the United States and Canada), and Probe . The trade name became defunct with former products being marketed under the "Hasbro Gaming" label, with the logo shown on Monopoly games. Parker Brothers was founded by George Swinnerton Parker . Parker's philosophy deviated from the prevalent theme of board game design; he believed that games should be played for enjoyment and did not need to emphasize morals and values. He created his first game, called Banking , in 1883 when he

81-430: A player can interrupt the game and ask another player (who has at least five unexposed cards) if his word is a specific word. If successful, the inquiring player earns the point value of all unexposed cards, plus 100 bonus points. If incorrect, the inquiring player loses 50 points. When only one player has unexposed cards, the game continues for two rounds, excluding the player with unexposed cards. If that fails to reveal

108-453: A profit of $ 100. Parker founded his game company, initially called the George S. Parker Company, in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts in 1883. When George's brother Charles joined the business in 1888, the company's name was changed to its more familiar form. In 1898 a third brother, Edward H. Parker, joined the company. For many years, George designed most of the games himself, and wrote all

135-490: A secret chosen word. But unlike Hangman, the game ends when the last word, not the first word, is revealed. All players remain in the game until the end. It was created by Ted Leavitt and licensed by him to Parker Brothers. The original game set includes four plastic display racks and four decks of 96 cards. Each card has either one letter or a blank on it. Each deck has 5 each of A, S, blank;  3 each of B, H, P, W, Y;  2 each of J, Q, V, X, Z;  and 4 each of all

162-629: A time when many companies went out of business, Parker Brothers released a new board game called Monopoly . Although the company had originally rejected the game in 1934, they decided to publish it the next year. It was a success, and the company had difficulty keeping up with demand. The company continued to grow throughout the next several decades, producing games including Cluedo (released as Clue in North America), Risk , and Sorry! Parker Brothers marketed its first jigsaw puzzle in 1887. Parker also produced children's puzzles, as well as

189-858: A year for adults is $ 75 while for juniors and collegians is $ 45. There are over 300 table tennis clubs affiliated with USATT, almost 50 of which are in California . There are almost 450 USATT Certified Coaches in the United States . Started in 1931, the annual U.S. Open is the oldest table tennis event in the United States . It attracts over 600 athletes annually. The U.S. Open has been previously held in various locations, including Anaheim , California ; Charlotte , North Carolina ; Chicago , Illinois ; Las Vegas , Nevada and Fort Lauderdale , Florida . Past Menʼs Singles champions include Chen Weixing and Aleksandar Karakašević . Past Womenʼs Singles champions include Zhang Mo and Li Jiawei . The 2010 U.S. Open

216-406: Is a parlor game or board game introduced in the 1960s by Parker Brothers . It is reminiscent of the simple two-person game Hangman , whose object is to guess a word chosen by another player by revealing specific letters. Probe extends the number of players to a maximum of four and introduces additional game elements that increase the levels of both skill and chance. Like Hangman, each player has

243-655: Is closed to non-citizens of the United States. In addition, the U.S. Nationals along with two other national ranking tournaments determine the members selected USA Table Tennis Adult, Cadet, and Junior Teams. Over 750 athletes registered for the 2017 U.S. Nationals, which were held in Las Vegas , Nevada . Past Men's Singles champions include Kanak Jha, Eric Owens and David Zhuang and past Women's Singles champions include Lily Zhang, Jasna Reed and Wang Chen . As of 2021 World Championships Parker Brothers Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America)

270-399: Is for the turn-holder to first draw from a deck of "activity" cards, which adds an element of luck, such as "Take an additional turn" or "Triple the value of your first guess". Another option is to designate one player to keep track of the "no" answers that occur during play, so that turns aren't wasted on redundant inquiries, and there are no disputes at the end. At any time during the game,

297-474: The American Greetings franchises, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake . The branch published twelve titles by February 1984; sales of these books totaled 3.5 million units. Parker Brothers also operated a record label around the same time; one of its releases, based on Coleco 's Cabbage Patch Kids and involving Tom and Stephen Chapin titled Cabbage Patch Dreams , was certified Gold by

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324-717: The Milton Bradley Company . Following the acquisition, Parker Brothers continued to have its corporate offices in Beverly, but production of the games were moved to Milton Bradley's headquarters in East Longmeadow . In 1998, Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley were consolidated at the new Hasbro Games campus (based in the former address of Parker Brothers' headquarters) to merge together and form Hasbro Games. Milton Bradley and Parker Bros. subsequently turned into two separate brands of Hasbro before being retired in 2009 in favor of

351-582: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 1984. In 1985, General Mills merged the company with their subsidiary Kenner ; this new company, Kenner Parker Toys Inc., was acquired by Tonka in 1987. In 1988, Parker Brothers struck a deal with Martindale/Gilden Productions to develop television game shows, such as Boggle . Tonka, including Parker Brothers, was bought in 1991 for about $ 516 million by Hasbro which also owned

378-519: The Climax, Jig-A-Jig, Jig Wood, and Paramount lines. According to Jigsaw Puzzles: An Illustrated History and Price Guide , by Anne D. Williams, Parker Bros. closed the Pastime line in the 1950s and their die-cut puzzles were phased out in the late 1970s. Even after George Parker's death, the company remained family-owned until 1968 when General Mills purchased the company. After this, Parker Brothers produced

405-462: The Hasbro brand. Parker Brothers had a reputation for quality family-oriented and licensed games. The company released Merlin in 1978, and sold 700,000 units before Christmas and had a sales total of $ 100 million in 1979. It began to produce electronic versions of popular Parker Brothers board games in the late 1970s. The company ventured into the toy market with the electronic action figure , Rom

432-740: The Spaceknight , in 1979. Although the toy proved a failure, the licensed comic book published by Marvel Comics ran for years after the toy was discontinued. Parker Brothers spent $ 50,000 to reverse-engineer Atari's hardware to produce its own cartridges. The company was able to obtain the license for Star Wars game as Kenner Products was also owned by General Mills. Parker Brothers earned $ 74 million from cartridge sales between June and December 1982. Other Parker Brothers video games included many popular arcade games such as Konami 's Frogger , Nintendo 's Popeye , and Gottlieb games such as Q*bert and Reactor . Probe (parlor game) Probe

459-530: The first Nerf ball. In the UK during the 1970s, Parker Brothers sold the rights of some games to the games division of Palitoy (also a General Mills company), and produced a variety of releases such as Escape from Colditz . In 1977, the company built its headquarters in Beverly, Massachusetts . In early 1983, Parker Brothers spent US$ 15 million establishing a book publishing branch; their first titles featured

486-434: The letter cards with strips of paper on which the letters are written, and doors snap into place to cover them. In the most basic form of the game, the turn-holding player asks any other player if he has a particular letter of the alphabet hidden on his display rack. If the answer is "no", play simply passes to the next player in sequence. Otherwise, the player turns up any one card showing that letter, and play continues for

513-417: The other letters.  Each display rack can hold up to twelve cards, with a point value assigned to each card position: 5-10-15-15-10-5-5-10-15-15-10-5. The cards are used to spell out each player's secret word face-down on one of the racks. For words less than 12 letters, blank cards may be used at one or both ends of the word to disguise its true length.  Game version #202, introduced in 1976, replaces

540-564: The rules. Many games were based on important events of the day: Klondike was based on the Klondike Gold Rush , and War in Cuba was based on the impending Spanish–American War . The game industry was growing, and the company was becoming very profitable. In 1906, Parker Brothers published the game Rook and it became the bestselling game in the country. During the Great Depression ,

567-444: The turn-holder, who may address another question to the same player or switch to a different player. His turn ends when he finally gets a "no" answer. If any cards were turned up, the point values underneath them are added to turn-holder's score. If any were the last card of a word, a 50-point bonus is added. If the turn ended by asking for a blank (and hearing "no"), a 50-point penalty is assessed. An optional way to start each turn

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594-404: The word, the values of the remaining cards and the 50-point bonus go to the excluded player. If two people play the game and each uses two display racks, then a player can turn up a requested letter in either word. Words are required to be regular words of the language played by the participants, and not include proper names or trademarks. The rules are similar to Scrabble. The 1972 retail price

621-503: Was 16. Banking is a game in which players borrow money from the bank and try to generate wealth by guessing how well they could do. The game includes 160 cards which foretell their failure or success. The game was so popular among family and friends that his brother, Charles Parker, urged him to publish it. George approached two Boston publishers with the idea, but was unsuccessful. Not discouraged, he spent $ 40 to publish 500 sets of Banking . He eventually sold all but twelve copies, making

648-508: Was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro . More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products were Monopoly , Clue (licensed from the British publisher and known as Cluedo outside of North America), Sorry! , Risk , Trivial Pursuit , Ouija , Aggravation , Bop It , Scrabble (under

675-722: Was an aficionado of classical music; Leavitt enticed him that summer to Maine, where his uncle was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra , by offering him a chance to meet Monteux. Eighteen years later, in 1981, annual sales were 200,000 units per year, and Leavitt had lived in Spain for 15 years from the royalty income, which was $ 0.225 per game sold. Some years his annual royalties came to $ 45,000 ($ 151,000 in 2023 dollars). Games magazine included Probe in their "Top 100 Games of 1980", praising it as "a classic" even though at that time players wrote words on paper "instead of using

702-499: Was approximately US $ 6.00. Ted Leavitt, a sometime salesman, ship's purser, actor, World War II Marine veteran, and theatrical producer, became frustrated with some of the limitations he saw in Scrabble and devised Probe specifically to get around them. To bring his finished creation to the attention of Parker Brothers, he enlisted the services of his uncle, the notable French conductor Pierre Monteux . A vice president of Parker Brothers

729-702: Was held at the DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids , MI , between June 29 and July 3 . The Men's Singles champion was Sharath Kamal of India and the Women's Singles champion was Georgina Pota of Hungary . The 2011 U.S. Open was held in Milwaukee , Wisconsin . The Men's Singles champion was Thomas Keinath of Slovakia . The Women's Singles Champion was Nai Hui Liu of New Jersey . The U.S. Nationals have been held since 1976. The tournament

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