What are the best & worst forehand rubber types ?

[Bibi+]

I was wondering what was the best rubber for my forehand ?
Is it the smooth looking rubber or with dimples

[Tarlese]

First, let us look at al rubber types.
There are 4 rubber types in ITTF's version of Olympic TableTennis
1. Spinny inverted or smooth (called "in" on ITTF LARC )
2. Anti inverted or smooth (called "anti" on ITTF LARC )
3. Wide pips out (incorrectly called "short" pips & or incorretly called "out" on ITTF LARC )
4. Siim pips out (deceptively called "long" pips on ITTF LARC as there are no "long" pips in ITTF's version of Olympic TableTennis, since the official ban on long pips in ITTf since 1977 )

Theoretically speaking, for the forehand, wide pips ( incorrectly called short pips ) still is the king after 99 years of ITTF, though now with sponge (after almost 75 years of sponge since 1951 Vienna ) .

Why ?
The shortest distance between two points A & B is a straight line & not a curve
So if you can deliver the ball from Point A (the striker's racket) to Point B (to the receiver side) in a straight line with zero spin and maximum speed , you give the least time for the receiver to react in the fastest sport , in terms of ball travel distance.

The best rubber for this is a frictionless wide pips (with sponge) with largest possible width pips (& stiffness)

But this is not reality. How many shakehand players in history that you know have been dominant with forehand wide pips ?
I can think of only one at a consistent level Johnny Huang (The Chinese born Canadian) & Mattias Falck of Sweden comes extremely close.

Only the most talented natural born TableTennis players with lightening reflexes & talent can make it at least to national level using forehand wide pips. You need to be on top of the ball almost all the time and take it close to the highest point after bounce.
As soon as the ball start to drop and or you are caught backing away from the table , you are really dead meat using wide pips , especially the lower the level of your skill level .
There had been some World Champion penholders (men & women) using forehand wide pips. Whatever the reason it seems it may be a little bit easier for penholder to do this better.
And I am not aware of any American grip (Seemiller / Boggan) players with wide pips forehand. There may be handful of exceptions.
=============
So this brings us to the best practical forehand rubber (in this mostly forehand dominant sport of TableTennis) in the next post

[Tarlese]

So this brings us to the best possible forehand rubber all things considered.
TableTennis is probably more forehand dominant than most other racket sport (of course most players have delusions of grandeur of having an equally grate backhand especially having delusional fantasies of being like the best backhand pro players).

So that said , unless you the most talented & gifted enough to be able to use wide pips on your forehand, you are basically stuck with spinny inverted rubber as the default best rubber for your forehand. Spinny inverted rubbers are more forgiving to less talented in the sense that it lets you use (top) spin to pull the ball down on the other side of the table. So spinny inverted rubbers give the best error margins especially for the less talented or skilled amateurs to be able to still enjoy the sport.
This is also why the spinny inverted rubber is the most popular rubber in the sport today