Oliver Walzer is interested in two things: girls and ping-pong. He fashions a ping-pong paddle out of a hardcover copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and begins his double life: ping-pong champion by day, insecure teenager by night.

Oliver joins the ping-pong team at the Akiva Social Club and meets some like-minded players: Aishky Mistofsky, the team’s accident-prone driver; Sheeny Waxman, a smooth talker who goes into business with Oliver’s father; Twink Starr, a dogged athlete who is drafted into the army; and the Marks brothers, who bicker constantly. With the Akiva team, Oliver rockets to the top of the local league and sets his sights on national competitions. He even meets girls: Sabine, a neighbor who seduces Sheeny and Oliver at the same time, and Lorna, an alluring ping-pong champion. Oliver soon learns the thrill of losing --- he enjoys losing to Lorna more than beating her. But he winds up marrying Sabine, the Jewish girl-next-door who guarantees him a miserable home life. Oliver flees his ping-pong career and becomes a second-rate professor in Venice, where he has plenty of time to reminisce about the days when he was the Mighty Walzer --- or was he the So-So Walzer, a boy who wanted to lose as much as he wanted to win?