Growing up, I only ever had the two-in-one Atari paddle controllers (the kind labeled as "Tennis"). With these, you could have up to four players participate simultaneously. However this year I've also been made aware of the "Racing" variant of the paddle controllers which have only one paddle controller per cord. Why now?

Because recently, I got an Atari Flashback 4 for Christmas. It's pretty good and contains 75 games - and an Asteroids poster! It surprisingly has an official pause function which I've accidentally activated a few times... I guess I'll need to read the manual (or get help from the fine folks here at DP) to find out how to purposefully pause the games. Yet there's another change to the games: previously paddle-only games are now also compatible with joysticks. There's just one problem: the games were originally analog-controls-only before for a good reason! The joystick controls are too coarse for the fine tuning needed in things like Warlords or Atari Circus, causing misses and frustration... or hilarity, depending on the situation.

So I'm thinking of getting some paddle controllers for the Atari Flashback 4. Thus the questions: If you use two Racing controllers, is the one plugged into the second controller port seen as Player 2 or Player 3? Furthermore, do games work just fine mixing both Tennis and Racing ones (i.e. for three players)? Any good third-party paddle controllers? And which ones should be avoided?

Thanks for the info, all.