Attacking against long pimples

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This is my first post not concerning the equipment but strategy :) I have some question about the game against long pimples opponent. I hate playing against them :/ I play with normal/inverted rubber on both sides. I'm a person who likes to play a backspin/chop and attack when I have a chance with topspin... is it like that: when I Play a backspin and the chopper plays a backspin too the ball comes back to me without any spin and I can attack it with a topspin? or the situation when I play a backspin and the chopper plays block/no spin the ball comes with a backspin too and I can't attack it? There is a video about this but I'm not sure I understand his accent correctly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EAHNaiIhnWM
 
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People will give lots of advice based on how they play vs pips.

All I am going to say is, you have to play against them enough to learn what you do well against them. And you need to be able to read what is coming back to you for yourself. Just having someone else tell you what is coming back won't fully help. You have to be able see it and understand it for yourself.

You should stop worrying about whether you win or lose. And understand, if you hit the ball into the net, you misread the spin. If you pop it up or hit it long, you misread the spin.

Pips players often are relying on you misreading the ball and making the mistakes. Don't worry when you mess up. Don't get frustrated. Don't care if you lost the point, the game or the match. Just keep trying to read the spin and understand what comes back and how that is based on what you give to the pips player.

Playing pips players is an opportunity to learn. The more you play then, the better you get at playing them.

There really is not short cut.


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A good tactic to try (to begin with) is to push, topspin, push, topspin.

The logic is this...

You push. The long pimples player pushes back. The ball comes back as float. You topspin. The long pimples player chops back. The ball comes back with heavy backspin. At this point, you could topspin again, but you really have to lift the ball up to counter the heavy backspin. This is hard work. An easier option is to push again. Then the long pimples player pushes and the ball comes back with float, giving an easier ball to topspin.

Topspin, push, topspin, push, topspin, push.

This takes discipline and patience, but it does help you to understand what spin is on the ball.

For some other tactics, look here: http://www.tabletenniscoach.me.uk/tactics-for-beating-a-long-pimples-player/
 
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What if I like to play a heavy backspin ball with my really soft grippy bh rubber? For example: if I play a heavy backspin and he plays a backspin...what happens
1: ....
and the second if I play a backspin and he pushes back what ball should come back?
2: ...
 
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What if I like to play a heavy backspin ball with my really soft grippy bh rubber? For example: if I play a heavy backspin and he plays a backspin...what happens
1: ....
and the second if I play a backspin and he pushes back what ball should come back?
2: ...

Following up on Carl's reply ...

there's one way to find out ;-)

Good luck to you!
 
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It isnt so easy to expect everything struck with LPs to come back opposite to same degree... LPs can kill spin too with right grip pressure.

Some lp players take it right off the bounce soft and kill spin short, some do other stuff.

Takes a lot of playing vs a lot of different lp surfaces and players before one gets better...

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What if I like to play a heavy backspin ball with my really soft grippy bh rubber? For example: if I play a heavy backspin and he plays a backspin...what happens
1: ....
and the second if I play a backspin and he pushes back what ball should come back?
2: ...
LP player in that case can do any thing from kill all your spin to bump hard and give back medium pace medium topspin to anything in between... Unless their stuff is frictionless.

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People will give lots of advice based on how they play vs pips.

All I am going to say is, you have to play against them enough to learn what you do well against them. And you need to be able to read what is coming back to you for yourself. Just having someone else tell you what is coming back won't fully help. You have to be able see it and understand it for yourself.

You should stop worrying about whether you win or lose. And understand, if you hit the ball into the net, you misread the spin. If you pop it up or hit it long, you misread the spin.

Pips players often are relying on you misreading the ball and making the mistakes. Don't worry when you mess up. Don't get frustrated. Don't care if you lost the point, the game or the match. Just keep trying to read the spin and understand what comes back and how that is based on what you give to the pips player.

Playing pips players is an opportunity to learn. The more you play then, the better you get at playing them.

There really is not short cut.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

The only thing I will add to this is that you should either practice with someone above your level or play matches with someone of your level or even better below. This is just to start. As you understand and watch better, you can play anyone. If you play matches against someone at a higher level all the time, things will happen too fast for you to figure out what is going on as you are playing the pips and the player and better players are better for a reason. If you practice with a better player, this is great as they can help you see what is happening in a controlled environment and can return your shots.
If you play matches, start with a lower rate for player so you can try things. Of they can't bring back your first loop, try to push more and see what happens but move on to a better player. You want a player who can bring back your first attack so you are forced to rally. This is where you learn the most. But you don't want the player to be so good that if you play matches, you have no clue what is going on.
 
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What if I like to play a heavy backspin ball with my really soft grippy bh rubber? For example: if I play a heavy backspin and he plays a backspin...what happens
1: ....
and the second if I play a backspin and he pushes back what ball should come back?
2: ...

Your question demonstrates that you would be helped by some theory on how LPs work. And that, for you, the real subject for this thread should have been: How Do Long Pimples Really Work?

The truth is, your video and TTTom did a decent job of answering the question. But you didn't understand the answer. And the answer is confusing so, it makes sense to me that you didn't understand.

Rather than trying to answer myself. I think I will point you in the direction of an excellent and very detailed answer to the entire subject of how pips work. I am not sure that anyone explains this better than DTop Spirit.

And guess what: with you in mind, DTop has written an in depth article called:

How Long Pimples Really Work

http://www.gregsttpages.com/articles3/53-articles/long-pimples/87-long-pimples-for-beginners

And if you wanted a comedy version that actually answers the question, watch this video:


What does a rubber with very little friction do. And how can a skilled pips player make it more complicated than the simple answers.



Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
 
just practice serving underspin against an lp player and then learn to attack topspin or no spin when it comes back. that is a good way to start on how to learn to attack against LP. you would need to adjust on how hard you would brush the ball.
 
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To answer your actual question most times if the pups player pushes to you - you cannot push it back. The ball will pop up and he will smash it.

It is a little more complicated because different LP rubbers are very different in how much spin of their own they can create, and how much they can reverse. But basically, when they push it is not enough backspin for you to push back, and could actually be topspin.

Somebody, maybe der, said if your shot goes bad then you misread their spin. That's true, and it's why you should play pips opponents as often as you can, because you will learn more and faster to read spin than playing against inverted all the time.
 
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just practice serving underspin against an lp player and then learn to attack topspin or no spin when it comes back. that is a good way to start on how to learn to attack against LP. you would need to adjust on how hard you would brush the ball.

I use to play with LPs and IMO there are different camps of type of LP players. Some of them largely just stick it out there and kinda block the ball. For these people, yes do that strategy.

Then there are some LP players who have practiced attacking backspin serves with their LPs which is very easy. These shots typically have more pace & placement but yes the same concept applies that it's topspin going back to them.

Because I didn't want to be too predictable as i saw people started to expect topspin going back to them, i because to aggressively jab at the ball with a pushing motion which would essentially deaden the ball and/or produce weird balls. Some people really struggled with this variation when they were always expecting topspin.

To the OP.

I don't play LPs anymore but my training partner who got a lot of practice vs me (kinda what NL was suggesting. practice a lot vs it). He would simply soft loop ball after ball getting them in while i chop blocked.

So it would be
me - chop block
him - soft loop (ie - high arching loop that clears the net easy and is actually really spiny. Key is this should be a shot you can hit in 9 times out of 10)
me - chop block with a ton of topspin coming in.

I eventually adapted thinking if there's this high arching topspin ball coming over, i need to step around that ball and attack it. Although you have to really close down on the angle because the soft spiny loop is easy to kick long.

Anyways, like I said, i don't play LPs anymore. But if I were you? I'd practice generating my own spin and seeing how many balls vs backspin you can loop in safely over & over. If the chopper pops one up too high? Then you go for a power loop. ie - a put away shot.
 
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Additionally to the things that were already posted I find it very effective to play with heavy underspin into the pips side. There are a lot of long pips players, even above USATT >2000, that have extreme difficulties dealing with heavy underspin. Against long pips players I make half of the points by attacking and the other half of the points by simply chopping everything back with huge amounts of backspin into his pips. Using a lot of wrist action hides a good amount of spin, therefore a lot of my opponent's balls land in the net. Chopping a no-spin or even light topspin ball above the table is not easy though and definitely advanced stuff. Another thing that makes this effective against a lot of defenders could be that they simply are not used to this.
 
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Additionally to the things that were already posted I find it very effective to play with heavy underspin into the pips side. There are a lot of long pips players, even above USATT >2000, that have extreme difficulties dealing with heavy underspin. Against long pips players I make half of the points by attacking and the other half of the points by simply chopping everything back with huge amounts of backspin into his pips. Using a lot of wrist action hides a good amount of spin, therefore a lot of my opponent's balls land in the net. Chopping a no-spin or even light topspin ball above the table is not easy though and definitely advanced stuff. Another thing that makes this effective against a lot of defenders could be that they simply are not used to this.

That makes sense, also on the serve. Some people assume that LP rubber is like magic wand for service return, but it is not. So serving super heavy short backspin occasionally can give free points.
 
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Just finished reading the article. Great one.. have to learn the patters of how the ball behaves when returning spin. Can you give me links to other must- read articles not only about long pimples? Some articles you read many years ago and the clues from them you can't forget :)
 
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