Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Der_Echte]

Will hit with TTD member Gene Tuttle in the WDTTC Giant Round Robin then plan on rolling up to NYC that Sat. night for moar tt mayhem. Tourney is this weekend.

Who is game? Thinking of Flushing Korean Club.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[Der_Echte]

Boogar. WTG on your recent ETS.

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[Nuke Skywalker]

Double inverted chopping continues to be fruitful. I now am more successful vs a select group of players that I am familiar with. Vs unknown players, I still tend to be more successful using pips. Still, if I trained this style I bet I'd develop consistency and a game plan vs new people. Serve return is a big x-factor, but my others strokes are better. Practice practice.

I'm not sure....With the capital area league and family stuff, and school...might not be able to.

I'd love to. I also feel like I shouldn't compete in any USATT sanctioned events until I develop more consistency with this double inverted experiement. I might joing with my normal setup LPs and all...

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Will hit with TTD member Gene Tuttle in the WDTTC Giant Round Robin then plan on rolling up to NYC that Sat. night for moar tt mayhem. Tourney is this weekend.

Who is game? Thinking of Flushing Korean Club.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

hmmm... may not get a free pass this weekeend from the family

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

nice swag Der!

 

[NextLevel]

My back was sore after Saturday but I did some looping on Sunday to our club champion junior. After reviewing the video, I was very unhappy with with my forehand loop. IT seemed to be losing the upper body rotation that I had worked so hard on with Brett while he was here. I think part of the problem is that I straighten my arm and try not to loop too hard. So I will fix that by trying to loop hard more often. Hopefully, my back will comply.

A guy moved into my area a couple of weeks ago - I had played him a couple of years ago at Westchester. He has a crazy off the table game (which our club settings don't let him take full advantage of). A strong forehand loop when he nails it as well. A serve that kicks heavily with sidespin but which I am learning a lot by trying to return in matches.

In any case, I posted video of our most recent encounter. I was beating him consistently for a while but he got his first win against me on Friday and got another win yesterday. Fun days are ahead. Here is our last match (I mess up the score - lol - wanted to win too quickly).

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

“If you don't know where you're going, you might wind up someplace else.”
- Yogi Berra

---------------------------------------

Didn't have a focus for last night before i headed to the club. Got there and changed, a father with a special needs son, asked me to hit with him. I blocked him for 5 mins last week when partner when to use the rest room. I blocked for him again for 30 mins. I wound up someplace else, but felt good to pay it forward. The father easily beats his wife as well as his son. Sometimes the father would play with others, but almost all the time, the partner would be trying to kill each shot as well as the father doing the same. I think i'm the only one who is blocks for him as well as being steady enough of a blocker to let him work his attacks. He thanked me for hitting with him.

Went to a different table and played E. Modern ph using sh racket with phantom on the backside... i hate junk rubber. The bane of me... last week, I lost to her 2 straight. Then eked out 2 wins to tie it. Then she had to leave and we called it a draw. Last night, she steamrolled me 3 zip. I sat for a break and watched M2 play E. M2 is 2300 tops... one of the highest level players there. Both he and E. knew that if he played his real game, she wouldn't get 5 pts. He didn't give her a handicap. When he played me a few wks ago, he spotted me 4 and wouldn't give me 5. I lost all games at ~8. M2 won, but scores were close as he was playing for fun as well as defensively giving E a chance to work her attacks.

Despite M2 winning, he let E be Queen of the table and i played her again. Lost 3-1. LOL at me. Old man memory, forgot how to play her until too late.

Hit with the woman ph i have been hitting with past 2x. She loops/hits and i block. Gives her a chance to work her attacks. Then she blocks and i looped the past 2x. Last night i smashed instead. In either the previous (3.0? 4.0?) NYC Goonsquad thread or my intro thread, Der or Carl described me as being able to smash/flat hit the ball when it is only a cm or 2 above net. Didn't want to believe their hype LOL, but last night we were going pretty well ... me smashing low balls with her steady blocking ... got to 5 to 7 balls before rally ended. Then thought to video us, asked her permission and she said ok. And then we didn't do so well for the camera lol

Hit with my regular partner next. Helped him try to get his loop going. He still doesn't have the stroke/form despite watching youtube.

Already hit/played for 3 hrs. Pretty tired. But played K next. Defensive sh with sidespin loop and sometimes bh smash. Lost to him 3-4x in past. Mostly me with unforced errors. Back in my prime, I generally would not lose to this type of player. Lost to him 3-1 last night. Got video of the match. Played horribly.

Lost a lot of points on unforced errors again. Serve wide to bh, punch to fh/down the line misses table is one of my staple tactics. My new (now old) Avalox is not like my old/favorite "Excalibur". He had some outright winners, mostly sidespin loops that i didn't adjust properly for. Didn't loop much, was pretty fatigued. After the set, 3.5 hrs at the club, time to force old man tired body to walk home for 25 mins LOL

In other news, phone was stuck in reboot loop. Repair shop took 9 days to figure it out. Got it back last night and coupled with my new Joby (configurable magnetic tripod - thanks to 42andbackpains for the reco!), i was able to video some of my playing. Got home and reconfigured my phone and didn't have time to trim videos.

Probably will post the vids despite playing horribly and fatigued. No excuses. It was what it was. Finally can prove to TTD CCers that I AM 1400!

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

NL,

Sent you a PM regarding D. Vila. He looks like someone I've played 2x at my old club, Wang Chen's. He killed me the first time I played him, early in my unretirement, I used my then backup blade, Avalox. 2nd time I played him was some months later when I gave up on the Avalox and went to my favorite old blade I call Excalibur. Eked out a win. IIRC, he had problems with my serves and during our pushing, i was able to get some extreme unexpected angles which set up my loops. I was able to smash some also.

Very tough player, i ate his serves a lot too. Was lucky to win the match vs him.

~osph

 

[NextLevel]

NL,

Sent you a PM regarding D. Vila. He looks like someone I've played 2x at my old club, Wang Chen's. He killed me the first time I played him, early in my unretirement, I used my then backup blade, Avalox. 2nd time I played him was some months later when I gave up on the Avalox and went to my favorite old blade I call Excalibur. Eked out a win. IIRC, he had problems with my serves and during our pushing, i was able to get some extreme unexpected angles which set up my loops. I was able to smash some also.

Very tough player, i ate his serves a lot too. Was lucky to win the match vs him.

~osph

Hahaha. A 1400 beating Mr Vila. That must have made his day. Or you are not 1400 - which do you think makes more sense?

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Hahaha. A 1400 beating Mr Vila. That must have made his day. Or you are not 1400 - which do you think makes more sense?

I believe aspects of his game elevated/facilitated the strengths of my game. I don't recall scores or how many games, only recall being lucky to win the match vs him. As you noted, his off the table game that night fell victim to my close to the table game of smashes and punches moving him side to side. Lucky to return more of his serves and he ate more of my serves.

But yeah, LOL at me ... i'm not 1400 now, but was 13 something in the early 1980's. LOL

 

[42andbackpains]

Hit the club Saturday, trained for 1 hour with my coach. 2nd week back from injury, took it at about 80 percent. Played a 1300 level player, beat her 3-1. Then was ask by one of the coaches to hit with prospective junior players, while the parents observed the club and spoke to the coach.

Hit the club Sunday, We hold a monthly tournament and i was directing traffic and breaking up the wars between parents, players and the wild animals.

Monday went to my regular massage therapist and did the regular hour with glass cupping.

Today Tuesday will fire off the mass e-mail for the first Friday Night League of the Year at our club.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Very cool 42&bp! Want you 100% healthy before you kill me 3 straight games ;-)

 

[Archosaurus]

Funny. Vila is doing what I've been doing lately when my block got better and I can read people's stronger shots and push some shots that I probably can't attack with my current ability.

I regarded blocking like that farther from the table as a mistake and pushing in a way that sets up the opponent's attack as a big mistake, and thought that the only reason I can get away with it is because I'm not playing against people with monstrous speed and spin. Yet here Vila is, not being blown off the table by NL's loops and controlling them in the same fashion that I control my opponents' shots. He is at a disadvantage, but you could argue that NL is also just higher level than him, so in that regard, he is doing very well IMO.

So what gives? Is he very used to NL's game? Was NL taking it easy? Are those not mistakes and are good shot selection? Is his ball reading simply higher level than we are led to believe?

EDIT: 4:38 for example. Why did you push his push, NL? To me it looks like you're just being nice to him and not looping it, but am I perhaps wrong? Although your push was quite deadly and probably a good shot against him given his problems with looping your pushes, it's still in a way a "mistake". Something that is not advised.

6:10. I'm thinking the exact same thing, lol.

I took a closer look at Vila's pushes. I might be wrong, but he's not always pushing heavy when it looks heavy, and most of his light looking pushes have pretty good spin on them. His brush loop touch is good, so I'm inclined to think he is just changing the spin around and causing mistakes from his blocks and pushes.

 

[NextLevel]

Mr Archo, you act like Jun Mizutani, Adrien Mattenet, Michael Maze, Patrick Chila and Stephen Ouaiche never existed.

Mr Vila's current official USATT rating is significantly higher than mine. He managed to beat a 2300+ player but I have not asked him what happened in that match. That result put him at his current official rating.

The thing is this - when push comes to shove, your job is to get the ball on the table one more time than the opponent - people often lose sight of this. Backing off increases the angles for those of us who hate to move, but if you are ready to sprint to cover the angles, you can simply back up and lob/fish. Do you notice that even at the highest levels, the smasher does sometimes lose the point and even at the highest levels, the smasher often has to hit more than two or three smashes?

Of course, this is "bad" table tennis and it's part of the reason why I can beat him more often than he beats me or why OSP can give him issues by creating unusual angles at the table. The club we play at doesn't play to his strengths - at Westchester for example, the roof is much higher so he could throw up higher lobs and fishes that would give me different issues and could also play further back from the table on some courts.

I was at Lily Yip once and Tahl Leibovitz was playing a junior rated about 200 pts below him (probably even more vs Tahl's peak). The junior was creaming Tahl in topspin rallies and went up 2-0 pretty fast. Tahl backed off the table and started chopping to the junior with his inverted rubbers and Clipper blade. He came back and won that match. I've also seen XX struggling with CCY in a match trying to play fast and close to the table. I kid you not, Xu Xin started stepping back and hitting his heavy topspin middistance loops and that threw CCY off and changed the tone of the match completely.

As long as you accept your game for what it is, you can play TT however you want to.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Agreed NL. I'm getting older and slower, and not physically fit lol... i can't smash them all. Wang Chen's club had the ceiling space, but not the distance side to side. At my current club, smashers have advantage over lobbers as there are banners everywhere. So I get to smash more than partners lobbing But on pro levels, there's way too much space everywhere for a table.

I really got lucky vs Mr. Vila. Very cool, congrats to him!

 

[NextLevel]

Agreed NL. I'm getting older and slower, and not physically fit lol... i can't smash them all. Wang Chen's club had the ceiling space, but not the distance side to side. At my current club, smashers have advantage over lobbers as there are banners everywhere. So I get to smash more than partners lobbing But on pro levels, there's way too much space everywhere for a table.

I really got lucky vs Mr. Vila. Very cool, congrats to him!

Not arguing you didn't get lucky but legit 1400 players don't get THAT lucky vs legit 2000 players - whatever I think of Mr Vila, he is a legit 2000 player - his official rating is too high as even he would admit, but he plays competitive matches against 2000 players and can obviously beat them.

 

[Archosaurus]

Perhaps I'm over-estimating my opponent and other people. I know I miss "easy" balls sometimes, too. I've seen top level pros miss "easy balls".

In theory, blocking like that is a bad idea. However real life seems to mostly run on probabilities and everything is in a state of chaos, so it's not so simple. After all, people are playing against people in this sport.

 

[NextLevel]

EDIT: 4:38 for example. Why did you push his push, NL? To me it looks like you're just being nice to him and not looping it, but am I perhaps wrong? Although your push was quite deadly and probably a good shot against him given his problems with looping your pushes, it's still in a way a "mistake". Something that is not advised.

6:10. I'm thinking the exact same thing, lol.

Since you can't speak to a CNT player to get an explanation of why they did what they did but I am here to explain, let me explain so that you can see how you might not be seeing what the player is thinking.

At 4:38, that ball is loaded with (side) backspin even if it is high. I can tell because I know what I served and I can tell that the response likely means he dug into the ball. The problem is that my forehand flick, footwork and recovery against that kind of ball is a weakness and Mr Vila's defense is good enough that if I attack that ball, I can get a block back into me while I am over the table. So my instinct is to let him deal with the backspin since he is not great at attacking backspin himself and stay in the point - I could play a similar point differently against the same or a different opponent, especially with a coach telling me to be more aggressive. You can see that the ball floated so heavily that he couldn't time it because it was loaded with backspin.

At 6:10, that was intended to be a backhand loop but the ball came in at an angle that signaled it was going to be deeper and thus heavier than I expected it to be so I used a racket angle adjustment to hit it over the net just like I used to do when I was 1700 and lower before I started backhand looping. If I was further back from the table and not jammed, I would have looped that ball properly but I just rolled it so to speak.

It's not going to be easy for a young healthy teenager/adult to understand what it's like for arthritic players with knee and back issues to play. So don't think too hard about it.

 

[OldschoolPenholder]

Not arguing you didn't get lucky but legit 1400 players don't get THAT lucky vs legit 2000 players - whatever I think of Mr Vila, he is a legit 2000 player - his official rating is too high as even he would admit, but he plays competitive matches against 2000 players and can obviously beat them.

i have some idea of 1600 or 1800 or 2000 ... i really don't think i'm 1600 or more. definitely not 2000. One day we may meet at a secret Goon Squad death mission via the Brooklyn Bridge to an undisclosed location near the Bat Cave where no spyphones will work, and you tell me LOL

 

[NextLevel]

Perhaps I'm over-estimating my opponent and other people. I know I miss "easy" balls sometimes, too. I've seen top level pros miss "easy balls".

In theory, blocking like that is a bad idea. However real life seems to mostly run on probabilities and everything is in a state of chaos, so it's not so simple. After all, people are playing against people in this sport.

You need to remember that both players are legitimately over 1900 USATT, forget everything else. I can play like Mr Vila against certain kinds of 1600 or lower level players. I was at Westchester when Bojan Tokic came. Bojan Tokic was beating most of the players by pushing and floating and blocking the ball. And when I spoke to a high level friend, he said that Bojan Tokic was notorious for having a relatively weak touch game. In other words, Tokic was beating most of the players at Westchester in the Open (2500+) playing them with his weakness.

Easy balls are relative and ball quality matters a lot. When I touch the ball, the amount of action on the ball is much higher than some of your best loops. You may not realize this, and you may not believe it, but it is true. Same for Mr Vila. His touch and timing is just better than yours and while yours may catch up one day, he can do more with his timing and touch than you can if you threw yourself into the ball. It's just part of table tennis practice and experience.