Next area to focus on improvement

[James Z]

Defense? Didn't hear you mention that at all. How are your blocks? Can you lob and fish? What is your plan when your opponent gets the upper hand in a point and you are forced back from the table?

It will change the outcome of many matches if you can steal one or two points per game which your opponent was set up to win after their first attack.

It is not clear which exact post you are answering to. If you (or anyone else in forums) are responding (or more like flame viciously in your case) to another post, I suggest you don't use the reply button on the left., please use the reply to BRS's post button on extreme right (Highlighted in blue) . This will help readers understand better as to which & whose exact post in the thread you are referring to. You post in all forums and I thought you knew this . Oh Well .

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[Michael Zhuang]

And having seen a small amount of footage, my thoughts were that, if you learned more about game strategy, this would up your level, from where you are, more than most things I can think of.

BTW: I think that is some of what Lula is describing and since Lula is the only person on here that I know of who is a real solid coach, it is worth trying to understand what he is talking about. He is also, most likely the highest level player commenting in this thread.

That being said, choosing some of your weaknesses and focusing on improving them is fine in my book. But the tactics that will make it so you are playing to your strengths in points, is really very valuable to learn.

I wish there was some type of virtual media tool that put you in the eyes of a receiver and had a opponent do many serves to you. Then it would give you some analysis of the spin and length of the serve and give recommended options for how to return the serve.

If I saw like 100 of these serves a day, I think I could become an excellent returner.

 

[Jslick89]

I wish there was some type of virtual media tool that put you in the eyes of a receiver and had a opponent do many serves to you. Then it would give you some analysis of the spin and length of the serve and give recommended options for how to return the serve.

If I saw like 100 of these serves a day, I think I could become an excellent returner.

You don't need a virtual media tool, you just need a partner that can serve well with a lot of variations. Also, I would be weary of saying you are an 1800 level player if you live in the united states but don't actually have a rating. Go play in tournaments. See what rating you end up getting after your first 3-5.

 

[James Z]

I wish there was some type of virtual media tool that put you in the eyes of a receiver

This was one of the biggest disputed issues about the two-color rule of 1983. Players who did not want to bother to train themselves to read Cai Zhenhua's high toss serves complained that they could not read his serve because they did not know whether he hit the ball with anti or spinny side & lost points due to many silly errors. To some extent it was justified from spectator point of view but this was more political than technical. .
But my point is that, if you are training against a fully randomizing multi head robot to learn to return serves, do you complain that which head of the robot spit the ball? Do you complain that one feed head should be black & other red or other 4 colors. ?

But that was 1983. things have changed a lot. since then, I do not buy the sorry claim that your opponent really watches every time as to which side of your racket you hit the ball with. Very few players can or do even during your opponent's serves.

This is why I always recommend learning to read the spin not based on which side of the racket your opponent hit the ball with. But base on the bounce and ball flight pattern & other behaviors of the ball and not the sorry sad excuse that you did not see which side your opponent hit the ball with black or red etc) .

I honestly doubt pros try to watch every time what side (color) the ball is coming from. they have superior sense & feel for the ball spins nowadays as compared to in the 80's. I have objected to the two-color rule only in the context of other crazy rules against defenders and not by itself as a standalone.

This is why I always recommend investing in a truly randomizing high end robot to players who ask my advice on what robot to buy. Other programmable robots may be good enough (& are in fact needed) for other drills & training. But if you want to develop your skills the best to read serves and other incoming serve spins & rally spins (to simulate not looking at your opponent's racket) you need a (multiheaded) fully randomizing robot.

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[James Z]

See what rating you end up getting after your first 3-5.

Why (bother earning a real rating with real wins) ?
A new member can easily get a very high rating after their very first tournament using USATT's little known fake ratings program now on sale for free for any new member.
A 5 star tournament like US Open is the best place to do this where you will have the highest rated players at least in USA.

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[Jslick89]

Why (bother earning a real rating with real wins) ?
A new member can easily get a very high rating after their very first tournament using USATT's little known fake ratings program now on sale for free for any new member.
A 5 star tournament like US Open is the best place to do this where you will have the highest rated players at least in USA.

lol what is this program? A low rated player who has never played in a tournament signs up for 1 or 2 high rated events? Even their losses to high rated players would still earn them a high rating? Is that the concept?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

lol what is this program? A low rated player who has never played in a tournament signs up for 1 or 2 high rated events? Even their losses to high rated players would still earn them a high rating? Is that the concept?

That does happen. If you lose to everyone and the lowest rated player you lose to is 2100, they could end up giving you a 2000 rating. But as soon as you play someone who is 1700, if you lose to them, they will readjust your level down to be lower than that. Then if you play a 1500 level player and lost to him, you will get radjusted down again. In the end, the system only works if you play enough matches with players you are actually competitive with so your rating adjusts and starts reflecting your actual level.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

This is why I always recommend learning to read the spin not based on which side of the racket your opponent hit the ball with. But base on the bounce and ball flight pattern & other behaviors of the ball....

This is a really excellent point and it is how people should be trying to read the spin on the ball. Contact point only shows you so much and you can be deceived by what you think is the contact point but topspin, backspin any version of sidespin, "no-spin" the arc, the bounce of the ball, the curve of the ball, those things can always be observed if you are paying attention.

 

[James Z]

That does happen. If you lose to everyone and the lowest rated player you lose to is 2100, they could end up giving you a 2000 rating.

Not "could" happen. It has actually happened. There are scores of instances like this . All you need to do is goto
https://usatt.simplycompete.com/t/search
Then browse various touranamenst such as US Nationals 2022 etc.
Search for players with zero wins & see what their assiged ratings are.after the tournament.

But as soon as you play someone who is 1700, if you lose to them, they will readjust your level down to be lower than that.

Not anymore. It looks like they no longer use the 4 pass system which did readjustmenst in teh first pass if you gain or lose more than 50 points
It looks like they are using the single pass system used by USATT League system, where there are no adjustments.

Also if it was me and get a high fake rating, I will never ever play in USATT sanctioned tournaments ever again. I will just play ONLY in unsanctoned tournaments and I will be a higher seed using my last high rating from USATT. I wil look like a pro & will have lot of women groupies who will follow me & crave for me. (And all the men will seek advice from me on both tabletennis & non-tabletennis issues & believe whatever I say as gospel)

As a matterof fact there are probbaly 1000s of players who quit once they reach their highest rating usually 2000. My aunt's nephew is also guilty of this too.He broke 2000 with a memorable win beating a 2150 player after trailing 12-20 in deciding game.Before thaIhe was stuck around 1950 for about 7 tournaments. then he thought this is as good as he will ever get & started only playing doubles. Then hee started killing few 2000 players in in leagues & decided to check his luck again in singles & broke 2100 after beating a player who was a Craibbean Junior team member & the current USATT CEO when she was on USA team . Then he lost to Jorgen Persson's then brother in law. (Which was actually very infuriating for him because though Persson's brother in law was such a nice guy, it was not fair that he got to be over 2100 just practising with Persson & to top it off he was also a post doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, life is not fair) .
After that he just started to play only in Open singles against 2600+ players. This was like a better way of taking a lesson from those 2600+ players because if you just take a lesson from a 2600+ player they will just lower their levelto make you lookgood so you will take more lessons.

There is a huge stigma attachd to your current rating even if you were a very high level player many years ago. This is why I have proposed to USATT many times to call only the highest rating of a player as rating and current rating something else such as such Transient Performance Index (TPI) or something (but still use the TPI to assign seedings)


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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[Brs]

It is not clear which exact post you are answering to. If you (or anyone else in forums) are responding (or more like flame viciously in your case) to another post, I suggest you don't use the reply button on the left., please use the reply to BRS's post button on extreme right (Highlighted in blue) . This will help readers uderstand better as to which & whose exact post in the thread you are referring to. You post in all forums and I thought you knew this . Oh Well .

I was replying to the OP. It seems unnecessary to quote it when everyone in the thread is replying directly to the OP. I can understand why this strange behavior of answering the OP might confuse you, sorry for that.

 

[Lula]

I wish there was some type of virtual media tool that put you in the eyes of a receiver and had a opponent do many serves to you. Then it would give you some analysis of the spin and length of the serve and give recommended options for how to return the serve.

If I saw like 100 of these serves a day, I think I could become an excellent returner.

I think it is important to play against a lot of different opponents so playing a league and tournaments would be great to learn to return well. But again, what do you want for a ball? a "good return" for me do not have to be a "good return" for you. I also believe it is good to try to never do the same mistake twice when returning and try different ways(angles, against with the spin) and practicing a lot of serves yourself will probably help you to understand and read the spin of the opponent.

Good luck and keep up the hard work.

 

[Lula]

I wish there was some type of virtual media tool that put you in the eyes of a receiver and had a opponent do many serves to you. Then it would give you some analysis of the spin and length of the serve and give recommended options for how to return the serve.

If I saw like 100 of these serves a day, I think I could become an excellent returner.

I think it is important to play against a lot of different opponents so playing a league and tournaments would be great to learn to return well. But again, what do you want for a ball? a "good return" for me do not have to be a "good return" for you. I also believe it is good to try to never do the same mistake twice when returning and try different ways(angles, against with the spin) and practicing a lot of serves yourself will probably help you to understand and read the spin of the opponent. Edit: maybe try to color the ball?

Good luck and keep up the hard work.

 

[Jslick89]

Not "could" happen. It has actually happened. There are scores of instances like this . All you need to do is goto
https://usatt.simplycompete.com/t/search
Then browse various touranamenst such as US Nationals 2022 etc.
Search for players with zero wins & see what their assiged ratings are.after the tournament.

Not anymore. It looks like they no longer use the 4 pass system which did readjustmenst in teh first pass if you gain or lose more than 50 points
It looks like they are using the single pass system used by USATT League system, where there are no adjustments.

Also if it was me and get a high fake rating, I will never ever play in USATT sanctioned tournaments ever again. I will just play ONLY in junsanctoned tournaments and I will be a higher seed using my last high rating from USATT. I wil look like a pro & will have lot of women groupies who will follow me & crave for me. (And all the men will seek advice from me on both tabletennis & non-tabletennis issues & believe whatever I say as gospel)

As a matterof fact there are probbaly 1000s of players who quit once they reach their highest rating usually 2000. My aunt's nephew is also guilty of this too.He broke 2000 with a memorable win beating a 2150 player after trailing 12-20 in deciding game.Before thaIhe was stuck around 1950 for about 7 tournaments. then he thought this is as good as he will ever get & started only playing doubles. Then hee started killing few 2000 players in in leagues & decided to check his luck again in singles & broke 2100 after beating a player who was a Craibbean Junior team member & the current USATT CEO when she was on USA team . Then he lost to Jorgen Persson's then brother in law. (Which was actually very infuriating for him because though Persson's brother in law was such a nice guy, it was not fair that he got to be over 2100 just practising with Persson & to top it off he was also a post doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, life is not fair) .
After that he just started to play only in Open singles against 2600+ players. This was like a better way of taking a lesson from those 2600+ players because if you just take a lesson from a 2600+ player they will just lower their levelto make you lookgood so you will take more lessons.

There is a huge stigma attachd to your current rating even if you were a very high level player many years ago. This is why I have proposed to USATT many times to call only the highest rating of a player as rating and current rating something else such as such Transient Performance Index (TPI) or something (but still use the TPI to assign seedings)

lol where are these TT groupies you speak of? If there was such a thing, as soon as they saw you play a match with your artificially high rating against a superior opponent, they would no longer be your groupie once they see you are so clearly outclassed. I do agree that some players only get a higher rating because perhaps they get lucky against beating a higher rated player. My very own coach said the only reason he ever made it to 2400+ USATT rating is because he had a few good tournaments where he beat some 2500+ rated players.

This same reason is why I can't help but shake my head at this older player in my club who is now only rated 1200 (was at one point rated 1650 in our club) and says he doesn't care about the club ratings because his USATT rating is 1700. I feel like his club rating is more accurate than his USATT rating since he only plays one USATT tournament a year, and his rating was earned in USATT years ago when he was younger and better. As others have said, the ELO system only works if you are consistently playing against a variety of players to find your true score. Not the one and done like you have referred to as some players doing.

 

[Der_Echte]

No, the groupies are in hiz mind or in version 23.0 of Grand Theft Auto.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

lol where are these TT groupies you speak of?

It is sad. But I do actually know a couple of people who did exactly what is described and got a rating in the 1800-1900 ranges and just never played another tournament to be able to say claim that was their rating. But a real tournament player won't do that. And the people who I know who have done that would probably wind up somewhere between 1100-1400 if they played enough for their rating to reflect their level.

But nobody who is actually that level would even think for a moment that these guys are anything but what they are.

 

[James Z]

It is sad. But I do actually know a couple of people who did exactly what is described and got a rating in the 1800-1900 ranges and just never played another tournament to be able to say claim that was their rating. But a real tournament player won't do that. And the people who I know who have done that would probably wind up somewhere between 1100-1400 if they played enough for their rating to reflect their level.

But nobody who is actually that level would even think for a moment that these guys are anything but what they are.

I may be wrong on this but in most cases fake ratings happen because TD (tournament directors)s assign intital ratings. In all fairness this is not just USATT ratings but Ratings Central also has TDs assigning initial ratinsg though they claim they use some fancy formula (they call it a "law") but I doubt if any TD really cares about that. Many TDs are not really qualified to assign initial ratings & some other may even show biases assigning higher initial ratings for their club members etc,

When I ran the USATT League (one of the biggest) I was on the conservative side. I had players complain & I even had a 2200 player from Europe for first time & he had to play in 5 th division before he moved upto 2nd or 3rd (or sometimes 1st division) during his subsequent visits

They need to have some sort of rule that you need minimum 3 or 4 or preferably 5 wins (against players with existing ratings & not other new unrated members) before you will be assigned a rating. TD's should advise all new members of this restriction and explainto them that they need to have some real wins to get a rating & that they should play only in events where they can acieve these 5 wins the fastest. If you play in USATT tournaments and have 0 wins, your rating should show Pending or something . The pending should be a hyperlink or at least a tool tip that pops up & explains when a rating will become available. This would provide new players some new goals as incentive to play in more tournaments as well (But I think USATT is giveing out high fake ratings like candy because they think this would make new members play in more tournaments. From a marketing perspective it makes some sense & I think that is why USATT is actrually running this (sort of) scam doing this but this is very unfair to existing members who have real ratings earned with real wins)
In tabletennis most players are legends in their own minds & play in much higher rated events in their firsttournaments & get a fake rating as happens now

I do not know how long this has been going on in USATT or rating Central etc.

This applies to leagues as well. I can hold a new fake league in my garage & assign myself 1200 and my wife 1300 ,my son 1400 & my daughter 1500 and my friends like 1400 to 1600 and submit teh results. Everyone will have a high rating though we are all like 600 rating. There should be some requirement that at least some players in new leagues have USATT tournament ratings .
Of course players can cheat because I could have a 2200 USATT rating and lost to my son with a 1100 initial rating but f someone wants to sandbag,there is no way to prevent that..

My biggest issue with new members obtaining fake ratings is that
1. It destabilize the whole ratings database. USATT ratings are just a complete joke now
3. There is no point in playing USATT tournament & getting a real rating by earning some real wins.

Of course I know no rating system can ever be even close to perfect & there is no way to close every loophole when unethical players "game" the system.
But really bad errors like above can be fixed & must be fixed.

I think there is a USATT rule that says new members cannot advance past initial round robin. But more and more TDs are ignoring this rule & letting new players advance past initial round robin. To me letting players advance makes more sense because if the TD had indeed estimated the rating of the new player reasobaly close enough, I do not see any reason why new new members cannot advance ,mostly because this may result in a more accurate rating for a new member. Personally I do not care if a new member advances.If they beat me, they beat me. I cannot complain about it & I haveto be good sport about it.

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[James Z]

I was replying to the OP. It seems unnecessary to quote it when everyone in the thread is replying directly to the OP. I can understand why this strange behavior of answering the OP might confuse you, sorry for that.

If it was me , Would have quoted the OP asking "What should be the next natural area of development to improve on?" when you replied to the OP if I wanted to communicate that more clearly ,especially when you are responding in tehmiddle of a long thread
Hey but that is me .

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[James Z]

WRONG FOCUS! What are you good at? work more on those. Then find ways how to serve,return and play to get to your strenghts and practise on those. Good luck.

Not always. For example, you focus more on your straight up top spin forehand loop if that is your strength, But the % time spent on that will start to decrease steadily (at varying rates for different players depending on their talent level etc) especially for an amateur as they approach their saturation point for that particularstroke & after that amateurs must foucs on spending more & more time on their second strength,third strength etc . But most players don't. They come to a practice sessions & will mindlessly straight loop at each other 75 to 80% of training & play a few matches the same way and go home thinking that they have improved. It is the same old same old & in may cases usualy repeating the same mistakes on the same stroke but on different day but somehow expecting better results magically.
For an amateur diversity of stroke production is their only salvation, not wasting time on a limited number of strokes because however hard they practice 24 x 7 X 366 they will never be able to straight top spin loop 300 to 400 balls in a row like Waldner or Ma Long. But the good news is that you can indeed be a 1200 or 1500 rated version of Waldner if you diversify your stroke arsenal that Waldner always craved for when he got bored with the same old same old.
A certain % of time spent must be reserved for leanring new strokes and designing & developing new serves. I amnot against finding ways to serve , return to your strengths etc but that is a paralell strategy to stroke diversification. especially for an amateur

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I plead to ITTF to ban all pips & anti to release & set free all of ITTF's political prisoners (choppers / defenders)

 

[latej]

If it was me , Would have quoted the OP asking "What should be the next natural area of development to improve on?" when you replied to the OP if I wanted to communicate that more clearly ,especially when you are responding in tehmiddle of a long thread
Hey but that is me .

You probably don't mean it bad. As you say, it is just you. So let me say this. I really think no-one else was confused about that post. I think the OP understood perfectly, which was the goal. When I saw BRS's reply, I thought it was exceptionally polite, and I wished there were a "bowing" emoticon. My original reaction was very different