Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Recently played an OB / club level push-blocker player with decent skill in ( guess what? )..... BH only push blocking.

Lost twice, his blocks were accurate and he can direct my loops to FH and BH side with ease and accurately. Darn frustrating to play against him. Checked his racket and it is some old blade no longer in production. His BH rubber is Sriver FX and Battle 2 on his FH but I notice he seldom use his FH at all. 95% BH only.

However yesterday beat him convincingly with a 7-2 sets scoreline. We played a total of 9 sets to 11 pts. I also checked his racket yesterday to get some clue on how he play.

So, how did I win yesterday? Previously I played my power looping game and I fell right into his trap as he is comfortably blocking my loops with ease. I made the mistake of looping with the same power and spin, as though I am doing multi-balls with my coach.

However, yesterday, I play with varying degree of topspin, sometimes light spin, sometimes heavy slow and spinny and sometimes fast loop-drive. By doing so, by changing the spin randomly, he makes so many unforced error with his blocks. That is how I win.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

I hate pesky half longs. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Absolutely hate those horrendous thing!

 

[Der_Echte]

Yes, Aurus makes it easy to do just about any shot 96 out of 100 or more, but never 100 out of 100 in any.

There are no 100 percent perfect rubbers in everything. There are trade-offs and Aurus to me by far has the best balance of trade-offs. You basically give up a tiny little of everything for dependable easy to do everything.

 

[Der_Echte]

As for Gozo hated half long balls, I love attacking them with spin... or stepping in early with BH and finish them.

 

[yamagata]

During our lunch breaks at work we play TT in the basement of our office building.
One of my colleagues have a (premade) Stiga Pulse 5-star. I asked to try it and the racket itsself was OK. However, the way it felt in my hand was REALLY good! Anyone know if some of the regular Stiga blades have the same identical grip? I suspect these blades are made not by Stiga themselves..?
View attachment 34646

Stiga Pulse 5-star is for sure a very nice premade to play with. Mine only weighs 158g. I compare with my Haitian, the handle is very similar size, but the Stiga Pulse is a bit wider towards the edge of the handle, so it has more flare. Only a mm though.

The thickness of the rubbers are the same, but the Stiga blade is 1,5 mm thinner.

The biggest difference is the weight distribution. My Haitian is heaver at the head, the balance point is shifted 1,5 cm. Stiga 5-star rubbers are very light, has a pleasant bounce, a pleasant sound, bottom out very easy and create lesser amount of spin compared to Joola Rhyzen ice.

 

[TampaBayTableTennis]

Recorded some practice in Eleven VR for anyone interested in the game:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

It has first-person headset view, third-person corner view, and video of my movements so you can see how things go together.

 

[Larshos]

Anyone want to help an EJ pairing blades with rubbers?
I want to try different combinations to see what I like and don't like. So far I think I'm going to glue J3 Asia (38) and Big Dipper (38) on the Timber 5 Off, but other than that I'm not sure what combinations to go for.

The R48 is in max thickness, C-1 is 2.0, Gear Hyper is 38 degrees hardness. Apollo is in 38 and 40 degrees hardness.

 

[Table10Ice]

Anyone want to help an EJ pairing blades with rubbers?
I want to try different combinations to see what I like and don't like. So far I think I'm going to glue J3 Asia (38) and Big Dipper (38) on the Timber 5 Off, but other than that I'm not sure what combinations to go for.

The R48 is in max thickness, C-1 is 2.0, Gear Hyper is 38 degrees hardness. Apollo is in 38 and 40 degrees hardness.

For me at least, Vega Korea and Nittaku C-1 are the obvious BH rubbers. Some does like Gear Hyper on BH, I have only tried it on FH.

 

[blahness]

played recently with a combination LP/inverted penholder with very good serves and lost quite a few games with the anti (I usually beat him or am close with 2x inverted) which led me to realize that there are some weaknesses with anti BH too. So as usual with penholders their FH is very strong and powerful and it is always difficult to defend especially if they have good placement (all over the table) with feints. So the thing is that with inverted BH, regardless of the serve (unless it is short FH) i start with the chiquita or BH opening loop and it immediately puts him under some serious pressure, then i force the topspin rally which I am always favoured due to my strong BH topspin game. Whereas with anti, if he didn't serve tricky sidespin serves but just no spin / heavy underspin to my BH short corner, regardless of any attacking stroke I try with anti, it is simply not strong enough to prevent the FH 3rd ball loopkill which is always devastating regardless of what setup i'm using. When I am serving I can of course force a lot of errors and get 3rd ball opportunities because my serves are strong - but if he does somewhat of a no-spin push/flick deep to my BH - it is difficult to attack this hard with anti. So basically I have to either pivot and potentially get punished with the block down the line, or do some nonsense with BH anti and try to get some mistakes out of him + really focus hard on blocking the strong attack (which I'm not that great at the moment unfortunately).

 

[Larshos]

For me at least, Vega Korea and Nittaku C-1 are the obvious BH rubbers. Some does like Gear Hyper on BH, I have only tried it on FH.

Yeah, I was thinking Big Dipper, C-1, Korea and Mantra Pro M as BH rubbers and the rest as FH rubbers!

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Got a internal tournament this Sat ( league format ) to determine club ranking / seeding position.

Gozo is in a dilemma, Gordion knot, so to speak.

 

[latej]

Got a internal tournament this Sat ( league format ) to determine club ranking / seeding position.

Gozo is in a dilemma, Gordion knot, so to speak.

On the line from slowest to fastest, take the one which is 40% on the way... You need to have some reserve where to channel the aggresivity ;-) Forca!!!

 

[Tyce]

I'm finding myself in a bit of a performance dip the past two weeks. Sure, there's plenty of factors to blame: I've had issues with my lower back, and the heavy painkillers really did a number on my reaction time and decision making. But still, I've played better games with multiple beers in the past than I have done in the past two league matches.

Which brings me to the issue of focus.
At TT, but also at life in general, my attention just goes all over the place until it finds something to latch on to, and then it won't let go. It's like a little leech reaching around, feels like I have no real control over it. And at TT, it's not uncommon for me to be completely stuck focusing on why my FH feels slightly off, without even having a productive reach-around and feeling that it might be footwork or whatever. I'm just flustered and flapping around helplessly like I'm stupid. (I'm not, honestly)

This goes up to the point of frustration, anger, and these things have killed the fun in TT before (we're talking 15-20 years ago).
I'm finding nowadays, that when I go even *further* into that anger, something snaps in me and even though every single bit of joy is killed at that point, I am extremely well focused. I will murder my opponent's game by any means necessary and more often than not, I actually do murder my opponent's game at that point.

While this is very effective, the sheer amount of time, energy and joy having to be consumed before reaching that point is ridiculous. There's gotta be a better way to get myself to that focus, into that flow.

(This happens in daily life as well. I can't for the life of me get productive until all hell breaks loose. I run on anger and I don't want that.)

 

[dingyibvs]

So I'm continuing to make progress with my FH, but my improvements on the BH side is what's been raising my level. My defense is now pretty solid, winning me a lot of points. My BH opening loops are solid now too, and service receives have been improving. Not being afraid of getting attacked really opens up options on the receive as well. Recently I've been practicing BH loops from different distances. It's amazing how just have a step or two's change in distance changes your shot. I was hitting monster BH loops in practice, but in games I had trouble putting away soft blocks. Turns out it was because I was looping from a farther distance out during practice. I focused my practice on that recently, hope it'll make its way into my game soon.

There's this one guy at the Alameda club that I have a lot of issues against, only getting 1 set against him most of the time. He doesn't play tournaments often (nobody there does) so I wasn't sure exactly what level he's at. Recently the club changed owners and some new players came, and he beat a 2200 guy (7, 7, 4), so I guess I'm not feeling as bad anymore lol. He's been getting a lot of coaching lately, but I've still caught up a bit, guess it's harder to improve when you're at a higher level, so there's still a chance for me!

 

[Tyce]

So last night I tried to consciously set myself to "kill mode" without the usual anger buildup. It worked, I was focused and had a decent grip on not overdoing it.
It's not the same as "angry kill mode" in that it is probably 70% effective rather than 95% but I'll gladly take this amount of focus any day.

Also really happy to report that after two weeks of back pain and painkillers, last night was perfectly pain-free!

 

[blahness]

I changed back to 2x inverted again. Antispin BH is effective and is fun for a bit of trolling but I don't really enjoy the playstyle tbh (neither do my opponents). Ultimately TT is about fun and doing cool stuff, and I think for me 2x inverted maximizes the joy I have.

It took a bit to adjust back to the inverted feeling, but I pleasantly found a few things that I improved. 1st is after doing so many BH chopblocks with anti, my feeling for the BH push has improved huge. The Suh Hyo Won BH chop tutorial where she emphasized use of the fingers especially index finger for the BH chop really changed my BH push. So now with inverted, I can push with a lot more spin than before and i think this will make my BH receive a lot more stable. I can now BH push long sidetopspin serves pretty decent now surprisingly.

The other thing is my BH loop. Because it takes a lot of power to loop with antispin, i actually upgraded my BH loop power quite a bit lol.

The crap thing is actually getting used to the racket and the weight balance again.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

• Just came back from my lil'tourney today.
• Format: Team event league format. Team of 3 players. Each game consist of 3 singles + 1 doubles.
• Method of play: Best of three
• Total I played five games; 3 singles + 2 doubles.
• My result is 2W3L.
• My team is still at the bottom of the ranking list.
• Won a singles against the bottom most player. No surprise here and nothing to talk further.
• However there is an upset in the doubles' game.
• Gozo ( Tier C ) was paired with a Tier A partner and we won a Tier A pair opponent.
• My partner was the star as he was the one creating the opportunity for me to end the point. He isn't the attacking type but he is good in crafting opportunity for me, and I converted his effort to points.
• My Tier A opponent pair are playing as though they are in singles' game = failure.
• One needs to play the motherly role, that is nurturing the ball. Another plays the father role; bring home the bacon.
• If both play the motherly role or both fatherly role, it will become a disaster, even though if both are Tier A player in singles.
• Gozo sleeps happy tonight knowing he took down a higher seeded pair tonight.
• Good night to all.

p/s Was using Tibhar Aurus on my FH on my Darker Speed 90.

 

[TampaBayTableTennis]

I changed back to 2x inverted again. Antispin BH is effective and is fun for a bit of trolling but I don't really enjoy the playstyle tbh (neither do my opponents). Ultimately TT is about fun and doing cool stuff, and I think for me 2x inverted maximizes the joy I have.

It took a bit to adjust back to the inverted feeling, but I pleasantly found a few things that I improved. 1st is after doing so many BH chopblocks with anti, my feeling for the BH push has improved huge. The Suh Hyo Won BH chop tutorial where she emphasized use of the fingers especially index finger for the BH chop really changed my BH push. So now with inverted, I can push with a lot more spin than before and i think this will make my BH receive a lot more stable. I can now BH push long sidetopspin serves pretty decent now surprisingly.

The other thing is my BH loop. Because it takes a lot of power to loop with antispin, i actually upgraded my BH loop power quite a bit lol.

The crap thing is actually getting used to the racket and the weight balance again.

nice. are u talking about "suh hyo won defensive skills" videos?

 

[blahness]

nice. are u talking about "suh hyo won defensive skills" videos?

Yes this is the one

 

[Der_Echte]

• Just came back from my lil'tourney today.
• Format: Team event league format. Team of 3 players. Each game consist of 3 singles + 1 doubles.
• Method of play: Best of three
• Total I played five games; 3 singles + 2 doubles.
• My result is 2W3L.
• My team is still at the bottom of the ranking list.
• Won a singles against the bottom most player. No surprise here and nothing to talk further.
• However there is an upset in the doubles' game.
• Gozo ( Tier C ) was paired with a Tier A partner and we won a Tier A pair opponent.
• My partner was the star as he was the one creating the opportunity for me to end the point. He isn't the attacking type but he is good in crafting opportunity for me, and I converted his effort to points.
• My Tier A opponent pair are playing as though they are in singles' game = failure.
• One needs to play the motherly role, that is nurturing the ball. Another plays the father role; bring home the bacon.
• If both play the motherly role or both fatherly role, it will become a disaster, even though if both are Tier A player in singles.
• Gozo sleeps happy tonight knowing he took down a higher seeded pair tonight.
• Good night to all.

p/s Was using Tibhar Aurus on my FH on my Darker Speed 90.

My EJ friend asked me to hit with one of his two bats yesterday... one was a Darker blade... I told him sight unseen I would loop like a consistent maniac with it... and I did.

Still, my friend will try out another 1000 blades before remaining confused on his path.