Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Archosaurus]

Battle durable? I admit it stays the same for a long time but that's after oxidizing immediately

Mine didn't change for 2 months~, H3 looks worse after 1.5. Provincial and National Super Select same thing. Partner is using the Provincial now and it still looks fine. Maybe you've bought from a lemon batch/your environment?

 

[J-fed]

Since the factory booster is a chemical and slowly wears off, it will still lose performance over time.

In terms of durability and price to performance ratio, I think rubbers like G1/Rakza7 are hard to beat. They've stood the test of time for a reason.

I think G1 will be too much loop monster for me. Sounds great If that’s your game though.
Intrigued by the C-1 at the moment but how do I wear this Rakza out? Gotta hit the table, drop it in volcanic dust, maybe leave it outside by accident.

 

[NextLevel]

So Saturday in Duesseldorf comes and i ride to the venue with @Tyce and @just_one_more_chop . I warm up with @Arkady briefly and then the event begins.

The scoring format is two games golden point format to 11. If a 1-1 tie results, a single point sudden death to take it all. There are 25 or 26 players in but some are iill, jet lagged or physically struggling in one way or another. But come one its table tennis, this is my drug, let's go!

The first good thing was that we were using the Andro ball which because it is a DHS clone, suits my game much better than the Nittaku and Butterfly balls.

There were so many .matches I won't remember most of them well but I will try to paint my impressions.

My first match was against @Datscleva. Since we later played in some matvhes on Sunday, I suspect i was lucky to catch him a bit cold before his full lobbing game came into effect. I was lucky that he struggled with my no spin backspin combo. That tends to predict my success reasonably well. I also tend to stay away from the forehand diagonal and later found out this was pretry smart. Got away with a 2-0 win.

Then I played @Arkady I believe. I managed to win the first game but after that, I couldn't loop through his blocks and counters. It was 1-1 and came down to the golden point to win it all and he did a backhand down the line counter inside out to the wide forehand. So I lost that one 1-2.

Then I get fuzzy on who I played and when. I know I lost one more match to one of the top two players(@50hz), his game was in a completely different class from mine, serves were consistently to the short forehand, he played out of a crouch and I struggled to win points. That said, I managed to beat the one of the guys who beat Tom the Frog, 2-1, it came down to the golden point, I popped up the serve sky high and the third ball clipped the net and went out.

The I played Tom the Frog. It was really weird, I had accepted my imminent defeat having played semi-pros at that level. But where i got a bit lucky was that Tom was relying heavily on the kick topspin serve. So I got my chances to attack. That said I struggled against Tom's slow backhand opener (slow and heavy). All that said I lost the first game on the golden point so 10-11. In the second game, I was able to successfully attack a lot of serves and that and my backspin no spin serve worked slightly better in game 2 and I managed to win at 8 or 7. So it went to the golden point and I had the serve so I called a timeout. I served a short backhand serve to the forehand and he pushed it off the table (more sidespin than backspin lol). So I won my matchup vs the Frog!

I played quite a few matches throughout the day in the afternoon and I think I was almost undefeated winning matches mostly 2-0. I think I beat most of the TTD members I played including if memory serves me right, backspacer, justonemorechop and Haito. The last match was vs KenSpin and unfortunately, despite Arkady giving me some good advice, I forgot all of it and went down 0-6 in the first game. I then started playing smarter as I remembered what I had been told but it was not enough to save the first game. I won the second game 11-6 but it was now down the golden point and KenSpin had the serve. So he served, I returned the serve, he pushed long and it got to the edge! So that was it for the day and i had lost three matches on day 1. Not bad.

Many other interesting things happened but i will skip those including meeting the-don. I had to catch up on school eork and other projects. But the next day was still upcoming and the Founder was recovering from migraines so....

 

[ajtatosmano2]

Season started slightly worse than I wanted. I've lost 3 very close matches in the decider. Also, yesterday the opponent had a payed foreign player who had a very clean style and he was in pretty bad form, I felt like I could win against him, was excited for the match but he resigned just against me as their team already won. I am a bit p*ssed about it, instead of a good match I got a W/O 3-0....

 

[NextLevel]

The next day, I actually woke up late because I slept late, the result being that my body was a time bomb to lose energy at any time. Or that is how I rationalize my play. I was late so I was originally supposed to forfeit my matchup but Inplayed the instant i arrived and while i won the first game easily, my opponent became much more aggressive in the second game and also returned my serves better. It went down to the golden point and my opponent missed his attack so i got a point where i probably deserved none. I then played the chopper and in the first game I was completely ost, spraying the ball all over the place etc. I had acceptef it as the consequence of not being able to warm up. Then in the second game, almost as if someone had waved a magic wand, I started landing my openers loops and counters maybe accepting the loss and not trying as hard to attack just led to more natural ball reads and better play. So i won the second game as easily as i had lost the first. And i had the serve on golden point. So i tried the same serve that I used against Tom and when the chopper pushed it it, it fell kind of floatly, so I tried to backhand topspin it over the table but couldn't get it over the net lol. And that was that

Then I got to play the Founder. In the beginning, he fell victim to my usual tricks. no spin heavy backspin. Backhand attacks. Forehand blocks. I won the first game even as he statted adaptinflg. He started serving exclusively into my short forehand and got better results. However even with all that, I was up 1-0, 9-5 and thought i could pull it out in 2 straight. However, it was not to be, and he chased me down to 10-10 and won the golden point to end the seocnd game in his favor. And then he had the serve for the tie-breaker golden point so he served to the short forehand again. Somehow, as i had gotten lucky in many matches, he missed the third ball off my lously push and again, it was a nothwr lucky win, this time over the Founder!

Then i played latej who was leading the event and i felt i got lucky that I remembered and did all the things that bothered him when we played on Friday and he forgot and didn't do the things that bothered me on Friday. So i won in straights.

Yhen we broke up for some speciality events and top table playijg certain restrictions. Then we had luch and i think lunch made me sleepy lol. But in any case, afrer luch, i think I lost most of the matches that were left, including against @NDH. I could not return or attack his serves, which were much heavier than they looked. It was a smooth and straightforward loss in which I was completely outplayed. I believe Lloat my next match after that as well on a golden point but closed out the event with a win over @golden_son , the only other opponent ad jetlagged as I was.


I think i was 18-7 (some forefeits in there for sure and was maybe 7th or 6th place). @latej won the event and @NDH came third (the other player i could do nothing against came second). And as I said before the event, no matter how well or badly I performed, i would remind people that if only I wasnt jet lagged.... more seriously I think i was lucky that people didn't have time to always figure me out. Though there are things i am going to work on for surr. If only i can find time...

But playing a lot of TT was a blast and I hope i can find time to do it again especially under better circumstances. Was great stuff and again thanks to NDH and TTD for making it happen.

 

[NDH]

Great reading @NextLevel.

@50hz came second, tied with @latej but losing on the head to head (which was a golden point!)

I think I got lucky against you - Just a bad match up of styles maybe, even if it’s subtle (or you were just tired!)

But that’s the joy of table tennis - You breezed through people I struggled with, and I breezed through people you struggled with. What a wonderful sport!

It was genuinely so good to meet people from the forum, and I was pleasantly surprised at the overall level, which was better than I thought it would be!

I *think* I’ve just about recovered……

 

[Haito]

The last weekend (in Germany) taught me a lot of lessons.
1. If you play table tennis, train the legs. The first 2hrs (of 15hrs of playing total) my legs were fine. Then they start to be sore. I walked 12-16km per day when in Dusseldorf (apart from play, the phone which measured the steps was in my training bag). I couldn't walk on Monday XD
2. I got to learn to receive the serves much better after playing with all the guys. @NextLevel Spent a good while teaching me how to receive heavy stuff. My performance against the guys who were serving this to me improved greatly. There is one guy in my club who has deathly cut serve. No danger no more 🤣
3. I noticed that @Kenspin put his protective covers between every match. When I got home I noticed that my rubbers were dirty as hell. I did wash them and the thing that came of it was black... Should have taken better care of my rubbers... I started doing the same thing. Every match clean them at least by breathing. If its longer than a minute of wait put the covers on. +10 to grip, +20 to confidence I should have also glued new rubbers after Saturday morning. I had them in bag. For the last year I was talking to myself "its me, not the equipment", to cope with EJ-ing. This time it was equipment, but its state not its kind.
4. Playing in severe exhaustion state forced me to try controlling the pace more, and not try to play "balls to the wall". I think this also gave me a good boost in the games I play now. Either my legs got stronger after putting them through so much, or I save more energy in normal play.

One of my friends has become a victim of those learnings. We usually trade point by point. Now he got handed over to 1 or 2... 7 times in a row... Either the Dusseldorf TTD was a great learning experience, or something else happened. Either way I am happy.

 

[Archosaurus]

Wasn't supposed to be training today, but it ended up being, so I messaged my partner and he even showed up, so here's a bit more video. To get the excuses out of the way, this is after roughly 3.5h of drilling, so we were playing like Ma Long and Fan Zhendong respectively just a few hours prior and you just need to trust me on that one. /s

I'm in the black shirt. These aren't super serious games, we're just practising stuff, but they're not drills either.

Still falling back on some bad habits, but overall more solid. Need to work on physical conditioning and just force myself to not get high and rooted later in the day. Also need to start moving more so I can hit a real shot and not those wimpy stabby forehand block things.

I need to teach him how to receive real serves and tell him to receive more to my backhand to make it more interesting, right now it's mostly high pushes to my forehand although in all honesty I struggle with those, so maybe it's a winning strategy. Serving posture also becomes less dynamic and higher this late in the day; I can do it properly so I just need to make it a habit even if I'm tired.

 

[J-fed]

Great to read all your comments from the meet up.
Sounds like a blast.

 

[ThePongCommenter]

Wasn't supposed to be training today, but it ended up being, so I messaged my partner and he even showed up, so here's a bit more video. To get the excuses out of the way, this is after roughly 3.5h of drilling, so we were playing like Ma Long and Fan Zhendong respectively just a few hours prior and you just need to trust me on that one. /s

I'm in the black shirt. These aren't super serious games, we're just practising stuff, but they're not drills either.

Still falling back on some bad habits, but overall more solid. Need to work on physical conditioning and just force myself to not get high and rooted later in the day. Also need to start moving more so I can hit a real shot and not those wimpy stabby forehand block things.

I need to teach him how to receive real serves and tell him to receive more to my backhand to make it more interesting, right now it's mostly high pushes to my forehand although in all honesty I struggle with those, so maybe it's a winning strategy. Serving posture also becomes less dynamic and higher this late in the day; I can do it properly so I just need to make it a habit even if I'm tired.

Stop trying to brush every ball and crack it a little more, you will hit less forehands into the net. You are kind of just swinging your arm in the general direction of the ball instead of focusing on the timing and actually hitting into it.

 

[Archosaurus]

Stop trying to brush every ball and crack it a little more, you will hit less forehands into the net. You are kind of just swinging your arm in the general direction of the ball instead of focusing on the timing and actually hitting into it.

Yeah, you're right. I don't know why sometimes I revert back to like 90% brush. Occasionally I can drive more forward and the overall quality is just higher. I think when I'm late at swinging at the ball I tend to do that.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

played a round-robin tournament today. As I was on a bad streak of results this time, i was playing in a lower league level, and finally my RR tournament rating found its bottom level as today i won my group with 4W1L. I played much better than in recent tournaments, and no win was easy except the 1st match where I should have some margin but still i had a scare in G1 as it took me some time to get into the match.
I lost the last match which i knew would be difficult because it was a LP chopper. I think I was playing overall well but i was thinking a bit too much about the outcome, and missed too many chance balls (3) in G2 and G5 was a lottery starting at 6-6; missed another chance ball at 7 all; then he had a lucky edge ball , then he attempted his only counterspin of the match and it was a perfect shot and game over... gg

I won 2000 yens; so with the entry fee of 1500 yens, i netted 500 yens; about 3 usd, i guess im a professional player now.

 

[jk1980]

@Archosaurus i don't know if that's a defensive precautionary excuse or the truth, but it does not make sense to record yourself after (allegedly) 3 hours of hard workout/drills just to present videos of you missing left, right and center.

There is really no value and take aways here, because if you were that exhausted you would not be able to use the best advice in the world at that time, because coordination and tired muscles would prevent you from executing on the advice.

That's like saying "give me driving tips, please. here is a video where i am fully drunk driving in circles in my car"

 

[Archosaurus]

@Archosaurus i don't know if that's a defensive precautionary excuse or the truth, but it does not make sense to record yourself after (allegedly) 3 hours of hard workout/drills just to present videos of you missing left, right and center.

There is really no value and take aways here, because if you were that exhausted you would not be able to use the best advice in the world at that time, because coordination and tired muscles would prevent you from executing on the advice.

That's like saying "give me driving tips, please. here is a video where i am fully drunk driving in circles in my car"

If you give it a think maybe you can figure out why I'm forced to film later into the evening and not as soon as I show up and the place is packed with people. Maybe I can get some footage from that rear court in the B video if I put the filming equipment inside of the same court.

I appreciate you assuming I play a lot better when not tired, but this is more or less my level. I don't know why it matters if I'd hit 10% more shots when not tired or whatever.

 

[dingyibvs]

Yeah, you're right. I don't know why sometimes I revert back to like 90% brush. Occasionally I can drive more forward and the overall quality is just higher. I think when I'm late at swinging at the ball I tend to do that.

It's a footwork issue. Look at the second video for example, your opponent's first few pushes landed short, you tried to attack them strongly at an earlier timing without stepping forward sufficiently. You ended up reaching for the ball, which slipped off your racket due to not hitting into the rubber enough. He then pushed one long, which you attacked pretty easily. Then the next one he pushed short you waited longer for the ball to come to you, which resulted in a good brush loop, but the waiting also made it more difficult to attack with a stronger loop.

Basically for those shorter pushes you can either wait a bit more to attack with a spinny brush loop or step in more to attack with a stronger drive.

 

[Haito]

Most of the time you dumped the ball to the net, because at contact time your hand was almost stationary. You were too low on your legs for those high balls. You have done a giant stroke, but when you contacted to the ball racket speed was almost 0. You need to start accelerating a bit before the ball, but also have enough of the follow through so the racket is at max speed when touching ball.

 

[piligrim]

Wasn't supposed to be training today, but it ended up being, so I messaged my partner and he even showed up, so here's a bit more video. To get the excuses out of the way, this is after roughly 3.5h of drilling, so we were playing like Ma Long and Fan Zhendong respectively just a few hours prior and you just need to trust me on that one. /s

I'm in the black shirt. These aren't super serious games, we're just practising stuff, but they're not drills either.

Still falling back on some bad habits, but overall more solid. Need to work on physical conditioning and just force myself to not get high and rooted later in the day. Also need to start moving more so I can hit a real shot and not those wimpy stabby forehand block things.

I need to teach him how to receive real serves and tell him to receive more to my backhand to make it more interesting, right now it's mostly high pushes to my forehand although in all honesty I struggle with those, so maybe it's a winning strategy. Serving posture also becomes less dynamic and higher this late in the day; I can do it properly so I just need to make it a habit even if I'm tired.

Base on your posts I had impression you around Dan level

 

[dingyibvs]

I feel like my BH loop is very close now. Last two adjustments were 1) keep the racket angle consistent through the final strike, i.e. don't flip the racket. And 2) this is something old but now a focus: move the elbow forward before fixing it during the final strike. #1 really helped with consistency, and #2 really helped with timing.

I'm now starting to work on some BH receives. I still find that to be troublesome especially against reverse spins. They curve away from my BH side so I always feel like the timing is super off. I often end up reaching and doing a very wrist only, weak shot.

On the FH side I ran into an unexpected issue which has led to a wrist injury. Recent efforts to improve power transfer to my arm has worked a bit too well. I neglected to tighten my wrist for the final step and instead just had all that power transfer to a loose wrist, resulting in over rotation of the wrist at the end of every shot. The exact same thing happened during BH training a while ago actually and it's basically the same part of the wrist that's injured (pinky side). Ironically I can now practice BH with full power just fine, but I need to take it easy on the FH side.

 

[Archosaurus]

Base on your posts I had impression you around Dan level

If that's how it comes across then it's not really the goal. The only thing I do actually well is the pendulum serve, and I've improved very quickly so I have a few pointers for beginners. 95% of what I post is about equipment to begin with.

For what it's worth I can take 6~ points off advanced players who are slightly worse than that level (Division 2-lower State in Australia) but it doesn't mean anything because I can't rally with those people anyway. It's all because my serve can be far beyond my normal playing level and I know some setups that work on just about anyone. I've convincingly beaten players up to Division 4 in some internal comp games sometimes, but it was pretty obvious they had a bad day and weren't really there mentally, and I served them specific serves they struggle with.

They reckon my real level is around Division 7 and I agree. Maybe next year a questionable 6. There are too many glaring holes to really say I'm even an average player. Against average players (Division 4-5) I will lose 2-3 at best, and that's on a good day when everything's hitting.

When I play a Division 2 or higher player who is really out to get me, I need to play my best just to get 3 points a set.

So as an USATT rating, I dunno, 1000-1200? The forums reckoned I was 1400~ when I last posted a decade ago.

EDIT: Rating bands. This is Rating Central. It seems to calibrate lower than Rating Central in the US which starts at like 1400 supposedly. The creator reckons RC is USATT minus 200, I don't really believe that for Australian club play, but I'm not sure what the equivalent is. Occasionally people with USATT 1700~ will come here and the Division 5 players have easily beat them 3-0, so that's an anecdote.

It's a footwork issue. Look at the second video for example, your opponent's first few pushes landed short, you tried to attack them strongly at an earlier timing without stepping forward sufficiently. You ended up reaching for the ball, which slipped off your racket due to not hitting into the rubber enough. He then pushed one long, which you attacked pretty easily. Then the next one he pushed short you waited longer for the ball to come to you, which resulted in a good brush loop, but the waiting also made it more difficult to attack with a stronger loop.

Basically for those shorter pushes you can either wait a bit more to attack with a spinny brush loop or step in more to attack with a stronger drive.

Would you say in general I'm too far from the table when I start my backswing on those? Kinda feeling like that.

Most of the time you dumped the ball to the net, because at contact time your hand was almost stationary. You were too low on your legs for those high balls. You have done a giant stroke, but when you contacted to the ball racket speed was almost 0. You need to start accelerating a bit before the ball, but also have enough of the follow through so the racket is at max speed when touching ball.

Too LOW? I feel like my ideal contact point is a bit lower than shoulder height. A lot of those are below my chest, and I feel like I net the most when it's below chest. I don't really net balls so often when I play with what feels like a Sumo squat.

Is something just fundamentally wrong with my approach?

EDIT: Looked at it more, and a common trend for net balls is a contact point that's too in front of me. Even if it's under the chest, if it's to the side, I tended to at least get it over.

 

[kindof99]

If that's how it comes across then it's not really the goal. The only thing I do actually well is the pendulum serve, and I've improved very quickly so I have a few pointers for beginners. 95% of what I post is about equipment to begin with.

For what it's worth I can take 6~ points off advanced players who are slightly worse than that level (Division 2-lower State in Australia) but it doesn't mean anything because I can't rally with those people anyway. It's all because my serve can be far beyond my normal playing level and I know some setups that work on just about anyone. I've convincingly beaten players up to Division 4 in some internal comp games sometimes, but it was pretty obvious they had a bad day and weren't really there mentally, and I served them specific serves they struggle with.

They reckon my real level is around Division 7 and I agree. Maybe next year a questionable 6. There are too many glaring holes to really say I'm even an average player. Against average players (Division 4-5) I will lose 2-3 at best, and that's on a good day when everything's hitting.

When I play a Division 2 or higher player who is really out to get me, I need to play my best just to get 3 points a set.

So as an USATT rating, I dunno, 1000-1200? The forums reckoned I was 1400~ when I last posted a decade ago.

EDIT: Rating bands. This is Rating Central. It seems to calibrate lower than Rating Central in the US which starts at like 1400 supposedly. The creator reckons RC is USATT minus 200, I don't really believe that for Australian club play, but I'm not sure what the equivalent is. Occasionally people with USATT 1700~ will come here and the Division 5 players have easily beat them 3-0, so that's an anecdote.
View attachment 43419





Would you say in general I'm too far from the table when I start my backswing on those? Kinda feeling like that.



Too LOW? I feel like my ideal contact point is a bit lower than shoulder height. A lot of those are below my chest, and I feel like I net the most when it's below chest. I don't really net balls so often when I play with what feels like a Sumo squat.

Is something just fundamentally wrong with my approach?

EDIT: Looked at it more, and a common trend for net balls is a contact point that's too in front of me. Even if it's under the chest, if it's to the side, I tended to at least get it over.

Ignore all boring table tennis talks. Your new haircut tops them all.