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Everybody has their own opinion, so just take my opinion for whatever it's worth.I've probably got a long ways to go before I reach this certain level of play that you're referring to but can you elaborate?
In your opinion, up to what level can a player use these budget $10-$20 Chinese rubbers from Yinhe, Sanwei, 729, etc without it being a limiting factor (for instance, what USATT level)? Is a cheaper H3 alternative like 729 Battle II a mediocre rubber in the eyes of higher level players?
But I don't think anybody would seriously suffer from switching from H3 to Battle 2 or Yinhe.
If two players (A and B) are both 2600 and both use H3 and they usually split 10 matches down the line 5 to 5. If suddenly player A was forced to switch his rubber to Battle 2 or Yinhe, I highly doubt that he would suddenly start losing those 10 matches matches 4 to 6 or 3 to 7. If you wanna say 48 matches out of 100, ok fine maybe. But in the grand scheme of things, the differences are very small.
You can even see that among pro players, they often make dramatic changes in their setup with almost no discernable impact on their performance. I think both Mima Ito and Miu Hirano used H3 on their forehand before, and now switched to Tensor type rubber. Are they suddenly winning more matches? no not really. Mima Ito uses G1 on forehand, if using Butterfly would suddenly make her better, don't you think she would make the switch if it would help her win the top prize in TT?
Attitude mentioned 17-1800 USATT as the area where the rubbers might max out their potential, I respectfully disagree totally with this. Just last week I beat a 2100 Dignics player using Chinese rubber on a fake Stuor cloner blade. It would be tempting to say that he is better than me because of his equipment, but deep down I know that is not true. I think these rubbers would be very good for players even up to 2600. For that extra 2 or 3% extra performance, players above 2600 would be really picky and choosy, and I can understand them wanting perfection from their setup and thus opting for H3 National or whatever. But the notion that there is a big difference in your match performance from these "elite" rubbers is nonsense.