Croatian player loses his sh#t

well the attacker doesnt have good technique, he is always doubting his shots, he is not playing agressive enough as you should with a defender, most of his attack shots are full of spin but not force or speed, so yea he isnt pushing the defender into a difficult position, half of his top spin plays he isnt even using the whole body movement.

@luqketti

He is preventing the chopper from attacking or making any kind of aggressive moves.

Players like Ma Lin and Wang Hao who eat choppers for breakfast also make mostly shots with only spin and no force. The standard Chinese way is push -> soft loop until they get a ball to kill. The difference is that this player can't hit the kills as well as the top Chinese can, which shouldn't be surprising.

Or are you implying that you know how to play choppers better than Ma Lin and Wang Hao?

The reason the player in the video lost is mental. He's falling to the chopper's rhythm and he's not patient enough to consistently keep disarming the spin with pushes and pressuring with loops until he gets a sure put away shot.

@brabhamista

They look far from awful in form. I also don't see much wrong with red's serve: it appears to have good spin, it's low and he contacts near the edge.

I think, anyone who doesn't see how solid and composed the older guy is and how he is outplaying and outsmarting the looper, has missed something and may be showing his level of understanding for the game.

On this day, the older gentlemen playing defense with the pips is the better player. Nice to see his touch, his skill in returning most of the younger players power shots, and his outsmarting the younger player.

Makes me think of this:



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UpSideDownCarl said:

I think, anyone who doesn't see how solid and composed the older guy is and how he is outplaying and outsmarting the looper, has missed something and may be showing his level of understanding for the game.

On this day, the older gentlemen playing defense with the pips is the better player. Nice to see his touch, his skill in returning most of the younger players power shots, and his outsmarting the younger player.


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Click to expand...

This.


If a player who is using "bad technique" is beating a player with "good technique", imagine what he can do if he uses "good technique" as well!

That video's hilarious.

Once you start respecting pip users, you can start eating them for breakfast. After all, there's a reason why the "junk rubber" is not as popular: it's actually inferior! Sure takes skill to win with an inferior platform.


I kind of wish Joo had won a championship at least once, so we'd have more young choppers around. High level defense is far from un-athletic.

Franjo capan is a great defender. He is playing also in my club.

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I actually don't think the chopper is using inferior technique. The looper must be doing something WRONG if he keeps messing up. And the chopper's technique of chopping, and his ability to get so many balls back seems like pretty good technique, at least to me.

Besides, it is interesting to see how well he moves and he is likely 30-40 years older than his opponent and he is skillfully handing him a beating and frustrating him.

Unless you hit the top 10 in the world, you will always find pips players who are higher level than you. And when you play a pips player who is higher level than your ability to play vs a pips player, you will NOT EAT THEM FOR BREAKFAST. In fact you will probably get eaten for breakfast.

I worded what I said carefully so Der_Echte doesn't come on here and say he can beat most pips players 1 or 2 levels higher than him. He can! The reason? He is about 2 levels higher vs pips players than he is against offensive loopers.

So when he plays a pips player who is higher level than his level vs pips players, he will have a rough time. [emoji2]

Table tennis is a game and a sport of skill and levels. There are many skills that go into higher level play. Technique chopping is different technique than technique looping. The ability to retrieve and return everything is also a skill that requires practice. In a match, when you miss the table, it implies something went wrong.




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Chopping and non-standard surfaces being inferior meaning that their ultimate potential is not as high.

Of course, we all know that we are NOT top 10 players, and we all have a hard time with good choppers. Thus, it's not really an inferior surface at everything except the highest of the high level.

I used to play defense starting out, and I still muck around with it, and trust me, offense only players who have never done a chop in their life can't appreciate how hard it is to win points as passive defense.

In fact, I would recommend playing a passive style, pips or not, and trying to win points via placement and smart spins. It really helps your short game and reading of the ball.

franjo capan is 60 years old. he very rarely attacks and he fares better in the league than the attacker. he used to play on a top level in yugoslavia back in the days of surbek and stipancic. i don't know how you got the impression that the "attackers technique is better than the defenders quality of chops".

izra said:

franjo capan is 60 years old. he very rarely attacks and he fares better in the league than the attacker. he used to play on a top level in yugoslavia back in the days of surbek and stipancic. i don't know how you got the impression that the "attackers technique is better than the defenders quality of chops".

Click to expand...

Thanks - now you all know why I wanted to see TTFrenzy loop (he can loop by the way, so I am just mocking him).

Alone, in a room by yourself, with a glowing screen in front of you, a person can come to feel they know everything about all styles of play. Even--or perhaps especially--when they are not playing for all that long.

Video footage of a person playing is like a business card that doesn't lie. Then people know who can walk the walk. And usually someone who has played long enough to develop some decent level of technique would probably have an appreciation for what it takes to get to be a higher level player.

And certainly someone who has achieved a decent level of technique, of whatever style, can appreciate the skill of that 60 year old guy. He is pretty talented and pretty artful in his play.

And, yeah, TTFrenzy can play decently and has earned his stripes. Now there is a Jurassic reptile in the house who needs to leave his business card.


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Advice for my first 'real' bat

Well, all chopper, myself included, shall be very happy when my trigger happy opponent looking at His bat, confused, what wrong with my blade?

(Evil smile)

Btw, regarding inferior rubber and technique,

Is not that horse inferior to eagle.

It just that horse cant fly, but sure can run.

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I saw that part of the topic changed to players that use "inferior playing surfaces" or "junk rubbers".

These are my favorite players to play against. Not only do I know the ball isn't coming at me THAT fast, so i have more time to get in place. I also know to always attack that side.

The reason most players stick long pips or antispin on one side is because that side is weak. So don't be afraid to attack that side! They are weak there. Players tend to hit to the inverted side because they don't understand some of the balls they get back from the junk but I strongly believe this is the wrong idea.

Shuki said:

I saw that part of the topic changed to players that use "inferior playing surfaces" or "junk rubbers".

These are my favorite players to play against. Not only do I know the ball isn't coming at me THAT fast, so i have more time to get in place. I also know to always attack that side.

The reason most players stick long pips or antispin on one side is because that side is weak. So don't be afraid to attack that side! They are weak there. Players tend to hit to the inverted side because they don't understand some of the balls they get back from the junk but I strongly believe this is the wrong idea.

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At the lower levels, yes, but at the higher levels, it is part of a game plan. Don't underestimate it.

NextLevel said:

At the lower levels, yes, but at the higher levels, it is part of a game plan. Don't underestimate it.

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Interesting, I guess I haven't played anyone over 2000 with it but I can consistently beat the local 1900's that rely on it.

Actually a player locally here, named Jeff Johnson (or maybe Johnston) is the one who told me to always attack the junk side. He's won the hardbat US Open a couple times, so I trusted his advice. But then again it could probably just be advice he was giving me just for the level that I'm at.

Shuki said:

Interesting, I guess I haven't played anyone over 2000 with it but I can consistently beat the local 1900's that rely on it.

Actually a player locally here, named Jeff Johnson (or maybe Johnston) is the one who told me to always attack the junk side. He's won the hardbat US Open a couple times, so I trusted his advice. But then again it could probably just be advice he was giving me just for the level that I'm at.

Click to expand...

OK, since what I said and what he said are both half-truths, let me write a bit more on it.

There are players who went to junk rubbers (I am not a fan of the phrase) because they realized that it suited their game in one of a few ways:

1. Their coach trained them to use it, or it just fits their personality and they got really good at using it - I know people whose pip game is their strength and their inverted game is not even a factor. They chop block, hit and dead block impressively even with medium or long pips, and their pip attacks are even stronger than their inverted attacks.
2. It enabled them to stay closer to the table and take the ball off the bounce - this is a common reason for using pips and anti of all kinds, and it is combined with my next point, but let me leave it as a standard point.
3. It enabled them to set up their forehand loop vs. underspin. Players like Danny Seemiller and John Wetzler in the US use anti and long pips on the backhand for this reason.
4. It enable them to chop better - see defenders and modern defenders.
5. They struggle to read and control heavy spin generally and need something to switch the tempo up.
6. They realized that their backhand or forehand inverted game (or both) would never be topspin away from the table, sometimes for health reasons, so they wanted to change to something that might give them an off tempo advantage.

Most of the people you are talking about are in category 5 and sometimes in category 6. But even some people in category 5 and 6 sometimes end up being in categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 over time.

This doesn't change the broad principle you pointed out at times, and I think when you play against pips, the truth is that you tend to end up learning to play against the pips rather than the player because they are relatively limited in their rally spin generation if medium or long so that experience lets you treat players similarly. But if a player learns to attack with his pips, that often changes things. And if a player has a good inverted side and becomes very skilled at setting it up with the pips, then you have a pretty high level player. In a sense, the pips side is still their weakness, but it has a purpose that you cannot underestimate especially if you don't practice enough against the kinds of balls you will get from the pips.

USually, I divide pips players into two, those who only dead block and those who dead block, chop block, and hit/attack. The former tend to be under 2000, the latter tend to be over 2000. There are exceptions here and there, but that is the general rule.

To give an example: If my inverted backhand wasn't so strong relative to the rest of my game, I would have been a prime candidate for pips because I like to attack backspin. I would probably learn to do many things with them.

Yep. And anyone who thinks that Pips is an inferior surface might need to figure out what DTop is presenting in the following video: especially the part about ITTF's aspect ratio ban and who was the World Champion whose pips were banned. Hint he still has a little somethin' to do with the CNT men's team these days.



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@NL

I really like this post, lots of information here, I too, respect the "junk rubber" play style as it's something that must be learned just like any other style.



Let's take twiddlers out of the equation for a moment. If your opponent wasn't able to twiddle would you still feel a strong sense of struggles against these players?

Also given that you had time to get in place to perform a loop that's SLOW with strong topspin, wouldn't you prefer to hit it against the lp,anti side? I tend to play these players with slower spinny loops instead of a faster loop because firstly, it gives me even more time. Second, if they block with the lp/anti I'm getting another underspin loop which is what I'd prefer when trying to play a slower topspin game. And this is only in my experience, but if they try and counter my slow topspin off the bounce with their "junk" it does come at me moderately fast, but the spin is dead and I can really just slap it back.




BTW i'm not considering short pips in this at all. I actually really struggle with strong short pip players as they tend to play close to the table and have very strong counter drives. Our second best player is a penholder with only 1 rubber and it's short pips. Very aggressive.


And again, twiddler's are a super breed. All respect to you.




EDIT: I guess it would help if I describe my playstyle. I play close to the table. Against inverted players I'm very "blocky" I change the pace from aggressive to something I call pitter patter pace. I simply can't outplay speed. It's strange that I play this way because I'm extremely comfortable looping underspin, with both my fh and bh. So what I tend to do is open up with something heavy and spinny, if I'm opening up with FH. I can change the pace to fast and spinny or fast and less spinny with my fh loop. and then immediately go to pace changing blocks instead of another attack if they return it. My backhand doesn't tend to be very spinny but it's very consistent and I'm very comfortable flipping most, short balls.

Anyway I think what I like about playing the "junk" rubbers is that I get to do an opening FH loop and then comes another backspin ball for yet another of my stronger shot. It's the only time I get to actually feel like I'm attacking multiple balls in a row.

Since I don't back off the table and am moderately tall and lanky, my follow up to my opening loop is weak. I should be backing up for another loop since it's my strongest shot. But I don't.

Just a general comment here:

One of the things that I find interesting about loopers when they play against choppers is how they will constantly play hard, fast loops right at the corners of the table. But when someone is playing way off the table (like a chopper), attacking hard at the corners is probably the worst thing you can do. That means you are playing the ball just wide enough for the chopper to have to make no decision between forehand and backhand, yet at the same time the looper has no real potential to hit the ball past him. Watch Kong Linghui's famous match against Joo See Hyuk and take note of how many of Kong's loops actually break the sidelines, then go back and compare the video posted by the OP and notice how virtually none of his shots break a sideline. I understand it's an entirely different level, but I still find it instructive.

Many of the best players of all time, like Waldner and Kong, seemed to have a keen sense that the best way to play choppers was with either hooking sidespin or going hard right into their body. But we rarely see amatuer loopers play this way, even though it probably is within their capabilities.

Heck, at the sub 2000 level where I play, I have found better success playing choppers with soft, slow loops (that are probably more like rolls) right at the middle of the table than I have with hard shots right at the corners. I find lower level choppers will make lots of unforced errors with this method, as they are forced to make a determination not only between forehand or backhand but also whether or not to play defense or counterattack. That's a lot of decisions to make even against a slow ball, and I've seen some choppers fall apart against this tactic.

You are probably right in your assessment. However there are a couple of things to remember, at sub 2000 levels, people generally don't play or don't know how to play consistently at the opponents body, it is a 2100 + level thought process and technique , people below are just content to hit the ball on the table and placement generally means loops at the corners. Now, coming to sidespin , there is a risk to sidespin against long pips, because it needs footwork and advanced looping technique to adjust to the under side ball coming back. Infact, most people try to to keep it as simple as possible , , I have always tried to slow loop and push alternatively against Long pips and then go for the kill when the ball is there. And , I am around 1700 or slightly better when my legs are moving . However, I will give it a try as you suggested next time I play a chopper.

SchemeSC said:

Just a general comment here:

One of the things that I find interesting about loopers when they play against choppers is how they will constantly play hard, fast loops right at the corners of the table. But when someone is playing way off the table (like a chopper), attacking hard at the corners is probably the worst thing you can do. That means you are playing the ball just wide enough for the chopper to have to make no decision between forehand and backhand, yet at the same time the looper has no real potential to hit the ball past him. Watch Kong Linghui's famous match against Joo See Hyuk and take note of how many of Kong's loops actually break the sidelines, then go back and compare the video posted by the OP and notice how virtually none of his shots break a sideline. I understand it's an entirely different level, but I still find it instructive.

Many of the best players of all time, like Waldner and Kong, seemed to have a keen sense that the best way to play choppers was with either hooking sidespin or going hard right into their body. But we rarely see amatuer loopers play this way, even though it probably is within their capabilities.

Heck, at the sub 2000 level where I play, I have found better success playing choppers with soft, slow loops (that are probably more like rolls) right at the middle of the table than I have with hard shots right at the corners. I find lower level choppers will make lots of unforced errors with this method, as they are forced to make a determination not only between forehand or backhand but also whether or not to play defense or counterattack. That's a lot of decisions to make even against a slow ball, and I've seen some choppers fall apart against this tactic.

Click to expand...

In before Carl re-words hiz post about Der_Echte and pips players. He correctly said I play winning or competitive vs MOST pips players 2 levels above me, but surely not ALL of them. My Howard County tourney in January I had the tools to win vs an OX LP on BH player 1-2 levels higher rated, but played very stubborn and brain dead in that match. Even after the match, when a better player told me what was really happening, I refused to accept it and blamed it on the bad bouncing seamed plastic ball they used for matches. Dude simply had a soft hand I never saw (think - hand pressure is the invisible force) and he killed spin real well and made it look heavy.