Guess the Rating

NextLevel said:

Sounds like what I say all the time - people who post video of themselves playing tend to be far more careful and kind when evaluating the play of others.

Click to expand...

I fully support that statement.

I have posted vids, both good and bad.

I have commented on vids...

Sometimes I waz right, sometimes I stuck my foot so deep inside my mouth it came out my tail end.

Been there, done that, got lots of free T-Shirts for that.

A video isn't everything, but it can give an idea or at least a little insight into the poster.

pgpg said:

I've heard this mentioned several times, especially for Philippe - but do you have actual data to back it up? I went to their rating/match history and could not really see wild rating fluctuations or obvious examples of match throwing, at least in the last 6 months or so (and Richard seems to play in every tournament he can).

They do sometimes lose to lower-rated players, but don't we all? Rapidly increasing junior, bad style matchup etc. can do it for you.

Click to expand...

You could look at the complete ratings history and see some stuff that sticks out, but to truly decide for yourself if someone is sandbagging or just losing to someone who simply played better for one match, you need to know the player and his/her abilities, know their game, know their motivations, know their opponents, and know the situations.

If you got all that, and you are paying attention for long enough, you will have a very good basis to decide for yourself if someone is sandbagging and keeping their official rating significantly lower than if they competed to win every match in the tourneys vs that field of players you know.

A tip-off is your assessment over time knowing the player's level and their official rating... if those two are super different, like 100-200 points or more different, then you can be confident.

Rich D. will tell you up front he shows up to a tourney to WIN his primary event and have a good chance to win the next one up. He does not want to show up to the tourney if he is not confident of his chances to win. I have not seen how Phillipe rolls, but there is enough out there for everyone to make their opinion, like if he of Rich are really too worried about it.

I don't blame Rich too much. If he went all out every match tried to win at all costs (conserving enough energy for semis and finals) I am convinced his rating would be a lot higher. How much? Whatever. Rich stays around 2100s or so... given his true playing level, in the Northeast region, there really isn't a but a few players with any chance to win vs him in the final of U2250, U2200 or U2150, and their chances are not very good. Rich can afford to lose a match in Group stage and still advance and win. Call it pacing oneself, call it giving the little guy a chance at ratings points, call it whatever, you watch Rich and form your own opinions.

Myself, I play to win every time, and damn the torpedoes if my chances are slim, I come to compete and win, but it takes more skill and sometimes luck to win vs the crowd in the NE region in the events you qualify for, because the ones making the semis o final are playing at a much higher level than the ratings cutoff, like 1, likely 2 levels better. Korea is worse, you play two levels above the division average, you might not make the semis!

I am like Rich in that I show up to win. Often, my rating is right below the cutoff, I don't always win, but I fight for every match, lose some, get unlucky sometimes, but generally, I make the expected result in making the semis or final if I am among the top 5-6 rated players in the field.

Yes, along the way, you run into growing players, or a player who was just in a zone and also got some good breaks. That is how it goes sometime.

If I kept my rating around low to mid 1700s, I am sure I would win the U1800 event just about every time or at least make the finals.

I enter the lowest event I qualify for and the next one higher, maybe the finals if I feel a lot of energy. Rich pretty much does that and will nearly always be the favorite to win or make the final at least. No one should blame him too much, we just think he should be higher rated and play one level higher.

Again, in Korea it is 10x more fierce, at city level, at ALL the regional tourneys and the worst is the National tourneys that have 1000 players in Div 4. That Div should be for players in USATT 1600-1800 playing level range, but at a tourney that size, there are 20-30 each 1900-2000 level players (heck I tried to play Div 4 national when my level was around 1850ish and the director kicked me out !!! to Div 3 to die) and in Div 4 National, the top players are 2100-2200 level. I would have ZERO chance to make the round of 32 in one of those tourneys. Heck, Next Level is a solid 1950-2050 and would get waxed before round of 32, he would have to play out of hiz azz just to make round of 16 to die a spectacular death in front of 20 screaming enemy supporting 50 year old lady cheerers. I got waxed in group stage 0-3 ave score I made was 5 points, I told dude good luck and win the toruney, he said he was gunna die before round of 32.

You might ask how they stay so lower rated, as long as you do not win the division in a national tourney, you stay in that division.

Why did I get bumped up into Div 3??? I had a BH loop vs underspin that Div 3 national players didn't yet grow, had a good serve and attack, and I got around a lot more. I wasn't an unknown dude showing up.

Gunna hafta camouflage myself next time I am in Korea.

This just means one thing, the rating does not reflect how beautiful or how smooth you play. I too can honestly say that is how I understand the level of a player. The smoother the better to the point where I said that "What? This is the #1 of the Philippines?". But as I matured roughly 3 years I realized that it is not how beautiful you play but how to beat your opponent with your skills, tactics coz table tennis is not always physical. It is very tactical in nature It is like a fast paced chess game

Oh and the #1 of the Philippines is Richard Gonzales
a chopper with a very unorthodox style of play.
He reached the SEA Games Finals where he was
beaten by Gao Ning.

pgpg said:

I've heard this mentioned several times, especially for Philippe - but do you have actual data to back it up?

Click to expand...

Yeah, already there is a lot of good info that has been presented.

NextLevel's point that you can ask them and they will say it, that held true for me. I know both of those guys. To me Philippe has always been totally cool. I get along fairly well with him but I have not seen him in 3-4 years. He is a pretty darn smart guy.

I remember one time watching him break down the game of, and beat this 2600 level Egyptian Dr by the name of Imaad (pronounced eemad).

I will tell you what I have seen him do: how he keeps his rating points from going too high. In the round robin of an event where 2 people from each group will get out of the RR and advance to the elimination bracket, if there is a player that is weaker than everyone else and he knows he can beat everyone in the group, he will lose to the weakest link on purpose, beat the other two and still finish first in the round robin because he beat the other player who finished 2-1 in their head to head matchup.

So he can theoretically win the U2150 and still lose 50-100 points depending on how low rated the guy he threw the RR match against was.

If you look closely at how often he loses in RR to guys under 2000 and how often he loses to guys under 2100 in the elimination brackets, you can pick out the pattern. He is still trying to win the event. He just wants to keep the rating points down to some extent.

I have seen him as high as 2350 and I have seen his rating drop to under 2000. I promise, for him to be under 2000, he would have to be taking heavy narcotics. He is too good. 2350'is probably pretty close to the actual level of both of these guys.

And I think these guys are both pretty okay people. I like how Der_Echte called it: "managing" their rating. That might be more accurate to how they see it.



Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

In Germany, there are some pretty crazy tournaments in terms of talent pool. This is a tournament that a lot of the players in my club go to:

https://goo.gl/8yl2i4

Even the second class in the tournament (rated division 7) is rated for up till 1950 TTR!

http://goo.gl/GucQp9

These are the results from last time and these are the list of players who took part last time in the first class http://goo.gl/BgoZ6t

About last video, I guess two players are about number 8000 in France, perhaps rather 10.000 since level is very strong here. Players less than number 8.000 don't mistakes and are playing fast. Team championship raises level, I guess. There isn't easy match, even against young players with a lower rating

But I am of course interested about other opinion.

I am about number 10.000 in France, I will try to do a video in order to have your opinion about what would be my rating in usa !

Bonk I just read through the whole thread and found i very interesting! Good going archo

I have to say i have absolutely no idea how to rate NL from those clips.

1. I have no idea how the USTTR works and i have researched alot of rating estimate threads in different forums.
I have come to the conclusion that its just not comparable, as in europe we have much more team leagues and the system how points are won and lost are different.
For example if i beat the best player in my country i only get 15 points and he loses 15 wich is not much.

2. Playstyles can be deceptive. Without watching alot of NL matches i would not rate him very high. However as i have watched alot of his matches on his yt channel, wich you should check out btw its awesome, i can say his ability to generate and read spin is of very high standarts.

Boogar said:

Bonk I just read through the whole thread and found i very interesting! Good going archo

I have to say i have absolutely no idea how to rate NL from those clips.

1. I have no idea how the USTTR works and i have researched alot of rating estimate threads in different forums.
I have come to the conclusion that its just not comparable, as in europe we have much more team leagues and the system how points are won and lost are different.
For example if i beat the best player in my country i only get 15 points and he loses 15 wich is not much.

2. Playstyles can be deceptive. Without watching alot of NL matches i would not rate him very high. However as i have watched alot of his matches on his yt channel, wich you should check out btw its awesome, i can say his ability to generate and read spin is of very high standarts.

Click to expand...

Forum threads are not the best way to understand how USATT ratings work (most of these posts have a 'gotcha' element - "you won't believe what the true rating of this guy is!!"). Go here:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis/Ratings/How-Does-the-USATT-Rating-System-work

and read first couple of paragraphs. You can safely ignore description of adjustment procedure. Hope it helps.

pgpg said:

Forum threads are not the best way to understand how USATT ratings work (most of these posts have a 'gotcha' element - "you won't believe what the true rating of this guy is!!"). Go here:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis/Ratings/How-Does-the-USATT-Rating-System-work

and read first couple of paragraphs. You can safely ignore description of adjustment procedure. Hope it helps.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but i didn't express myself the rigth way. I meant that i have no idea how the USTTR does compare to other rating systems. I know how it works tho.

I hope one day someone from or in USA with USTTR 1800-2200 to play against, watching some of those videos are misleading, i feel i can play better so i can put myself at around USTTR 2400, but i may get surprised if i played against someone who is even USTTR 1800, so i hope if someone you know will visit my country then please let me know.

I never video myself because when i play games against good players then i am always or 1000% under tension and lose easily, yesterday played with a friend who is very good and we are close in level and many times i lose even when i am in advanced, the last game before we leave i was 10-6 to him, and i lost 6 points continuously so he won 12-10, and if i video that and showed that then i am sure people will rate me like USTTR 500 or even lower, but if i am out of tension and very focused, i can beat him even if he is in advance 10-5, but he is really improved a lot and i never tried to improve myself, but i have some plans in the future if i want to improve.

Today morning is a rumble tournament in the academy in the club, i jointed that about 6 times before, and i never qualified from the group stage, and the last time i was the last in ranking in the group, before that i get the 4th or before the last [5 in each group], so it is like i will never qualify until i get rid of my stress and be confident of myself and start to practice/train seriously with a coach, when i just play without games or hitting and practicing i admire that i do have shots unbelievable, even i feel it was a luck, once i play it is like i forget how to play, but sounds if i play against someone low level i can attack easily and control the game, if i play against someone very skilled even not high level i do make mistakes and rush myself and maybe i lose by myself and not his mistakes or his winner shots.

First of all, thanks for the thread bump. I have been (unfortunately) but a lurker on here for the past year or so but just read through all these posts and find not just the original post very interesting but the discussion that came out of it as well. I would like to add my two cents, whatever they are worth.

My rating is just over 1800 USATT, and that is about my level right now (I have not trained in about half a year, just played tournaments, and will start training (and hopefully improving) again over the summer).

One thing that is a factor in how good you are is how good your actual strokes are: your physical fitness, your footwork, how low to the net your serves are, etc—the technical part of the game. But that is not what determines your level. What determines it is having that skill set, and setting up your points based on your skill set. So, for example, I know a few kids my age who have the most technically perfect forehand stroke, backhand stroke, footwork, and technical game that one could have, but stay at around my level. And on the other hand players at my level and above whose technical game is just blatantly incorrect and inefficient. The best in the United States (and the world) would not be the best if they did not have perfect strokes. But in between 1000 and 3000 USATT rating comes using your skill set. So for my game, like most people's, I have decided I need to get the first strong attack to give myself the best chance to win a given point. But my biggest weakness (should I be publicly telling my future opponents my weaknesses? oops :/ ) is probably that I am too scared and inexperienced on my backhand serve return to attack topspin and no spin serves, giving any thinking opponents an opportunity to get a strong attack on any topspin serve to my backhand. And the reason I am 1800 is because up until 1800 level, players are not smart enough to serve it into my backhand so that I give a weak return, or do not have that serve, or do not have a strong enough attack to finish the point. But after 1800 opponents quickly realize my weakness and start serving there, giving me less and less of a chance of winning.

So for players above 1800, they will beat me not by having "conservative strokes," or the fastest most efficient strokes or the best footwork. They will beat me by being smart and having the necessary shot to finish me off once I give a weak return to their serve. But when I start training again over the summer I will work on my backhand service return and hopefully I will seal up that weakness, moving me up a level.

And that is why players like Dassonval and Dewitt, despite having unorthodox strokes and being past their prime, are still 2200 USATT while me and my much nicer strokes only get me to 1800. When I learn how to use my skill set more, my level will improve, just like anyones' would.

On a side note: I think it is impossible to tell someone's level by watching a video. I have thought about this a lot and I think the rating system does a pretty good job of saying someone's letter, and a video only provides information about weaknesses, not actual level.

I've gotta confess: this is pretty funny. Tareq, how is your receive of serve on the BH side treating you?

Here is a 2400 level player playing Timo Boll where Boll got surprised in the first game:


Here is the second game for how Timo changed his approach and tightened things up not letting Can (Kevin is his "American" name) Wang get those opportunities.


But 2400 means you are pretty close to pro level. Even if someone who doesn't know better can't see it.

I would love to see footage of Tareq taking a game off Timo. That would be so entertaining. Tareq, have you ever seen footage of yourself before?

Abe, is Kevin your coach?

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

UpSideDownCarl said:

I've gotta confess: this is pretty funny. Tareq, how is your receive of serve on the BH side treating you?

Here is a 2400 level player playing Timo Boll where Boll got surprised in the first game:

Here is the second game for how Timo changed his approach and tightened things up not letting Can (Kevin is his "American" name) Wang get those opportunities.

But 2400 means you are pretty close to pro level. Even if someone who doesn't know better can't see it.

I would love to see footage of Tareq taking a game off Timo. That would be so entertaining. Tareq, have you ever seen footage of yourself before?

Abe, is Kevin your coach?

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

Click to expand...

Great video, Kevin always talks about that first game

He is no longer my coach. I don't really have a coach right now, because I am not really training. I am going to a training camp over the summer and will find a coach when I get back.