Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

Played in my temporary "usual" place on tuesday. The place mostly consists of seniors and so I can't really ask people around to help me on drills. Nonetheless it's better to be able to play than to lose all the touches and muscle memory

Got really pissed off before I went back home. A guy asked me if I want to play and I accepted his offer. From the get go he just started smacking ball full power even if he has missed 3 or 4 balls before. He won't wait for me to fully stop before starting hitting another ball and would aim on the side or crossover point on purpose.

I don't know if he's just an asshole or he's practicing it but as I certainly won't be doing something like that to someone who I've just played the first time. He was certainly a better player than me and I estimate his skill around 1650-1750 USATT. He has certainly received training before looking at his playstyle. That, makes me even more pissed because it means he knows the etique of warming up or even being polite for people who you just met on table but dismissed it on purpose

laistrogian said:

Played in my temporary "usual" place on tuesday. The place mostly consists of seniors and so I can't really ask people around to help me on drills. Nonetheless it's better to be able to play than to lose all the touches and muscle memory

Got really pissed off before I went back home. A guy asked me if I want to play and I accepted his offer. From the get go he just started smacking ball full power even if he has missed 3 or 4 balls before. He won't wait for me to fully stop before starting hitting another ball and would aim on the side or crossover point on purpose.

I don't know if he's just an asshole or he's practicing it but as I certainly won't be doing something like that to someone who I've just played the first time. He was certainly a better player than me and I estimate his skill around 1650-1750 USATT. He has certainly received training before looking at his playstyle. That, makes me even more pissed because it means he knows the etique of warming up or even being polite for people who you just met on table but dismissed it on purpose

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It really could have been someone who, that's just the only way they know to hit. It is hard to say. But I know some people like this who really only know how to play like they are trying to win the point. I have methods for training with someone like that and making it useful to me. One method is that I have each of us serve to serves each as if it is a game and play the points as if it is a game and then I just work on stuff while doing that. Then at least you are both playing random.

JeffM said:

I went to a relatively far club to train again. I went there soon after I left the hospital. Normally I like to clean my bat before my next hitting, but this time, I did not get to do so, either I have been too busy or I have trained alot more frequently (the latter probably).

I like to train with this guy because he is a nice guy and 1 or 2 level higher than me. Before I went today, I asked him whether it is ok if I bring my camera to film it while we train. He said ok, so I went ahead and got some footage! I have more than an hour of footage, so I won't be showing all of it lol. But I chose the best point of the training session, hope you guys like it!
Some context of the point: It was during a drill, where he will serve, and I will push to him to his bh side until he opens up. Then it is free for all : P

Enjoy. I find it quite funny what he said after the point as well hahaha

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Ha - that's Steve B. Took me a second to realize it was him. Must be down at the Freo club! Steve is a very nice guy too.

DTopSpirit said:

Ha - that's Steve B. Took me a second to realize it was him. Must be down at the Freo club! Steve is a very nice guy too.

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Wow, do you know him too? Yeah he is a very nice guy. Where do you play? Do I know you hahaha

I've known Steve for years, going back to playing at UWA in the 1990's.


I'm Greg Letts - I play mainly at the WATTA centre or at the Maccabi club at the Maccabi gym in Yokine , where we actually just opened up our new club this week - Perth Table Tennis Club. Speaking of which, I'd better log off and get ready for club tonight, gotta get the hall ready for a 6pm start.

DTopSpirit said:

I've known Steve for years, going back to playing at UWA in the 1990's.


I'm Greg Letts - I play mainly at the WATTA centre or at the Maccabi club at the Maccabi gym in Yokine , where we actually just opened up our new club this week - Perth Table Tennis Club. Speaking of which, I'd better log off and get ready for club tonight, gotta get the hall ready for a 6pm start.

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I see. What a small world! I think last week I emailed you regarding your new club. I'm Jeff. I will come visit one day : )

laistrogian said:

Played in my temporary "usual" place on tuesday. The place mostly consists of seniors and so I can't really ask people around to help me on drills. Nonetheless it's better to be able to play than to lose all the touches and muscle memory

Got really pissed off before I went back home. A guy asked me if I want to play and I accepted his offer. From the get go he just started smacking ball full power even if he has missed 3 or 4 balls before. He won't wait for me to fully stop before starting hitting another ball and would aim on the side or crossover point on purpose.

I don't know if he's just an asshole or he's practicing it but as I certainly won't be doing something like that to someone who I've just played the first time. He was certainly a better player than me and I estimate his skill around 1650-1750 USATT. He has certainly received training before looking at his playstyle. That, makes me even more pissed because it means he knows the etique of warming up or even being polite for people who you just met on table but dismissed it on purpose

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Usually, I tell the person that I need to warm up, but if I am warmed up, I just start a match like drill or play a match. There is no reason to get worked up about it as not everyone who plays well or even decently has warm-up etiquette taught to them. If you need to warm up, it is one thing (you need to groove your strokes a little), but if you have already warmed up, just start getting used to tracking random balls. It will help you get better much faster if you have good training as learning to read where the ball is going is part of becoming a good player. I was used too long to letting the quality of my shots dictate the patterns I expected my opponents to play into and I am struggling more now when people have the control to play away from my sweet spots.

Complaints I receive are on the opposite end of warmup. My FH to FH flat hit sucks such major rocks I cannot do 10 in a row without slowing it down. That is what passes off higher level players during warmup... I have such a weak ball to keep it on the table it isn't what they want.

My BH however is very good looking for warmup, I keep it on table consistent off bounce high speed all day.

Man I am glad you don't get points for looks or style on warmup... I wouldn't have a chance it to was scored like that. Thankfully my game strokes are 100x better.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

So I hit again on Thurday and Friday night (no video) to review a couple of things. I am realizing a few things about aggressive stroke timing and controlling the height of my loops.

On Thursday, I mostly wanted to test the Eternity VPS. I came away pretty impressed by the blade. I want to let a user of the Emerald VPS try it. It is a 5 ply with a limba outer whike the Emerald had an Ebony outer. But the Eternity feels more solid and is likely an improvement on both the Infinity and the Emerald for players like me. The smaller head size and more durable top ply (it is coated) means that despite the much higher price, I will likely be recommending this blade over the SPW over time for advanced players. It has great balance.

I also had an Innerforce T5000 which I like, but I am not 100% sure whether I prefer it to the Timo Boll T5000, which really surprises me. Usually, limba over koto is a no brainer for me but something may have changed. I will run some tests later as the blades break in and I may have to do another glue job on the Innerforce.

On Friday, I played the guy who I lost to on Wednesday in one match out of 4. I beat him pretty easily, both with my third ball style and my light spin sidespin style as he hit many balls into the net or off the table. I will continue to hone variety into my game.

The other thing I worked on on Thursday was blocking. I am noticing that in practice, my blocks are almost always aggressive and that I don't play trap blocks. Think of trap blocks as working on the same principle as when someone kicks a soccer ball to you and your need to decelerate the ball to trap it before pushing it back out. Some people pull their rackets backwards and others rotate their paddles over. Some hold the paddle in place with a relaxed hand and pull upwards to add topspin upon contact. Will get my robot and investigate this sometime.

I played a tournament that put me back in EJ hell. I beat two players above me and lost to one below - went 3-5 in a Giant RR as the #7 seed. The one below me was the most painful as I had lost a 5 setter to him during another tournament which was just a bad day. As for my best win, it was against a familiar opponent:


My equipment issues left me a little confused. I still need to figure out whether I value my control with Hexer more than the easy spin of T05. I couldn't loop with Hexer today so I used T05 on a whim and did better but I can't control it on fast blades. I will resolve this tomorrow. In any case, I need to find solutions and continue playing. I figured out a missing piece of my backhand flick today. I will try playing extensively with wood blades this week and Hexer.

I went to my first tournament as shake hander today. After winning my group and the next round I was defeated badly by a RPB player with short pimples on FH in the quarter finals. This guy lost the finals against the 2nd player from my group, but I didn't have any chance against him, just couldn't find any responses for the pimples.

After all not bad making the top 8, but I feel like I definitely should learn to play against short pimples a lot better and unfortunately there is not a single player using it in my club, the last time I played against short pimples was back in 1995 or something like that.

Luis Nasche said:

I went to my first tournament as shake hander today. After winning my group and the next round I was defeated badly by a RPB player with short pimples on FH in the quarter finals. This guy lost the finals against the 2nd player from my group, but I didn't have any chance against him, just couldn't find any responses for the pimples.

After all not bad making the top 8, but I feel like I definitely should learn to play against short pimples a lot better and unfortunately there is not a single player using it in my club, the last time I played against short pimples was back in 1995 or something like that.

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The most important thing is to realize that the ball is not topspin and you can't spin over it. You have to block with an open racket and hit/spin with a relatively open racket. My opponent in the above video uses worn inverted to play a short pips game and you can see that if I just block his stroke without opening my racket or do a forehand without playing behind the ball, the ball goes into the net. You can look at the above game as how to play them. If you can load up the spin, load it up - this opponent though blocks at a 2300+ level so I would rather blast the ball past him than give him spin to work with.

Because most of the time, our instincts are built vs topspin, you need to play someone who uses pips often enough for it to become instinctive. It's pretty hard to fix otherwise.

NextLevel said:

The most important thing is to realize that the ball is not topspin and you can't spin over it. You have to block with an open racket and hit/spin with a relatively open racket ...
Because most of the time, our instincts are built vs topspin, you need to play someone who uses pips often enough for it to become instinctive. It's pretty hard to fix otherwise.

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Thanks NextLevel

I also went against a player with anti spin BH on this tournament. That was not a problem at all, but I struggled against short pimples.

Yuri told me that my old TT pals are training with him on his club, I might go there next saturday to have a session with them. They helped me a great deal back in the 90's when I played for my college and I believe it can easy my journey a bit returning to this sport training with familiar faces that are also very good players.

Short pips is different, as per me its the most versatile of all rubbers, some people can use older tenergys to generate a similar effect but definitely not anti , its about tracking the spin and power from the trajectory. Once you train your backhand and forehand consistently against such players it will come naturally.
Also, remember to push whenever you can against shortpips , one thing they cannot do is aggressively loop or hit flat against a long spinning push ..

Luis Nasche said:

Thanks NextLevel

I went against a player with anti spin BH on this tournament. That was not a problem at all, but I struggled against short pimples.

Yuri told me that my old TT pals are training with him on his club, I might go there next saturday to have a session with them. They helped me a great deal back in the 90's when I played for my college and I believe it can easy my journey a bit returning to this sport training with familiar faces that are also very good players.

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Luis Nasche said:

Thanks NextLevel

I also went against a player with anti spin BH on this tournament. That was not a problem at all, but I struggled against short pimples.

Yuri told me that my old TT pals are training with him on his club, I might go there next saturday to have a session with them. They helped me a great deal back in the 90's when I played for my college and I believe it can easy my journey a bit returning to this sport training with familiar faces that are also very good players.

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It all depends on whether the player is attacking with the pips or anti. I haven't seen you play but I will credit you with being at a level that if the player just blocks with anything, over time, you will figure it out, and that you are usually the first aggressor. But when the player gets more advanced and can block, counterattack and vary spin with the surface, it is a different level of play, regardless of what surface they are using. If they can attack both topspin and backspin, it is even rougher. Immediately I see a player can attack well with medium or long pips, I know I am in for a long match. That automatically puts pressure on the quality of ball I can play. Short pips is a bit different, it is the pushing game that I usually get into trouble as I sometimes find it hard to read whether they have pushed with heavy or light spin.

ttmonster said:

Short pips is different, as per me its the most versatile of all rubbers, some people can use older tenergys to generate a similar effect but definitely not anti , its about tracking the spin and power from the trajectory. Once you train your backhand and forehand consistently against such players it will come naturally.
Also, remember to push whenever you can against shortpips , one thing they cannot do is aggressively loop or hit flat against a long spinning push ..

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Not so sure about the pushing, but I guess it all depends on the level of player and the spin that you had incoming to begin with.

So to clarify further, what I have seen is that against people who are at the 17-1800 USATT level, if you can push heavy to their short pips side you can , most of the times get a lighter backspin ball, on which you can execute strong loops. But definitely there are higher level players who can do a lot of stuff with short pips ... as I said IMO , its the most versatile rubber ....

NextLevel said:

Not so sure about the pushing, but I guess it all depends on the level of player and the spin that you had incoming to begin with.

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monster, I have seen HARDBAT players kill you if you push and it is net height. Granted, there are NOT a lot of SP players who will do opening topspins vs a push - some do, but not many, the spin will not be as heavy and safe to land that shot, but some can do an OK BH loop with SP. Most will slap shot an underspin hard. Yes, if you can keep it low AND heavy underspin, you make it damned difficult to slap-shot attack. If it isn't absolutely low, I have seen some 1600 level players slap it for winners consistently.

You really have to know your opponent and know what you can get away with.

There is a Korean lady at Smash in Virginia who is a J-Pen inverted with a very flat crush shot every time she steps around, it is much like SP, but with inverted. She is only slapping the piss outta the ball with next to no spin. If the ball is real low, she will never land that attack, but if it is net high, she will kill it 2/3 of the time, if higher, almost never miss. She does a real heavy low underspin fast and deep to get you to push, then she pushes again, making it also look heavy and fast, but it is a DEAD push, so if you push, the ball will set up nice and high enough for her and point is over. If I do not attack her first push successfully, I will fall into that pattern and it favors her heavily.