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says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Yeah. Video can be misleading. Lots of times people look at video and think the players are lower level than they are. There are a couple of keys to look at that show that those guys in the first video are at least 2100-2200 level. Could be more.

The idea that they are looping serves that have that much spin on them should give some info. Then some of the faster loops, the amount of arc and kick on a few of the faster loops tells you that there are some shots that have way more spin than an average club level player could generate.
 
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Good player do no give away points like that.

There was a video a long time ago about the criss-cross blocker. I have more respect for him than the two yokels in the first video. Good players do not make those kinds of mistakes. Especially that often.

There is a difference between the way a player plays when he plays
1) an opponent he feels threatened by and there is money at stake
2) an opponent he feels threatened by and there is no money at stake
3) an opponent he doesn't feel threatened by and he is in the mood to practice (this will look very similar to 2)
4) an opponent he doesn't feel threatened by but he is trying to do his very best to destroy or embarrass him.


I suspect in the above video, the bald man loses 90% of the time and the approach to the match reflects this.
 
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No way. My last coach was Guo Hao. He beat Wang Jinxin in the Seattle open. Wang Jinxin had just won the US open a couple of months earlier. Hao was about 2500 USATT. Sometimes better and other times worse depending on his back. I know what playing games against a very good player is like. Those guys in the original video give away too many points. These guys were not playing smart. It makes no sense to give away points with reckless shots.

Now for some education about probabilities. You always need to be mindful of your shot selection. I often try shots that were really stupid because they were low percentage shots. I know this.

If the other guys has a shot that looks good but he makes less than 50% of them then let him try. He will end up giving you point on the average. If the other guys only makes 2/3 of his shots then you only need to return 1/2 to break even or a little better than 1/2 to be ahead. if the other guy can make 3/4 of his shots then you must step up you game and return 2/3 or better. There is a pattern. If the other guys makes n/(n+1) then you need to make (n-1)/n to break even.

The guys in the video were playing stupid and just blasting balls. There is no way you will convince me they are even average club level players. I would just counter hit or block them down.

I do agree that Dmitri is not that good.

Oh My Friggin' OMG you just made me spit out the Orange Juice and it is still running out my nose stinging snot like all get out.

An average USA club player is 1400-1600 USATT for that center of mass.

The two players in the original vid Loopadoop posted... if these two guys were in your average USA TT club that plays 2.5 hours in a rented out community center where players wait 45 minutes to get on a table and leave table when they lose... if either of these guys played your average 1400-1600 USATT player in those conditions... either player would defeat the average USA club player SO BAD that the average USA club player would avoid going to their own club until both gents went back to Siberia and would kiss the ground of the rented out gym after they leave.


BB, you just don't see how deceptive their serves are... you don't see how well either defends and counters 2000+ level shots... you don't see how they move... you don't see their balance and power transfer... you don't notice their impact timing...

There is a lot you are not noticing, because you are focusing on the missed shots of both and not realizing why they are attempting them. Both those players will crush kill a ball that is 1 inch over the net and blast it through a 3 ft thick concrete wall. Neither player wants the other to blast them down... they would rather lose on their own terms.

Basically, these guys are choosing to die on the beach of their choice storming the enemy machine gun nests, instead of having the air raid kill them.

There is a Romanian woman around 50 yrs old in the SW region of USA... she returns serves like these guys... a power flip or power drive every return practically, she doesn't know how to spell PUSH. If she was on a vid playing vs a player of her level and play style preferences, she would look a lot like the two gents in the vid and miss similar shots...

Guess what? She is 2150-2200 USATT and cleans up at every big tourney U2200 and O40 womens event to cash out big time.
 
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There is a pattern. If the other guys makes n/(n+1) then you need to make (n-1)/n to break even.

It is nice to do some math...but I laughed hard at that and think it should be corrected.
You do not need to make (n-1)/n to break even. Not even close to that.
First let's give a counter example: n = 5 (not even that high) and let's see what we get.

My chance of winning the point when opponent can hit 4/5 and I can hit 3/4 is: 1/5 + (4/5)*(3/4) = 1/5 + 3/5 = 80%. Not even close to 51% that would be the minimum for me to win that hyphotetical match. And % gets even better and better for bigger numbers since the score will always be 1/(n+1) + (n-1)/(n+1) = n/(n+1) which actually has a limit in infity when n goes to infinity...it other words it goes close to 100% pretty fast.

To break even You would actually only need to make (n/2)/(n+1) shots, or to be more precise ceil(n/2)/(n+1) since n/2 is not natural for odd n's
 
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says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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I am looking back fondly to a time when a new beginner player called Tareqphoto said that footage of 2700 level player--Damien Provost--would be the lowest level player at his club and that Tareqphoto would have no trouble beating him. This was a guy who was pronouncing things like how he could beat people at his club except he could not return their serves. And why in pressure situations he could not return the ball.

Until you understand and can really see the spin, it can be hard to see what higher level players are actually doing.
 
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I am looking back fondly to a time when a new beginner player called Tareqphoto said that footage of 2700 level player--Damien Provost--would be the lowest level player at his club and that Tareqphoto would have no trouble beating him. This was a guy who was pronouncing things like how he could beat people at his club except he could not return their serves. And why in pressure situations he could not return the ball.

Until you understand and can really see the spin, it can be hard to see what higher level players are actually doing.

Most people who play with anti-top at highest amateur level in Belgium (like B2 or B0) look like they're just returning the balls. There's no way someone could guess their ranking based only on how they look like playing in a video. I can bet any amount of money that they can beat everyone here with a comfortable margin though.
 
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No way. My last coach was Guo Hao. He beat Wang Jinxin in the Seattle open. Wang Jinxin had just won the US open a couple of months earlier. Hao was about 2500 USATT. Sometimes better and other times worse depending on his back. I know what playing games against a very good player is like. Those guys in the original video give away too many points. These guys were not playing smart. It makes no sense to give away points with reckless shots.

Now for some education about probabilities. You always need to be mindful of your shot selection. I often try shots that were really stupid because they were low percentage shots. I know this.

If the other guys has a shot that looks good but he makes less than 50% of them then let him try. He will end up giving you point on the average. If the other guys only makes 2/3 of his shots then you only need to return 1/2 to break even or a little better than 1/2 to be ahead. if the other guy can make 3/4 of his shots then you must step up you game and return 2/3 or better. There is a pattern. If the other guys makes n/(n+1) then you need to make (n-1)/n to break even.

The guys in the video were playing stupid and just blasting balls. There is no way you will convince me they are even average club level players. I would just counter hit or block them down.

I do agree that Dmitri is not that good.

BB,

If either of these gents in the original vid would visit and play vs you, it would get real silly real quick. Reality would biatch slap you in the face in just the first game, whether you would accept it or not.

You say you would counter hit... hahah triple haha there is no chance at all even Der_Echte could counter-hit either of these gents' drives (unless they agree to hit it to an agreed upon zone) more than 20% landing percentage. It is by you before you even know which way it is going.

You say you would block them down? You see how these guys move? They would get to the ball if you happened to be lucky enough to land the block on the table. LP block? These guys play vs 2200 USATT level LP players each session.

No one is trying to "convince" you they are average USATT club level. These guys are minimum 5 levels above average USATT level, and that is a conservative assessment.

These guys would defeat you 3-0 without breaking a sweat. I would have to break out the Goon Squad play book and get Tawnya Harding on my support black ops staff to even compete vs these guys.
 
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I'd never guess anyone's rating by video. This is why I never post my playing ha ha....

To understand USA's TT rating I'd recommend everyone to watch pong4life video's as he lists all the rating of players in his. You may see one of the videos where I was a victim of his hidden camera lol....

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMnmPDngUwnxj1WR0AeRuEA/videos
 
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My chance of winning the point when opponent can hit 4/5 and I can hit 3/4 is: 1/5 + (4/5)*(3/4) = 1/5 + 3/5 = 80%.
No!!! To work this our in detail you need to know how to compute the sum of a converging series. I just gave and example for the first two strokes. Using your example the opponent will miss 20% of his shots so 80% land. Of the 80% that you must return, you fail on 25% so after two balls, the opponent will have lost 20% of the original 100% and you also will have lost 20% of the original 100%. The is a 60% chance the ball is still in play after 2 strokes. If you used the same ratio for another two strokes the chances of your opponent losing the point is 32% and your chances of losing the point is 32% too and there is a 36% chance that the ball is still in play. Get it?

Only 36% would go longer than 4 strokes. There are a lot of short rallies in the original video so their percentage of returning the ball is not high. Better players will get a higher percentage of the balls back.

I don't care how good Der_Echte thinks the two original players are. They are not playing smart in the video.
 
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As is typical, a supercilious response to a reasonable question.

He was asking it to Broken ball specifically because there is no point in revealing one of the players is a 2750 player. I guess it doesn't matter now. He has no intention of addressing this.
 
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No!!! To work this our in detail you need to know how to compute the sum of a converging series. I just gave and example for the first two strokes. Using your example the opponent will miss 20% of his shots so 80% land. Of the 80% that you must return, you fail on 25% so after two balls, the opponent will have lost 20% of the original 100% and you also will have lost 20% of the original 100%. The is a 60% chance the ball is still in play after 2 strokes. If you used the same ratio for another two strokes the chances of your opponent losing the point is 32% and your chances of losing the point is 32% too and there is a 36% chance that the ball is still in play. Get it?

well, I just got mathsplained.
You might not belive it, but I "get it".
The problem is we are not talking about robots, but real human beings...or even players from the video, where average rally was around or even below drive/block exchange, so my model is much closer to reallity than model expecting them to drive/block for eternity.

The 2nd point is that You totally omitted the % for ball being a winner.
And I can assure You that if You make shot that has n/n+1 chance of landing on tabble where n > 5 then You need to be either on a pro level or play against totall amateour to net get finished, by the next 1-2 balls, meaning the next time You want to make same % shot it will be even easier ball for the opponent to finish.
And that is where Your "block them for the win" strategy fails.

Assuming both You and Your opponent are programmed to make same shot with the same placement each time then... I agree with You, but if we take even a bit of real world knowledge You model is not even close to being usefull.

As for the skills of the players in the video... I can see myself having troubles with them when they have great day, but they look more like self-developed players without proper coaching (I also developed pvetty much on my own and recieved proser coaching for only 3-4 months after turning 20). For example they have nice timing, but both lose a lot of power and quality on the ball, by doing "weird" body movements (like arching back away from the ball while making a drive/loop) that probably comes from habit and not sufficient footwork.

Overall Iwouldn't be surprised by any rating between 1500-1800 from what I saw in other yt videos.

I posted my video some time ago on this forum, so You can check it and even try to "rate" me, cause I have no idea what would be my USATT rating (and I will keep the rating I got from Carl as a secret unless Carl wants to share it :D).
 
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