What is my USA ranking now?

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I had a great LA Open 2019 and busted through 2000 and was concerned my rating level was on the over-rated side. I did not know for sure if I belonged in hte low to mid 2000s level for Bay Area. Last 4 star tourney finally gave me enough matches vs that class of players and I performed favorably. I lost 7 points, but I feel it was one of my best tourneys ever. I had solid wins vs several of the 2000s class I needed to show me LA Open wasn't an accident.
That supports your view of needed some more data to be confident.

Now with teh Covid and so little TT... and the Sacramento Metro area only TT gym shut down for good... it is gunna be bleak here and tough to regain level and keep it. Bay area is 2.5 hrs drive away, that is a 1x per month distance at best.

If you have played several tournament over a year in your region and still are 2000 rating, you are very solid 2000. Still, your comparison between LA players and East Coast players based on yourself is far from accurate. Every player is different. Most New York players tend to gain rating when they go to big tournament such as Baltimore because there are many players from different region joining. It is easier for them to gain rating there than local competition. Usually they will lose all their rating increase when they played the local competition, especially in Westchester. Maybe due to players familiarity. Just last year, I played a 2400 player from LA in Westchester. I beat him 3-1 but I lost to a 2250 2-3. while he beat the 2250 3-0. Does it mean that the LA player is over-rated? No. He has been around 2400-2500 for several years. His east coast competition makes his rating drop to 2300++ but when he went back to LA, his rating went back to 2450. What does that say again? I have no idea based on just this sample though. So, I think that it is really up to individual play style and familiarity with the opponents.
 
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If you have played several tournament over a year in your region and still are 2000 rating, you are very solid 2000. Still, your comparison between LA players and East Coast players based on yourself is far from accurate. Every player is different. Most New York players tend to gain rating when they go to big tournament such as Baltimore because there are many players from different region joining. It is easier for them to gain rating there than local competition. Usually they will lose all their rating increase when they played the local competition, especially in Westchester. Maybe due to players familiarity. Just last year, I played a 2400 player from LA in Westchester. I beat him 3-1 but I lost to a 2250 2-3. while he beat the 2250 3-0. Does it mean that the LA player is over-rated? No. He has been around 2400-2500 for several years. His east coast competition makes his rating drop to 2300++ but when he went back to LA, his rating went back to 2450. What does that say again? I have no idea based on just this sample though. So, I think that it is really up to individual play style and familiarity with the opponents.

Yeah. I agree. And I seem to remember when Der_Echte moved to the DC area, all of a sudden the ringers and sandbaggers from the DC area where making it so the DC area was tougher to get a higher rating than elsewhere.

I think, sometimes we see the world the way we see the world. Der_ likes to compliment and praise. Wherever he has been since returning to civilian life has been the toughest place to go up in rating, until the next place became even tougher. :)

I think he just wants the Boston, NYC Philly and DC goon squads to come for a visit to LA. :)
 
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From this thread:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...d-National-Training-Center-April-2016-Tourney

About a tournament in Maryland:


Something you all gotta understand about this club and people who show up there for tourneys... LOTS of effective coaching and MANY players improving faster than they can do tourneys to catch up ratings. Then there is the crowd who plays WAY better than their low 1800s rating. I try to win all my matches and enter the events of my level and one above. The next higher level was U2300, simply too high a level to enter and expect to compete.

ANYONE making it to the finals in the U2000 or U1900 if they hold it reeeeeeeeally went through a gauntlet of ringers. Out of 40 players in the field, there must have be 12 who were good enough players to go all the way. You really gotta play 1or 2 levels better to each finals in that event. The high end of the division is STACKED with players who are a level or better than their official rating.

Same basic idea: “Then there is the crowd who plays WAY better than their low 1800s rating."

I think Der just likes to compliment the people wherever he is. :)
 
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Yeah. I agree. And I seem to remember when Der_Echte moved to the DC area, all of a sudden the ringers and sandbaggers from the DC area where making it so the DC area was tougher to get a higher rating than elsewhere.

I think, sometimes we see the world the way we see the world. Der_ likes to compliment and praise. Wherever he has been since returning to civilian life has been the toughest place to go up in rating, until the next place became even tougher. :)

I think he just wants the Boston, NYC Philly and DC goon squads to come for a visit to LA. :)

Haha... I think he miss us. Anyway, anyone that can get a rating above 2000 in USA in any region is not an easy player to beat :). Carl... we played a few times together before long ago at King Pong. I'm the asian penholder.
 
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This is another thing to note:

This is three different serves:

View attachment 21754

View attachment 21755

View attachment 21756

This is three different serves. I did not see this on the FH serves. But on the BH at least 50% of them, this happens to some extent. These three, your hand is so far below the table that you can see your elbow crease and a little of the forearm.

Those are illegal serves. It is not legal to take the ball below the playing surface and out of view. Worth knowing and easy to fix.


Since MOG is the king of arguing that he never serves illegally and that his opponents are breaking all the rules, this is perplexing and vexing and needs immediate attention and resolution.
 
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Haha... I think he miss us. Anyway, anyone that can get a rating above 2000 in USA in any region is not an easy player to beat :). Carl... we played a few times together before long ago at King Pong. I'm the asian penholder.

Cool. I had a feeling we knew each other from one of your first posts I read. :)
 
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This is another thing to note:

This is three different serves:

View attachment 21754

View attachment 21755

View attachment 21756

This is three different serves. I did not see this on the FH serves. But on the BH at least 50% of them, this happens to some extent. These three, your hand is so far below the table that you can see your elbow crease and a little of the forearm.

Those are illegal serves. It is not legal to take the ball below the playing surface and out of view. Worth knowing and easy to fix.

Since MOG is the king of arguing that he never serves illegally and that his opponents are breaking all the rules, this is perplexing and vexing and needs immediate attention and resolution.

I am interested to hear from MOG about this video evidence and am surprised that it has been about a day since I posted those screen shots and we still have not yet heard from the man who has taken such a strong stand against illegal serves in the past.
 
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The difference is Carl and NL I have already started to correct this serve action, as someone pointed it out to me a few months ago, back just before lockdown.

Second thing is, if I was faulted for doing this in a match, I would not argue with the umpire, I would accept the loss of a point and stop doing that serve in case I dropped my hand again.

And lastly I am quite happy to be faulted for doing this especially if everyone else stops shielding and starts tossing the ball correctly.

It is easily cured you rest the top of your finger nail on table then you cant drop your hand below the table.

;)

Well, good that you are fixing it. Simply because, it is hard to complain about illegal serves if yours are as well. :)

I am sure you were unaware, at the time, that you were doing this. And I have a feeling there are some who are not aware that their serves fail to conform to the rules.

But I will also note that, in a pendulum type serve, if the contact is made very close to your right hip as you are serving, your racket will only be visible to contact the ball for a fraction of a second before contact. And contacting at that point gives you maximum leverage on spin. So, right at the border of being against the rules is where the most efficient motion is. So players with better serves will often have serves that dance very close to being against the rules. But borderline is not the same as against the rules. And I have a feeling some of the serves you complain about may in fact be borderline rather than illegal.

Players who are skilled at returning serves return them despite the fact that it is hard to see where the racket contacts the ball.

The actual thing would be to work on return of serve and not worry whether your opponent's serves are legal, borderline or against the rules. When you are skilled at returning them, those things will no longer bother you to the extent they seem to now.
 
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The difference is Carl and NL I have already started to correct this serve action, as someone pointed it out to me a few months ago, back just before lockdown.

Second thing is, if I was faulted for doing this in a match, I would not argue with the umpire, I would accept the loss of a point and stop doing that serve in case I dropped my hand again.

And lastly I am quite happy to be faulted for doing this especially if everyone else stops shielding and starts tossing the ball correctly.

It is easily cured you rest the top of your finger nail on table then you cant drop your hand below the table.

;)
But you clearly did it for years and didn't get faulted for it. And your opponents were cheated of lots of points they should have won, the Same way you complained about other people's serves.

It is good that you have started to correct this and after a few months you are still doing what you are supposedly trying to correct. It shows you how people can learn to serve illegally while having zero intention of doing so. So you should consider cutting people slack and just focusing on the game!
 
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Firstly though, I only started dropping my hand as part of the motion to make sure I throw the ball up.
I have corrected it already, my use of language was not good!

Although it is not relevant my serve is weak and all this serve does is get the ball into play, I am not shielding to get deception of spin or not tossing to get extra spin, so it is not even in the same category of illegal.

The problem is with most illegal serves that when you challenge the player doing it they get nasty, I don't so again it is a completely different situation.

Also the camera angle makes these pictures look worse.

So I am not really the same as some dodgy old vet with a loaded no toss serve or a hidden serve that comes under his arm pit.

But still the main point is I am happy to be faulted for doing this, if everyone else is.
And also if I did an illegal serve in a match and it was pointed out I would not do it again.

So people in glasshouses, yes shoot me down but this is not in even anywhere near the same sort of illegal serves and bad behaviour that most of us have to put up with every week.

The amount of times I have not mentioned illegal serves and then had a quiet word after a match and then been told to f**k off is incredibly high.

I am not biting by the way, and it is good trolling but my serves are not even in the same vicinity as most illegal serves are.

Ah, the camera angles make these serves look worse... that must be it!

The rules don't have legality scales - a serve is either a fault or it isn't. The strength of a serve is irrelevant to the rules - I remember playing a guy who couldn't serve with spin but hid every serve - that didn't make his serve legal just because I could return it easily and perfectly. I think you may need to post more recent matches (at least 3) so we can review for the fix. Also, tossing from below the table allows you to get the ball more toss height while still keeping the ball relatively low to the table.

All that said, your sanctimonious behavior in the past in the light of having an illegal serve should have at least made you publicly apologize for some of the things you said painting yourself as a holier-than-thou server. And what I am seeing here is just trying to excuse your illegal serves, rather than accept that if you could do it, you probably should realize that many illegal serves are not conscious errors. Maybe you should have called yourself out for serving illegally. The real issue is that you started learning mostly as an adult and you lack the ability to read spin well (I have this issue too). This is just part of life, not something to be used to be hypocritical and try to accuse people who actually work on their serves to dumb them down to be easier to read.

Happy you are serving legally now (would love the video), but you now have a history of cheating in the sport. Have you gone back to apologize to all the opponents who were cheated of points by your serves?
 
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Yeah, and one thing to note: someone who complains about illegal serves, and his serves ARE NOT LEGAL, in the dictionary, that is the definition of hypocrisy.

So, rationalizing away your own illegal serves while complaining about how the illegal serves of others are somehow.....I don't know, is it worse, more illegal, illegal in a way that you can't handle. Illegal is illegal. If your serves are against the rules, and you complain about other people's serves being against the rules, that, by definition is the state of being a hypocrite.
 
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Also the camera angle makes these pictures look worse.

Your elbow is the height of the table. The ball has to be 6-8 inches under table height. If the camera is higher than table height--WHICH IT IS, or we would not be able to see the table surface--the only thing the camera angle could do is make your hand look higher than it is.

To make this look worse the camera would have to be filming from below table height. The problem with that concept is, we would see your hand from UNDER the table.
 
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There is endless video of me all over you tube and Carl has found 3 borderline illegal serves from very hazy photos.

That is very different to the sort of illegal serving I have complained about.

And I will apologize to my opponent in these pictures.

But as I said if I serve illegally in a match and I get faulted, I will stop doing it or stop doing that serve and carry on. This is nothing like someone swearing and arguing with me when they do it.

I certainly will not apologise for my sanctimonious attitude towards illegal servers.

IMO a lot of people knowingly serve illegally because they no there serves are weaker when they do not serve illegally.

Carl which opponent was I playing in clips where you took the photos.

Regarding new video as soon as I play a tournament and video, I will post some matches of me playing.

It sounds like your problem is with people being douchebags and not serving illegally. Perhaps you are confronting them in an aggressive way? Are you a known complainer at your club?

I rarely call people on their serve, only in times that it is so extreme, but I do it politely and fact-of-the-matter without making it personal, and I've never gotten such a violent response you describe.
 
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There is endless video of me all over you tube and Carl has found 3 borderline illegal serves from very hazy photos.

I found 3 in one video while you were facing the camera which you only did for one game. So, in one game, of all your BH serves, I screen shotted 3 of them. I could have just screen shotted all of the BH serves. Maybe one would have been legal. These were just blatant enough that it is hard to argue that they are illegal. Yet you still have come up with some interesting rationalizations.
 
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Zyu,

I am a well known complainer,
but I am also a qualified umpire and referee!! Something most people are not!

That's what I figured, seeing as you receive such a negative response from so many people.

Keep in mind there is also not a lot of love for umpires amongst the player base...

I really doubt that the 3 serves that were identified in screenshots were the only 3 serves you ever did illegally.
 
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There is endless video of me all over you tube and Carl has found 3 borderline illegal serves from very hazy photos.

That is very different to the sort of illegal serving I have complained about.

And I will apologize to my opponent in these pictures.

But as I said if I serve illegally in a match and I get faulted, I will stop doing it or stop doing that serve and carry on. This is nothing like someone swearing and arguing with me when they do it.

I certainly will not apologise for my sanctimonious attitude towards illegal servers.

IMO a lot of people knowingly serve illegally because they no there serves are weaker when they do not serve illegally.

Carl which opponent was I playing in clips where you took the photos.

Regarding new video as soon as I play a tournament and video, I will post some matches of me playing.

I think your attitude may be part of the problem. No one serves illegally in just one or two matches. Serves are habits. If you served like this in one match, you were likely serving like this in many matches over the same period. How long the period was may be tied to how long you used the serve. So your penitence seems to be too narrow and self-aggrandizing based on my experience with serving issues.
 
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Speaking as a human, and not as a TT player, people tend to tune out and do the opposite of what "known complainers" get on their case and harass them about.

Depending on what degree you do this, people could even be doing it intentionally because they know they can get in your head.

Hopefully you can find some harmony amongst your fellow players.
 
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I have about six videos from this day, I will post the lot, you and Carl can then see if I do it a lot more. I would guess I probably do it lots all day, but I don't mind I will load the gun for you both!!

But this is still not really the point, I will also make 60 odd videos on you tube public over the last 5 years, it will be interesting to see if I always did this.

Difference is next tournament I play, I will be trying to serve legally all the time.

My conscience is quite clear!!

It is the point and we know your conscience is clear. The problem is that if you are serving illegal serves it shouldn't be. Trying is intent, action is actuality. It just shows how willing you are to set one standard for yourself and another for your opponents. You should review the points and if the score shows you would have lost on the basis of your illegal serves, you should consider forfeiting the matches. You made so much noise about this in the past that you really should be far more humble in the face of your faults.
 
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Just because I once served illegally doe s not mean I cant continue to spread the good word of serving illegally.

Agreed. But you could also worry about something more constructive, like improving your serve receive or general game.

Do you only call serves in meaningful matches? Or do you do it in practice matches as well? If it is a practice match, I'll let it slide for the extra practice.
 
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