Ex Natl Junior now coach Lee Soo Jin plays vs Pro player Div in Exhibition Match

Hi All,

Keeping with the theme Long Pips players and the small interest TTD membes have in what are the levels of the better players... here is Lee Soo Jin, I think a former natl junior player, now a coach, (and when you are full time coach in anamateur club, you drop from 2550-2600 down to 2350-2400 level pretty quickly) she is playing an exhibition match vs Baek In-Yeop, a Pro Player Div dude (these guys are are mostly the High School trained athletes or an ocasional retired pro). His level is likely around 2550+.

Since Coach Lee dropped a lot of level, she plays Div 1 National for this vid... and Mr. Baek plays MINUS 1 Div. That means there is a 3 pt handicap.

There is SOME serious TT going on, but for the most part, they are showing off more than really playing, which is pretty much what an exhibition match is about, right?

As for levels, Coach is likely 2350-2400 at the time of this vid... a huge drop off from what it takes to be on junior natl team (2550-2600ish)... that doesn't look like a lot of ratings points, but at THAT level, 200 points is pretty much 4 levels. When you stop doing pro training and competing with pros... then do the same ole same ole coaching in amateur club feeding balls 8 hrs a day to beginning players, it can drag you level down a lot... no matter how much you play vs the club ace dude at end of day. Your instincts change when you feed multiball all day long and it affects your play at top levels.

Enjoy.

This vid is from way down South in Korea, you may remember Baek In-Yeop from a previous vid National Open Tourney finals vs another left handed player. Coach Lee runs her club in Po-Hang... and they really have a strong accent down there. You have your back turned to crowd in a Seoul cafe and you hear a few people from that region talking, you know immediately where they are from it is so distinctive.

Po-Hang is on east coast way south, not too far from Daegu and Busan... the city/Regions with some of the most extreme accents in speech. I am not beating down accents, just pointing out regional differences. Accents are like spice, and in my language of English, those are good, especially if you are froeigner, at least that is how I see it.

Women see it like that too, if you are a foreign dude in USA, speak great English, but with an accent, you have a HUGE advantage with the ladies.

IB66 said:

(Fictitous Quote) Aren't Korean Clubs open just a couple hours a day a few times a week just like most USA clubs?

Click to expand...

IB66, that club is open at 10 AM DAILY and closes 11PM. Koreans like going to their club.

If all you want to do is just play or practice there table/time available, it costs maybe 40 GBP per month to play the whole month anytime all damn day long. If you want lessons, you get base memebrship and 2 each 15 min lessons per week for the whole month, it will cost a whopping 86 GBP.

TT clubs in Korea are a great value. Lessons in USA for 15 min from such a level of player would be 60 GBP per hour or more... and you get 2 full hrs with that lesson memebrship in Korea. It would likely cost me 200+ GBP per month in USA to get that kind of club membership for a month including 2 hrs of lessons broken into 15 min segments 2x a week... assuming coach allows that - most coaches mandate 1 hr straight.

Here is her Naver Cafe page... it shows a lot of the vids she posted.

https://m.blog.naver.com/sweetshot00?fbclid=IwAR1oDVWwVV9E_FEy6aUpXS4t_rqThs0cxC8dtz-43OdUWYakQqsg5cDNKc0

Here is a page showing her rates (in Korean) with a few more pics of her club.

https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=sweetshot00&logNo=221907180349&navType=tl

As for LSJ TTC representing the average TT club in Korea, YES. Most TT clubs in Korea look pretty much like this and have a couple tables for coaches to give lessons and 4-6 tables for club member play. Some clubs are lager and cost a little more. Some recently retired former natl players opened up some really HUGE TT clubs south of Seoul... Kim Taek Soo... Ryu Seung Min... Kim Jung Hoon... a few got together and made a club (National Pro Player Club). Some not as prominent ex-pros or top city team players opened up clubs and when a Korean opens a business, unless he or she is super strapped for cash, they tend to go big.

In the pic below and in the vid, you saw all the tables had really neat looking table skirts. 12 yrs ago, you never saw that, the 10 yrs ago, some clubs bought them at GBP 150 each... then by 2016, just about every Korean club had those skirts. My former club had them by 2011 or 2012. Table are always kinda close together, those skirts deflect stray balls from adjoining courts and the balls tends to bounce away from your court, so it is WAY EASIER and enjoyable to play in a club where the tables all have skirts.

In Korean amateur club play and in toruneys, people enter your court ALL THE TIME and it is OK... sometimes they are under your table retrieving a stray ball in the middle of your point... that is NOT a let in Korean TT, UNLESS that person runs into you or you run into him/her. So you can seee how the skirts help out... plus, it really helps the club to show a professional image.

Some Korean TTer will need to help me out. I never heard of Lee Soo Jin before, maybe she was actually on the senior team, for sure she had to be a junion... might need to correct the title if my assumptions are wrong.