Video Footage Safe Thread

Brs

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Full Disclosure: I only watched match 3 & part of 4 so far.

So what do you want to take away from this competition? Imo that's really important in deciding whether and how much you want to compete at your current level. I disagree (respectfully!) with Tony and Der about not competing until your fundamentals are more solid. There seems to me a lot you can learn from these matches. But you are the only decider about that.

I see what you meant about aggressive play. You like to see two or three pushes first and then pick a ball to open up. Lots of players like that pattern and it's fine if your opponent will give you those chances. I didn't see you play much defense and block successfully. So I think if you want to continue that way you could work on your blocking, and also on transition from defending to attacking. It takes a lot of pressure off your receives and pushes if you aren't afraid of your opponent's loops. And blocking is under-practiced even though it is super easy to practice, just find an aspiring looper and volunteer to block for him. Here are some ideas:
First of course simple blocking fh and bh both diagonal and down the line
Where you stay in one place but block to two or three points (very good work for the looper)
One bh on fh where you move side to side alternate fh and bh blocks, and block to one spot for the looper (wherever he wants, doesn't matter for you)
Xs and Hs exercise where you block and he loops, take turns being X and H
Transition exercise where each player runs through a sequence of loop, hit, block (this one is very good but a bit confusing)
ex: player A feeds a normal ball, B loops, A blocks, B hits it back (nicely!), A loops, B blocks, A hits it back (nicely!), B loops again, continue forever
So the sequence for each player is A feeds ball then: block, loop, hit. B: loop, hit, block. It's not meant to be match-like, just a way to get used to switching between attack and defense.

I didn't see any short serves, although I only watched about a third of the video. So I wouldn't put time into touch play or flicks. You won't get to use those skills in these games. And taking time away from more fundamentals will delay the day when you do need short game skills. However I do think it's good to play these comps because you need the serve and receive practice. Everyone needs more receive practice. And it's almost impossible to get someone to serve to you and not play out the points. That's the best way to practice receive. I see people practicing serves (rarely) but they don't want anyone to receive. Which is crazy because that would be perfect feedback for the server. Matches are less efficient practice but you do get people's best efforts.

I'm not the best one to talk about stroke technique. I'd just say if it were me I would focus on safety and consistency with fh loop vs backspin. You had a lot of trouble in the games I watched with sidespin serves, because you are pushing them. Smart players will take advantage of that and force you to attack long serves when you would rather push. Also from my experience simply having the choice of push or loop makes it much harder to successfully loop serves because you have to make a decision and there simply isn't time for that. A safe opener to an uncomfortable location for your opponent can take the decision out of it, and let you react instantly to long serves with a safe loop. That gives you the initiative in most points. And you will get much faster to the levels where learning short touch and flicks becomes essential.
 

Brs

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One technique comment: the backhand hit you ended a point with around 8:55 in March four was lovely. You should use that hit to return all the long fast sidespin serves to your bh. These penholders won a lot of points from you with that serve. This hit would completely take it away from them.
 
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One technique comment: the backhand hit you ended a point with around 8:55 in March four was lovely. You should use that hit to return all the long fast sidespin serves to your bh. These penholders won a lot of points from you with that serve. This hit would completely take it away from them.

That hit was a flat punch BH. It only is useful against no spin ball. Other players will call this active block technique. Ideally I would love to attack all sidespin serves to my BH, but I am not consistent enough to do it all the time. If I do that, my club-mates will very quickly give me the LOOK! But in contrast my coach will say, you must train to attack all long serves no matter if it comes to FH or BH. Two contrasting point of view... dilemma, dilemma & more dilemma.

To the others who commented, I will stop competition for a month. There are more but I will sit it out for the time being and only play comp again at the end of Jul 22. I will bring these footage to my coach and let him watch it and let him plan the remedial work to be done. In this sense, my objective is achieved. I just wanted to know how I would fare in competition and I did. In my own mind, I think I did fine, not great nor fantastic, but not bad either.

To Der,

There is one aspect of competition that I enjoy, that is beer and chicken wings. Or specifically in my country, it is more likely to be beer with Peking Duck, Eight Treasure Hotpot and Ocean's Delight ( Birdboy aka PingBirdPong will know what I am talking about )

Cheers mateys.

 
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Brs

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That hit was a flat punch BH. It only is useful against no spin ball. Other players will call this active block technique. Ideally I would love to attack all sidespin serves to my BH, but I am not consistent enough to do it all the time. If I do that, my club-mates will very quickly give me the LOOK!

Gozo, you have a coach and a great plan and are improving fast. So I say this more for anyone else lurking on the thread than to you.

Pure sidespin and no-spin are the same thing when you hit them that flat.

 
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Gozo,

In your first vid vs the old dude with J-Pen... at 3:05... you go to your FH corner, position yourself almost a meter behind the table, and do a long BH serve.

Can you articulate what you were thinking? Can you describe what tactical advantage you were going to gain from serving that way?


I always get people I help to understand the purpose of a serve... which is for the server to gain an IMMEDIATE OFFENSIVE ADVANTAGE.

Maybe in your journey of training and improvement, you are not quite ready to make your serves work with your attacks or positional control to get an advantage. This should be a key developmental thing in your training as you train and improve.

Even if you do not have a reliable FH topspin vs underspin... you could always serve heavy under, get an underspin, return that dead to his middle, then look to use a FH hit. My point here being is that you should always have a plan when serving. You should know what you want to do... but also be ready to deal with it when the point doesn't go to plan.

446F11A1%20A37E%204888%20A299%207180AF88B382%20jpeg.jpeg


Der,

Kindly allow me to revisit this issue. I see a pro player doing the exact thing that I am doing awhile back. I wonder what is her tactic and advantage? Ojio ( wearing yellow jersey ) is a chopper.

 
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I can imagine the chopper want to chop the next ball. Feel like many choppers serve bachand to get ready to chop the next ball faster. This would also make sense if you are very backhandoriented.
 

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I can imagine the chopper want to chop the next ball. Feel like many choppers serve bachand to get ready to chop the next ball faster. This would also make sense if you are very backhandoriented.

This is the answer from what I can see.

It wasn't the first time she did it in the match either - Both times winning the point (I'm sure there are more, I just don't have the time to look right now).

Short heavy backspin serve to opponents forehand..... Pretty much guarantees a push return, which you can then chop fast and hard putting them under instant pressure.

 
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This is the answer from what I can see.

It wasn't the first time she did it in the match either - Both times winning the point (I'm sure there are more, I just don't have the time to look right now).

Short heavy backspin serve to opponents forehand..... Pretty much guarantees a push return, which you can then chop fast and hard putting them under instant pressure.

Same from me.
They want the BH chop for the next ball.

Same as some inverted players who served BH on the FH side of the table, they want to have a BH 3rd ball return.

Also, with a BH serve on FH side, you can serve long into the right handed players body, and might have a high ball return, or risk a fast bh cross court.
Most times, choppers plays more conservative though.

 
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Hi Gozo,

She isn't exactly doing what you were doing in the moment I commented. The context and objectives are different.

You were serving as an attacking player, trying to set yourself up for an attack to gain the advantage.

You were almost a meter off the table serving a fast BH serve. After you finish the serve, you were still almost a meter behind the BH corner, almost in a BH stance. You were looking to attack the next ball, that seemed to be your objective, but you were not in a good position to effectively attack the return, unless it came to just the right place. Your position and stance practically take away your FH. If you want to play a FH, you will not get many good looks for a FH in that position. What if the return got pushed down your BH line? You would not get there in time to plant and use a good BH. What if it came high popped up right back at you? You are in a very awkward position to attack that ball too high with your BH or FH, likely a miss if you try.

If you want to give opponent a different look and angle, either serve from middle line (you can cove some of the table with your FH and give yourself some BH chances) or if you serve from that FH corner, slide to at least the middle or closer to BH corner after the serve to give you a chance to use that FH.

The lady in this vid you linked is a PRO CHOPPER. She has a totally different play style, shot decision making, and objectives. She is also right on the endline when serving, which I strongly believe is a good place to be for both short and deep serves. (The endline is your target for a fast deep serve and it is WAY more difficult to do a good fast deep serve consistently from a meter away from table)

The chopper DOES train to use the attacking FH, maybe over-trains it for how little it is used in a match, but the main objective in 90%+ of the shots for this kind of player is NOT to immediately use the FH (unless a slow high ball to FH comes) but to chop, mostly with BH to move opponent around, change spins, get them out of position or too anxious to finish and get them to make a mistake. Sometimes, occasionally setup a FH directly and finish, or move in and finish a weaker safe ball. That is the essence of modern defender playing style.

When the pro chopper serves from the FH corner, they have a similar objective you had... to give a different look, but it is with a different purpose(s). Mostly, it is to get an underspin that they can chop with the BH... Sometimes (you see Korea's Seo Hyo Won do it) they serve side or side/top from that position, then do an explosive step back to middle or to BH corner and play a crushing FH shot if opponent misread the serve. SHW likes to do that in critical moments... she did that in Korea Open 2013 to win the tourney on match point.

If YOU want to try this pro chopper's serve out as an attacking player... GO FOR IT. It can do exactly what you are looking for - a different look that may give you a weak return to attack... it is just that after the serve, you should be in a stance and position to have a higher percentage chance to use your strong FH or opportunity step in BH kill. Being stuck a meter behind table in a pretty much BH stance will not get you there... but if you can find a way to slide step to center line or past it with a crouch... then you are IN BUSINESS.
 
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I hope no one gets me wrong and thinking I am against defensive play styles... I actually fight for this play style as a viable way to play. I often post vids of SHW doing her thing.

The very objective you were after (a different serve to get a weaker ball) I use sometimes when I serve BH. In Korea, vs the J-Pen crowd, I would serve form center line a heavy underspin serve short to their BH... unless they are Ryu Seung Min or Yoo Nam Gyu or Kim Taek Soo... I would get an underspin ball to my BH corner... exactly what I want and I am in perfect position to play a spinny BH slow loop, which often wins the point.
 

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I don't necessarily agree with the IMMEDIATE part of this statement from Der.

I always get people I help to understand the purpose of a serve... which is for the server to gain an IMMEDIATE OFFENSIVE ADVANTAGE.

It's nice if you can dominate off easy third balls. But that doesn't happen so much against opponents at or above your own level. And then what do you do if you served looking for an immediate advantage but you only came out even, or God forbid, behind?

A more flexible definition of the purpose of a serve might be: to force a predictable receive into a point pattern which works for the server. That also covers choppers like Ojio here.
 
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As a cpen player, I serve "bh serve" only from the FH side.
Other than the above 2, I also do fast cross court into far FH and I also do a very high risk short underspin + side, line to line, and while the ball goes over the net, it is actually outside the line of the table - so the ball actually spins back onto the table.

however the FH to FH short and going off the side, is only useful for lower level players. Any decent level can give you a fast FH down the line.

 
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I don't necessarily agree with the IMMEDIATE part of this statement from Der.

I always get people I help to understand the purpose of a serve... which is for the server to gain an IMMEDIATE OFFENSIVE ADVANTAGE.

It's nice if you can dominate off easy third balls. But that doesn't happen so much against opponents at or above your own level. And then what do you do if you served looking for an immediate advantage but you only came out even, or God forbid, behind?

A more flexible definition of the purpose of a serve might be: to force a predictable receive into a point pattern which works for the server. That also covers choppers like Ojio here.

Immediate advantage does not necessarily mean you crush and finish on 3rd ball... but immediate advantage does mean you get the advantage in the rally right away... that could mean controlling the rally in a way you decide (eg... light attack to middle or wide and still keep upper hand) and maintain your advantage until you decide to finish or entice an error.

You commented "force receiver into a point pattern which works for the sever." which in my opinion is easily within a reasonable definition of immediate advantage.

I believe that we pretty much that we believe the same thing here.

I do stress immediate in that the server is taking control of the point right away and not giving much chance to opponent to do so.

With the newer gen ABS ball that is MUCH EASIER to attack serves, even at the 1500 USATT level with training, TOATALLY changes the dynamics of this advantage... but since the new gen ball is ALSO EASIER TO COUNTER ATTACK, one can still keep the advantage with some training.

I also respect your comment about seeing server's attack maybe not even be 50% successful. Dead brained offensive Ma long wannabe players will continue blindly... if the player doesn't realize what is going on for percentages, the player is pissing away points so much that the opponent is thanking them for their donations via paypal. If server does not see what is going on, it is a serious lack of awareness and tactical intelligence.

What is tactical intelligence? I define it as an ability to see what is going on in points, shots, and rallies... and see what is contributing to won points, control of rallies, won games and won matches... and being able to select and execute effective adjustments to stop/reduce these lost chances and re-gain advantages to win.

What BRS just said in his comments directly relate to tactical intelligence and it is VERY IMPORTANT at EVERY LEVEL of TT... even MORE IMPORTANT at lower levels where even more points are lost on errors, instead of winners. A couple adjustments at lower level vs equal players usually has a HUGE effect on the outcome of a match.
 
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I just got done talking with a local player who MIGHT be willing to post a few vids here and ask for specific tactical things going on and effective adjustments to get opponent to play worse and to get self playing higher percentage less errors less opponent winners.

I emphasized that it is MUCH EASIER to get opponent to play worse than it is for self to suddenly play MVP great. I emphasized that it is MUCH more profitable to seek out the reasons why self is playing bad, avoid/minimize those, and find out what can and will make opponent play worse... and focus on those adjustments that get self there.

I may help him in person in this regard, but I also recommended this thread to see a wider perspective and see different views of effective adjustments and recognizing things going on. He records some matches and I advised to always examine footage to look for why both players lost points and go from there.

One thing my local player identified from a recent tourney is an adjustment opponent made (from advise of a 2000 level friend helping that opponent) is that the local player wis winning on 3rd ball FH topspin, so 2000 player/advisor told his friend to push 2nd ball deep to BH corner to take away FH attack... that instantly made the local player play worse. That is one example of live in game tactical intelligence and an effective adjustment. Sometimes you see it yourself, sometimes a coach must tell you.

Please support my friend if/when he posts here.
 
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