Hey William,
Thank you for your response. I definitely find it interesting how just like you, Schlager, in his interview that is posted on youtube, also said that despite Wang Hao being having good skill, and the advantage of the rpb, Schlager still felt that in terms of technical skills Ma Lin had the best of any player he has ever met, or at least among the Chinese players. Perhaps a lot of non-Chinese players feel this way about Ma Lin because his more traditional penhold style is just so foreign to them. Have you ever played Ryu Sueng Minh by any chance? If so, was there a big difference between him and Ma Lin?
I hope this isn't too much of a burden on your time, but I also had a follow up question after you responded. Being only a beginner/intermediate player, I never quite had a thorough understanding of how one, as you described it, varies their play enormously. I hear the Chinese announcers always saying that players like Ma Lin have a lot of "bian hua" which is variation in their game. Could you have a general overview of what type of variations they/you are talking about and how to make such variations and how to become better are making those variations. Is it mostly just where you aim your hit to land? It seems to me, and I am probably wrong since I don't have the necessary skills, that due to the incredible amount of spin and speed of professional play, you only have a very small margin of error in which you can hit the ball along its arc to return the ball correctly. Therefore it would seem to be hard to really vary the spin all that much.
