Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Beast was KO'ed...

 

[Tyce]

Going on a bit of a YT bender today, and learned that without knowing his actual game, I have a lot of similarities with Mikael Appelgren's playstyle (not his level, of course).

One very striking thing is his pause-whip action, holding the bat in one position while loading up the rest of the body and timing for a whipping release of energy. I absolutely love playing like that. With the current game it's a bit lackluster from behind the table though - which happens to be where that bat was supposed to shine.

Funny how that connects to me using an Appelgren Allplay for years. I wonder if he's still using it with the ABS ball. Can't find any good footage or information on it.

 

[backspacer]

Beast was KO'ed...

He got as far as he was supposed to, but no chance against Kestutis who has way more experience and a backhand Beast didn't even react to most times.

 

[NetProphet]

I played my second tournament yesterday with 30 people in my class (up to 1299 points european rating). Before my first match i had time to watch the others playing and i got a good feeling, already pictured myself going home with a medal. Most of them older players than myself (50+), no attacking styles, no topspins, almost exclusively undangerous backhand side-underspin serves plus the odd weird windscreen-wipe serve.

my first match was against a younger player who was the only one playing a bit like myself, lower intermediate maybe but with a sense for technique, the will to topspin on both wings, trying to open up the game with a flip, those things which make table tennis interesting and fun. i won 3:0 because i was just a bit more advanced and could serve and spin a bit more dangerously. but it was a nice enjoyable match.

my next two games were against older players like described above, with a style cultivated over 50 years of playing in the garage, oblivious to ”proper” technique and quite boring to play against, no risk, no fun. it looked weird and they had this unsympathetic doberman will to keep the ball on the table at any costs, i completely lost my game and confidence and got caught in endless pushing chopping routines, everytime i tried to open up it was more out of annoyance than opportunity which resultet in me netting or overshooting most of my attemps. so i lost game 2 and 3 in the preliminary round and didn’t advance.

i am of course also lacking a lot of technique and better players would have just dominated them. but i still feel that i lost to lesser players, that i was not able to play my game but let them force their shitty play on me. it was a super frustrating experience, something to talk about with my trainer.

not sure, maybe this could have been it's own thread, i hope i am not the only one with such an experience. is it just me, or is that a phenomenon?

The tendency to play worse against junk players can be an inescapable nightmare.
It's quite common to experience this but it's also a great learning curve. Play as many players like that as you can and, if you approach them with a match and tactical mindset, you'll learn to search out weaknesses, where to direct your serves, when to be patient and when to attack and realise you can win points by just moving them around and without having to hit great attacking winners.
I think most important is to respect such players, it's all about getting the ball on the table and the scoreboard doesn't care how that's done.
From what you've described above, it's once you've enough experience you should beat these players with your current skill level, it's just having the right approach.
That's my club experience with it anyway.

 

[dingyibvs]

League is coming to an end this week here, too. Can't change a lot anymore so the result is I've lost about 60 points where my goal was to gain about 60 instead.

I have learned a lot this season. I am an ALL player, dragging my FH out of the mud doesn't change that into an OFF player. I can't close matches by attacking more. Instead, I need to sharpen my mind and find the gaps and holes I can put the ball into, just like I always did as a kid.
The game has slowed down too much to do that passively, and when I do it just gives my opponents of similar levels time to attack that slow ball.
Now, I've swung the pendulum the other way and overplayed, putting balls away too sharp, to fast, and making lots of errors on that. It's time to balance out again.

Hey, you never know. I thought I was destined to be a FH dominant player, but lately I've found myself playing best with a balanced game, even started serving from the FH corner more. Quantitative changes can lead to qualitative changes, and it may happen all of a sudden without you ever realizing it if you keep practicing it. Check out this practice match I played last week, versus a 3rd ball practice 2 years ago.

2 years ago:

 

[blahness]

Hey, you never know. I thought I was destined to be a FH dominant player, but lately I've found myself playing best with a balanced game, even started serving from the FH corner more. Quantitative changes can lead to qualitative changes, and it may happen all of a sudden without you ever realizing it if you keep practicing it. Check out this practice match I played last week, versus a 3rd ball practice 2 years ago.

2 years ago:

Damn that BH is looking mighty deadly now! This is like night and day compared with what you showed a few yrs back...

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Hey, you never know. I thought I was destined to be a FH dominant player, but lately I've found myself playing best with a balanced game, even started serving from the FH corner more. Quantitative changes can lead to qualitative changes, and it may happen all of a sudden without you ever realizing it if you keep practicing it. Check out this practice match I played last week, versus a 3rd ball practice 2 years ago.

2 years ago:

Not bad for basement players

 

[blahness]

Not bad for basement players

What about these 2 basement players?

 

[dingyibvs]

Not bad for basement players

Kmmm, it's clearly a garage.

 

[dingyibvs]

Damn that BH is looking mighty deadly now! This is like night and day compared with what you showed a few yrs back...

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the general structure of the BH now. Working on getting a bit more compact, more focused/explosive use of force, and more body usage in more situations.

I'm been tinkering so much with my FH it's hard settle down to one technique and develop consistency. It's also heck a lot more exhausting practicing FH. I'm really hoping that the form I just arrived at this past week is "it" 😇 Then I can focus on consistency and start executing it in games.

 

[blahness]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the general structure of the BH now. Working on getting a bit more compact, more focused/explosive use of force, and more body usage in more situations.

I'm been tinkering so much with my FH it's hard settle down to one technique and develop consistency. It's also heck a lot more exhausting practicing FH. I'm really hoping that the form I just arrived at this past week is "it" 😇 Then I can focus on consistency and start executing it in games.

Yeah it looks massively better now and what you're working on is definitely working well.

I think one of the lowest hanging fruit is to learn the hook/tomahawk serve as well as pure heavy underspin/no spin. The hook sidetopspin and no spin to the short FH is extremely hard to receive for most amateurs, and will almost always give you an easy ball to loopkill on the 3rd ball. I mix these in with a nasty long fast hook sideunderspin to their BH or elbow to really jam them. Being able to serve these 2 extra variants make it so much more difficult for your opponents to receive properly, and then you will get a lot more looser balls to finish off.

I envy your practice environment lol. I am down to like almost 1 TT session per month these days ughhh, and sometimes I don't even get good practice partners...

 

[yamagata]

Take out from yesterdays practice. Robot feeds heavy underspin, and we are supposed to topspin loop. So I strike too long, into the net, miss the ball entirely.

"Stop what you are doing, look at me" one club mate shows me how to do it. "Bat at your sock" he says.

I copy him, or so I think, and start hitting a few balls on the table.

"You are actually smashing the ball, but they do go in anyways" the guy says.

Didn't know it was possible to smash from table surface level!

 

[jk1980]

If there is underspin on it you can't smash from below net level, but i guess what you do is a lob or lift.

 

[yamagata]

If there is underspin on it you can't smash from below net level, but i guess what you do is a lob or lift.

Yes, looked like a smash to him I guess, but it was some kind of drive because it cleared the net with a long low trajectory.

 

[dingyibvs]

Yeah it looks massively better now and what you're working on is definitely working well.

I think one of the lowest hanging fruit is to learn the hook/tomahawk serve as well as pure heavy underspin/no spin. The hook sidetopspin and no spin to the short FH is extremely hard to receive for most amateurs, and will almost always give you an easy ball to loopkill on the 3rd ball. I mix these in with a nasty long fast hook sideunderspin to their BH or elbow to really jam them. Being able to serve these 2 extra variants make it so much more difficult for your opponents to receive properly, and then you will get a lot more looser balls to finish off.

I envy your practice environment lol. I am down to like almost 1 TT session per month these days ughhh, and sometimes I don't even get good practice partners...

My pendulum variations are mostly heavy under/no spin. My hook serve is just OK, I do use it sometimes. I haven't tried much of the topspin/no spin combo, mostly doing back/side combo. I also have been developing a reverse pendulum service, probably my second best service right now and often more effective than my regular pendulum as people don't see it as often. I also have a BH service, but the variations are a bit limited for now. I've only recently become more comfortable with 3rd ball attacks off the reverse spin services though, but now that that's happened I'm gonna start working them into my game more. In some other games during last week's practice, I did manage to use some of my other services.

Here in our last practice match I used the hook serve at the beginning of the match. I was getting really tired and we lost track of the sets so we ended up playing 6 sets lol. I did manage the toughen up near the end after losing focus in the middle of the match.

In this match I used my reverse pendulum service for the 2nd half of the match.

BTW, if you'll recall, I mentioned it in a post last week shortly after that practice session, but that was really the first time I felt truly comfortable attacking all services and rallying with the BH. As a result my practice partner had a very bad day lol. Even with an unreliable FH I was able to beat him in all matches, whereas before he would beat me about 1/3 of the time and most sets would be very close.

 

[Marvinn8686]

I played my second tournament yesterday with 30 people in my class (up to 1299 points european rating). Before my first match i had time to watch the others playing and i got a good feeling, already pictured myself going home with a medal. Most of them older players than myself (50+), no attacking styles, no topspins, almost exclusively undangerous backhand side-underspin serves plus the odd weird windscreen-wipe serve.

my first match was against a younger player who was the only one playing a bit like myself, lower intermediate maybe but with a sense for technique, the will to topspin on both wings, trying to open up the game with a flip, those things which make table tennis interesting and fun. i won 3:0 because i was just a bit more advanced and could serve and spin a bit more dangerously. but it was a nice enjoyable match.

my next two games were against older players like described above, with a style cultivated over 50 years of playing in the garage, oblivious to ”proper” technique and quite boring to play against, no risk, no fun. it looked weird and they had this unsympathetic doberman will to keep the ball on the table at any costs, i completely lost my game and confidence and got caught in endless pushing chopping routines, everytime i tried to open up it was more out of annoyance than opportunity which resultet in me netting or overshooting most of my attemps. so i lost game 2 and 3 in the preliminary round and didn’t advance.

i am of course also lacking a lot of technique and better players would have just dominated them. but i still feel that i lost to lesser players, that i was not able to play my game but let them force their shitty play on me. it was a super frustrating experience, something to talk about with my trainer.

not sure, maybe this could have been it's own thread, i hope i am not the only one with such an experience. is it just me, or is that a phenomenon?

I also face this problem a lot. Played TT as a teenager 20 years ago and just returned to it September last year. I like to play attacking game and I am not fond of hard pushers too. Usually playing with much better guys at the club, but I enjoy it. Most of them prefer fast topspin game so I just try to keep up with them just exchanging the blows and of course losing at the end, but often giving good fight and being happy. Losing, but in my way xD. On the other hand, I often play with experiensed pusher who is my arch-enemy and nemesis as he is on my level. He is faring worse against top guys as their topspin game is good enough to overcome his pushes. For me it is hard learning. Nonetheless it helps me to improve my topspin as he is able to push and chop with a lot of backspin. When I started I was losing 2 games to him for every win and now I manged to get to the level of 50% wins with good sights for the future. I play best if I stick to my game and try to be consistent with my topspins. Then it is fine even if I lose. When I got dragged into his slow slugfest of pushes I am unhappy even if I snuck a win. The only way is to improve more, then it will get easier. For now the problem is that this guy is injured so I cannot improve in training until he is back. Thanks god he is a really nice and friendly guy and I cannot be mad at him really even when he wins.

 

[Tyce]

Redemption. Last match of the spring season and we cleared these guys 5-0. No issues converting ideas to points, and except for some tiny slips we were both focused and playing effectively.
All 4 singles in straight sets too, which feels really nice. Only our doubles was in 5 but we came back on track in time to seize it.

As a player, I've put a lot less focus on attacking, and much more on disruptive play in order to get good opportunities (or straight points) and managed to keep a good few tricks left in the bag rather than dishing them out blindly.

Yes, this was against the bottom team but I don't care. Needed this good one.

 

[NextLevel]

Redemption. Last match of the spring season and we cleared these guys 5-0. No issues converting ideas to points, and except for some tiny slips we were both focused and playing effectively.
All 4 singles in straight sets too, which feels really nice. Only our doubles was in 5 but we came back on track in time to seize it.

As a player, I've put a lot less focus on attacking, and much more on disruptive play in order to get good opportunities (or straight points) and managed to keep a good few tricks left in the bag rather than dishing them out blindly.

Yes, this was against the bottom team but I don't care. Needed this good one.

Disruptive play (which I define as focusing on what the opponent doesn't like) is highly underestimated in TT when one focuses too much on what one is doing well because one is trying to improve and forgets that match results are also about doing what the opponent doesn't like, not just what you think are your best shots.

 

[Der_Echte]

@Marvinn8686 Continue to enjoy the sport, continue to push the envelope as Americans say, and push the boundaries of what TTD members like to see and hear.

 

[Tyce]

Disruptive play (which I define as focusing on what the opponent doesn't like) is highly underestimated in TT when one focuses too much on what one is doing well because one is trying to improve and forgets that match results are also about doing what the opponent doesn't like, not just what you think are your best shots.

I have to agree... I used to think about the next tricky serve, the next technique to learn, something I can use to trump the opponent and guess what, I'm still playing the same level I did 20 years ago. With a lot of people who are focusing on their own tricks and trump cards.

I realize nowadays that when you get to a certain level, most opponents will be able to return most balls. And I think the plastic ball accelerated this notion simply by taking away spin and speed. So the skill needed to play better is to be good at rallies, either by force or by brains. Me being 40+ now, my body isn't that good in the force department without breaking. So smart, disruptive play it is.