Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[blahness]

Honestly, there is too much ego crap in table tennis (i see it in real life too) and people caring way too much about ratings instead of actually enjoying the process about playing the sport and improving. This is why I grew to really dislike TT culture (even though I actually enjoy playing and competing and getting to know people from different walks of life) because it really seems like a group of overly anal people who obsess about winning/losing as if they have nothing better going on in their lives. And also cheaters who actually seem to be sociopathic about it (ie they actually feel proud that they won and didnt actually care how they won). Just real sad.

This sort of culture is also why, a lot of people are more drawn towards other sports like badminton or tennis, which have way better cultures.

In badminton, a way superior player will still be quite happy to partner with a much weaker player and play some fun doubles without caring too much about some 'rating' crap.

For eg if I didnt know how to actually do a BH clear end to end (which is a reasonably asvanced shot) i would simply actually learn how to do it (which would be quite fun) instead of some crap about 'oh it is not required at my level' or 'this shot is just not possible to execute'.

Anyway this is a good wakeup call for me to actually spend way less time on forums because it is really time that i can actually do more productive shit like actually enjoying the sport.

 

[RPB Enthusiast]

Honestly, there is too much ego crap in table tennis (i see it in real life too) and people caring way too much about ratings instead of actually enjoying the process about playing the sport and improving. This is why I grew to really dislike TT culture (even though I actually enjoy playing and competing and getting to know people from different walks of life) because it really seems like a group of overly anal people who obsess about winning/losing as if they have nothing better going on in their lives. And also cheaters who actually seem to be sociopathic about it (ie they actually feel proud that they won and didnt actually care how they won). Just real sad.

This sort of culture is also why, a lot of people are more drawn towards other sports like badminton or tennis, which have way better cultures.

In badminton, a way superior player will still be quite happy to partner with a much weaker player and play some fun doubles without caring too much about some 'rating' crap.

For eg if I didnt know how to actually do a BH clear end to end (which is a reasonably asvanced shot) i would simply actually learn how to do it (which would be quite fun) instead of some crap about 'oh it is not required at my level' or 'this shot is just not possible to execute'.

Anyway this is a good wakeup call for me to actually spend way less time on forums because it is really time that i can actually do more productive shit like actually enjoying the sport.

I agree with the rating thing. For me, I'm always trying to do better everyday and I can say I beat most of the people at my club (half of them went to a different one since it's newer and 24/7 access), which I want to do tournaments so I can give people accurate ratings without "assuming" my actual rating. Coming from a 3 sport background, I've always been competitive in my respecting sports, but I've also come terms that it's okay to sit back and enjoy myself because I hold myself to high standards, especially when I mess up a loop or flick when I know I needed to make a slight adjustment.

I actually withdrew from my upcoming tournament in 2 weeks because 1) I just didn't feel like doing it anymore and 2) I felt like I needed to improve me, so I didn't want to waste money without holding my skills accountable (I had a few bad sessions within the past 1-2 months so I decided it was best to not do it). I'm still hesitant if I want to do it, but I know it's better if I just improve and do smaller tournaments around me so I can get more accurate ratings so it helps out with my team tournament next year.

I'm going to experiment with D09c/T05H and then early next year, I'm going to go back to my Skyline 2 Blue Sponge and try Trinity Dynamic on my BH since I really enjoyed it on the forehand (just wish it was tackier tbh). Then I'll be ready for my big team tournament in May.

 

[Archosaurus]

I agree that you shouldn't really care about or compare ratings when improving, because you just need to beat the guy in front of you at the end of the day.

But, the ratings are what they are. Generally they're pretty representative of what you can expect from someone's performance if the rating is dialed in and not super volatile. It's more objective than "I think".

In China for the longest time they had no rating point system and amateur tournaments were a disaster to setup, with completely unbalanced brackets. I think since 2019 they have an ELO style rating system, and supposedly it has helped a lot in setting up fair tournaments. So I do think having a functional rating system is really important.

That being said I'm not the kind of player to not play with someone if I think they're "not good enough" or "too good". There's plenty of things you can learn from both, and most people aren't as advanced as they think they are to the point where a slightly weaker player is a waste of time. I've been told a couple times by some people that they don't want to hit with me because I'm not strong enough, so I just beat them in the next round robin and let them think about it.