Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Archosaurus]

The left leg placement is interesting in the second video. I'm assuming that he's treating it as if the ball is coming long, but I've been taught to use the right leg as a guide to cutoff the ball and it's pretty adjustable for the half-long and long balls as well as different heights.

A lot of 1500+ USATT players at my club and in the state can push/chopblock on short topspin, which will in all likelihood have more sidespin than top, so getting the push on the side of the ball helps a lot for control. The typical response is to go for the wide short forehand or long backhand with it. I just opt to flick or drive it with a more closed angle if I recognize it and it's high enough. Recognizing the low, slow topspins is tricky.

Half-high, not half-long.

 

[NextLevel]

Sure, it's a fair point about it making all of your receives better in general.

But I would argue that at any club level nobody can push short reliably, against anything. I've counted and it happens about 5% of the time. Even our National level players do not reliably do it against eachother. Most of the time people are pushing barely half-long but the other guy feels insecure about it and pushes it to make sure; which I suppose produced the same effect as a short push!

If you can find video of let's say a 1800 rated match where both players are reliably pushing short, then I'll eat my shorts.

So this statement is misleading. @ThePongCommenter explained why it is misleading and unfortunately you are still displaying a rationalistic attitude to this. The fact that people cannot serve short doesn't mean that you have the skills to attack what they send half long. In fact, I have beaten people by *trying* to push short and having them make mistakes because they kept waiting for the obviously long and mistimed the half long that wasn't rushing onto thier racket with momentum. In other words, quality can be level relative. Just because I tell you a ball is not short doesn't mean you can read and attack it as not being short.

So it all goes back to that there is little need to overly debate these things online. You either find a use for them in your game or you don't. Generally, all the players giving you advice have largely given you enough context for you to either find relevance or ignore it. In the end, the best form, unless you really don't want the advice at all or the person is just being so rude to you you feel the need to retaliate, is to just acknowlege and move on. Not everything someone tells you will help your game, especially if you are not training or competing. But it is all good stuff to start with as an idea if you do train.

I can tell you that as @blahness pointed out, if you compete, there are players you will almost always want to start out of the backspin game if you have the ability to do so and you also want you give yourself time so going long really fast is not what you want. So you go chopping or pushing topspin over the table even if the ball is not 2200 level tight. You know they might open but you find their opening easier to handle than you attacking and feeding them topspin to counter. All these things are *level* relative. But they all go back to *your* style. Just because you can't execute a skill at a super competent level doesn't mean that the skill won't be decent at your level.

In fact one of my weaknesses when I was 1200 was that I pushed literally every serve. And as crazy as it sounds, it worked against many uncoached players even up to 1400 because I had a really heavy push. I was trying to keep the ball on the table so I was trying to push *shortish* and make the ball heavy even if it popped up sky-high and prey on the fact that many people at that level cannot competently handle backspin. Of course, when players got too good at handling that play, I evolved. Obsessing over what people do at this or that level is not as important as looking for skills that fit into how you want to play. Someone gave you an idea, acknowledge it, decide if it fits your game then move on.

 

[Archosaurus]

So this statement is misleading. @ThePongCommenter explained why it is misleading and unfotunately you are still displaying a rationalistic attitude to this. The fact that people cannot serve shirt doesn't mean that you uave the skills to attwck what they send half long. In fact, i have beaten people by *trying* to push short and having them make mostakes because they kept waiting for the obviously long and mistimed the half long that wasn't rushing onto thier rwcket with momentum. In other words, quality can be level relative. Just because i tell you a ball is not short doesn't mean you can read and attack it as not being short.

So it all goes back to that there is little need to overly debate these things orline. You either find a use for them in your game or you don't. Generally, all the playees giving you advice have largely given you enough context for you to either find relevance or ignore it. In the end, the best form, unless you really don't want the advice at all or the person is just being so rude to you you feel the need to retaliate, is to just acknowlege and move on. Not everything someone tells you will help your game, especially if you are not training or competing. But it is all good stuff to start with as an idea if you do train.

I can tell you that as @blahness pointed out, if you compete, there are players you will almost always want to start out of the backspin game if you have the ability to do so and you also want you give yourself time so going long really fast is not what you want. So yoj go chopping or pushing topspin over the table even if the ball is not 2200 level tight. You know they might open but you find their opening easier to handle than attacking and feeding them topspin to counter. All these things are *level* relative. But they all go back to *your* style. Just because you can't execute a skill at a super competent level doesn't mean that the skill won't be decent at your level.

In fact one of my weaknesses when i wws 1200 was that I pushed literally every serve. And as crazy as it sounds, it worked against many uncoachrd players even up to 1400 because i had a really heavy push. I was trying to keep the ball on the table so i was trying to push *shortish* and make the ball heavy. Obsessing over what people fo at this or that level is not as important as lookijg for skills that fit into how you want to play. Someone gave you an idea, acknowledge it, decide if it fits your game then move on.

Fair. I feel like at my level especially, a tight half-long push with heavy spin is more effective than a little bit too high, not so heavy short push.

EDIT: Reason being most players who are not in the higher divisions will just loop it into the side of the table or off the table, or push it too late thinking it was going to be short and pop it up for a comfortable attack for me.

 

[dingyibvs]

The % is about as bad as I'd expect to say that you can't actually do it vs an actual ball, but thanks for the video. Some of those towards the forehand* would probably be killer shots at club level.

I would not say it's a "critical skill" above 1600; if it was, it'd be what wins points reliably. How many points in a match do you win doing this? 0? 1? I would dare say you win more points at most levels by getting the first topspin shot on the table not super high and not super slow.

Yes, some of them would be killed for sure, but some would force a poor return and some would win a point outright if your opponent is not expecting it. And as @NextLevel and @Tyce point out, a skill doesn't have to win you many points to be useful. To expand on what @Tyce said, a skill's utility should not be taken in isolation.

For example, if you cannot push short against no spin, then I'll just serve you no spin all day long and wait for the long return to tee off on. That'll put pressure on you to try to return it short, which if you haven't practiced then it'll win me points as you dump some attempts into the net. All of a sudden, my short pushes start winning me points. But say if I never practiced flicks, and you figured out that you could just return it short but a bit high, and I'd have no choice but to push it back to you. Then all of a sudden being able to push short to you became useless, because I couldn't take advantage of the ball that comes after.

Also, don't let perfect get in the way of good enough. A lot of the time it's good enough to give your opponent something different from what they expect. For example, if you're receiving a topspin service late, people usually expect a flick, a block, or a pop-up. You give them a half-long loaded backspin ball, and they may well not be able to attack it successfully. Like @NextLevel said, just because it's not short doesn't mean you can attack it successfully. I can tell you with confidence that I win points outright with half long pushes vs. topspin very often. This is because of both points in the last paragraphs: I'm an aggressive attacker so my opponent often feel compelled to attack anything long I give them, ,

Lastly, you shouldn't conflate the returns vs. nospin vs. topspin. Topspins are much easier to flick, as you can just borrow the opponent's topspin, but much harder to keep low and short, as you saw in my video. It's not a critical skill to be able to keep topspin returns short, a decent push is enough variation compared to a topspin flick. It's critical however to be able to return a nospin short. Nospins are difficult to flick with decent quality, so the variations usually come from different pushes. The variations in length and location of a push vs nospin needs to be greater in order for the return to be effective.

 

[Archosaurus]

@dingyibvs

Yeah, fair. You can still have some success even with very imperfect skills. They just need to be better than the skills you are making your opponent use, and then with some luck, you should win.
It's a simple principle but I forget it sometimes.

Often I will push super heavy but very high and slow and even decent players (1000RC+) will net it. Then I will push no-spin, half-high and fast and they will throw it off the end.

I usually have a thought like "I'm lucky he made a mistake, because this won't work against someone better", but most of the time the opponent is playing 4, 5 divisions higher than my level; he is already someone better!

The way one coach explained it was that it's not so much about how powerful or quality the shot is and more-so about if it's a shot the opponent likes and has success against.

In my opinion it also helps to have a variety of meaningfully different returns so the opponent's mental overhead that they need to keep track of is larger. Then they won't be able to just get in position and start backswinging before you even hit the ball and might be later and weaker.

 

[Der_Echte]

Archo, you are doing 10 tons better than you did a decade ago.. but I know who you are talking to. You are not gunna out do this man in any aspect of TT.

 

[backspacer]

Had a league match today at 10AM and I overslept... I arrived 45 minutes too late, almost wasn't even able to fit into the tram because it was absolutely packed.

Matches here start with doubles and with me being absent that point was lost. I played my two singles back-to-back with no warm-up and won both of them lol but the overall match ended in a draw so yeah that doubles would have been key. Did also manage to achieve my goal for the year and cracked 1500 TTR.

 

[Archosaurus]

Archo, you are doing 10 tons better than you did a decade ago.. but I know who you are talking to. You are not gunna out do this man in any aspect of TT.

I don't know about that, but I do feel like I'm 10 tons heavier than a decade ago, that's for sure.

 

[jonol]

@dingyibvs

Yeah, fair. You can still have some success even with very imperfect skills. They just need to be better than the skills you are making your opponent use, and then with some luck, you should win.
It's a simple principle but I forget it sometimes.

Often I will push super heavy but very high and slow and even decent players (1000RC+) will net it. Then I will push no-spin, half-high and fast and they will throw it off the end.

I usually have a thought like "I'm lucky he made a mistake, because this won't work against someone better", but most of the time the opponent is playing 4, 5 divisions higher than my level; he is already someone better!

The way one coach explained it was that it's not so much about how powerful or quality the shot is and more-so about if it's a shot the opponent likes and has success against.

In my opinion it also helps to have a variety of meaningfully different returns so the opponent's mental overhead that they need to keep track of is larger. Then they won't be able to just get in position and start backswinging before you even hit the ball and might be later and weaker.

Agreed that variation is good.

However, 1000RC is not a decent player. It's advanced beginner level. 1100-1200 is the starting point of intermediate if we're being generous.

Nearing 1700 is probably USATT 2000 equivalent.