I wanna play with the big boys!

[blahness]

girl in black/pink is a chopblocker

both blues in Table 1 and Table 2 is chopblocker

all 3 girls is in the same team/school

I'm not sure if they train "long pip" chop blockers the same in the west.
chop blocker can push attack or block attack. not just a "blocker"

Yes, the good pips player who can attack with the pips are really difficult to play against. So against normal pips players you can always afford to just lift the ball to them which is a ball they struggle quite a bit with especially if you disguise it like a loop, and also because there's no spin or momentum to deal with - sometimes they even struggle with high balls the same way I do lmao. Against attacking pips players you'll be dead once you lift the ball in such a way because they're gonna attack in a very nasty way.

 

[Migzkulit]

girl in black/pink is a chopblocker

both blues in Table 1 and Table 2 is chopblocker

all 3 girls is in the same team/school

I'm not sure if they train "long pip" chop blockers the same in the west.
chop blocker can push attack or block attack. not just a "blocker"

They are nasty. One person in my club who's part of the national youth team is a chopblocker.

I can win points by always sending it long to their backhand cause it's hard to raise the ball.
Just those flat balls are hard to receive in general.

 

[Metaxa]

all 3 girls is in the same team/school

I'm not sure if they train "long pip" chop blockers the same in the west.
chop blocker can push attack or block attack. not just a "blocker"

I have a few observations/questions:
-they are young
-girls only? No young boys?
-why they started with pips?
-technically limited BH-movements > reasons to go to pips?
-I don't think they promote pips to young players in Western Europe. They will always try to convince young players to play with inverted rubbers.
-a new system in Asia to promote pips towards the future?

 

[ejprinz]

Two points:

* Equipment: Table tennis has a defined set of rules to follow. You are allowed to inspect the opponent's racket and if the rubber is nonuniform you can have the opponent disqualified right there or at least ask for a different racket. Also if the rubber is not attached all the way (bad glue job) that's also against the rules. Apart from that I think long pips are not too different from anti or a really old inverted rubber (they still are different as long pips can be bent and then have some spin).

* Even at the high levels some players play long pips close to the table. E.g. right now at the WTT Feeder Olomouc 2023 Yashawini Ghorpade. Ironically she lost against Xia Nian Li who has an even more complex long pips game (penhold twiddle). Also He Zhuojia is playing there but she is not playing the typical push blocker style, she is actually playing like Mima Ito (I think she has a sponge under the pips). And there are a few defenders.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

Just came back from an inter-club friendly. My opponent is a young lady. Easy-peasy right? That is until she brings out her BH Long-Pips. I lost sob sob sob....

My beef:

1. The ball stays short most of the time and she blocks to the far end of each side.
2. My natural reaction is to push back and she will just slap it to the other side.
3. She blocks everything with her BH pips and if I loop it goes into the net or out of the table. If I push it either goes into the table or float high which allows her to slap it for a winner.
4. All those tutorial about one loop and one push to handle pips is just that, tutorial. In those tutorial the opponent / partner just block back, they don't slap / attack the ball. So it looks nice on video. But in real life totally different story.

Sometimes you cannot fault us invertees for lamenting about these pips blocker. All they do is just stand close to the table with minimal effort. Contrast it with those choppers, even though they are also long-pipster user, somehow they do earn greater respect for their art / effort. Their style appear more beautiful.

 

[blahness]

Just came back from an inter-club friendly. My opponent is a young lady. Easy-peasy right? That is until she brings out her BH Long-Pips. I lost sob sob sob....

My beef:

1. The ball stays short most of the time and she blocks to the far end of each side.
2. My natural reaction is to push back and she will just slap it to the other side.
3. She blocks everything with her BH pips and if I loop it goes into the net or out of the table. If I push it either goes into the table or float high which allows her to slap it for a winner.
4. All those tutorial about one loop and one push to handle pips is just that, tutorial. In those tutorial the opponent / partner just block back, they don't slap / attack the ball. So it looks nice on video. But in real life totally different story.

Sometimes you cannot fault us invertees for lamenting about these pips blocker. All they do is just stand close to the table with minimal effort. Contrast it with those choppers, even though they are also long-pipster user, somehow they do earn greater respect for their art / effort. Their style appear more beautiful.

Unfortunately it takes real good serves, footwork, solid loops on both wings and quality pushing to have an advantage over close table long pips. It has some huge benefits at the lower level because many casual players never develop those skills. It's unfair because the long pips ppl don't need to develop those skills...a lot of what they do is just simply good touch

1 push 1 loop works if your loops are consistent and high quality, and your pushes are taken early, are fast and placed very nastily. Your balls are travelling faster to them than theirs are to you, you should be able to get quite a bit of advantage this way. High quality loops are very hard to control with long pips once a certain threshold is reached. So every time you loop with high quality they have a high % of missing. And you're not looping against heavy underspin this way, so you should be able to loop with a lot more power.

This is why I think pips should be heavily nerfed further (similar to how cheesing in Starcraft works)

 

[piligrim]

4. All those tutorial about one loop and one push to handle pips is just that, tutorial. In those tutorial the opponent / partner just block back, they don't slap / attack the ball. So it looks nice on video. But in real life totally different story.

Because you need to practice against players like this, not only read tutorial ))

 

[Ghostzen]

Gozo.... Variation and awareness of... both incoming and outgoing spin and pace is a good place to start. Familiarise yourself with the effects then try combat them. Like any new skill it takes time to get good at and a different mindset maybe I would say. The more exposure you have to these types of game the better you become. If you can find someone to hit with and just play to get an idea of the effects. Better to work the point and move the ball and take control for the setup. Can really open the eyes to how effective your strokes are .... Or not!

Trying to serve off or power loop through these players is tricky tbh and a kind of blind tactical error alot of players make if that makes sense?

 

[NextLevel]

Just came back from an inter-club friendly. My opponent is a young lady. Easy-peasy right? That is until she brings out her BH Long-Pips. I lost sob sob sob....

My beef:

1. The ball stays short most of the time and she blocks to the far end of each side.
2. My natural reaction is to push back and she will just slap it to the other side.
3. She blocks everything with her BH pips and if I loop it goes into the net or out of the table. If I push it either goes into the table or float high which allows her to slap it for a winner.
4. All those tutorial about one loop and one push to handle pips is just that, tutorial. In those tutorial the opponent / partner just block back, they don't slap / attack the ball. So it looks nice on video. But in real life totally different story.

Sometimes you cannot fault us invertees for lamenting about these pips blocker. All they do is just stand close to the table with minimal effort. Contrast it with those choppers, even though they are also long-pipster user, somehow they do earn greater respect for their art / effort. Their style appear more beautiful.

So on Friday, I saw a guy who I have played a few times in practice and who has a good up and coming game about to play an older lefty long pips player I had played before. I expected the guy to lose badly and I watched the first game and he did the typical thing of acting like long pips are magical artifacts and kept pushing the ball off the table. I told him out loud to stop acting like he doesnt know what is on the ball, he needs to use the information from his misses to read the ball better and figure out how to setup his weapons. After this, out of nowhere he suddenly started looping the ball, getting attacking opportunities and lost a tight 5 game match. I am sure he can beat the guy when they play next.

As my old late coach used to say, it is your job to figure out what is on the ball and how to read it and how to adjust. In real life, people can play junk styles with all kinds of equipment. long pips just makes it easier. I have a friend who didn't have coaching when he started, most of what he does is wipe the ball with Rakza Z and attack hard if you pop it up, his blocks usually have sidespin and are hard to track. He is around USATT 1700, and if I rally with him without bringing in my weapons, I will lose because he will wipe the ball short and dead block me (he chops down on the ball to keep the ball short, which can make it unreliable but makes it deadly when it hits the table).

I get how you feel Gozo. And if you don't want to play her, don't play her. But your stubbornness aside, your game is destined for a much higher level than you currently play if you spend enough time playing and learn to spin the ball consistently. Especially with your serves and then your rally strokes. Then you will wonder why you had so much trouble with the woman. Even when they slap the ball at you, you can topspin the ball, it just takes a certain level of calm to do it with confidence.

 

[NextLevel]

Gozo.... Variation and awareness of... both incoming and outgoing spin and pace is a good place to start. Familiarise yourself with the effects then try combat them. Like any new skill it takes time to get good at and a different mindset maybe I would say. The more exposure you have to these types of game the better you become. If you can find someone to hit with and just play to get an idea of the effects. Better to work the point and move the ball and take control for the setup. Can really open the eyes to how effective your strokes are .... Or not!

Trying to serve off or power loop through these players is tricky tbh and a kind of blind tactical error alot of players make if that makes sense?

actually I would argue you can serve off and power loop through these players if their level is lower than yours. But you have experience from eras where spin was a bigger factor than it is today, so you are probably used to just reading thr ball, rallying with them and comfortably getting them to block long.

I usually just use backspin no spin combinations and heavy topspin backhand and forehand with the occasional flat hit. But the first thing IMHO is to accept the responsibility to read the ball. Because every pups is different just like inverted can be different, so if you accept the responsibility to read the ball, you can tell what eas on the ball when you make a mistake and then adapt. The reason why I don't take the power looping option off the table is that the first strategy is usually to serve a no spin ball long or half long and if it comes back long, it is almost always no spin, then attack that ball confidently. People who usually can't attack the no spin ball are the ones who complain about all kinds of pips the most.

 

[NextLevel]

Unfortunately it takes real good serves, footwork, solid loops on both wings and quality pushing to have an advantage over close table long pips. It has some huge benefits at the lower level because many casual players never develop those skills. It's unfair because the long pips ppl don't need to develop those skills...a lot of what they do is just simply good touch

1 push 1 loop works if your loops are consistent and high quality, and your pushes are taken early, are fast and placed very nastily. Your balls are travelling faster to them than theirs are to you, you should be able to get quite a bit of advantage this way. High quality loops are very hard to control with long pips once a certain threshold is reached. So every time you loop with high quality they have a high % of missing. And you're not looping against heavy underspin this way, so you should be able to loop with a lot more power.

This is why I think pips should be heavily nerfed further (similar to how cheesing in Starcraft works)

All of these things are true but level relative. If she was a higher level player than Gozo, then the pips were just the convenient explanation for how he felt. But if she was a lower level player or the same level, the issue is that Gozo just needed to adopting a mindset where he stopped playing on autopilot and started looking for patterns that he could use to reliably win points. Which of course, is a requirement to improve your gameplay in TT. Pips just make it more obvious because they add a new variable into the mix. But the Bottom line is if pushing a ball sends it upwards, it is not a backspin ball and you need to stop treating it like one. If Ma Long did this Gozo with a tricky push, Gozo would be talking about Ma Long"s genius and trying to figure out how to do it or win against it. But with long pips, there is the excuse to shut off and just say whatever, give up and go home.

 

[Ghostzen]

actually I would argue you can serve off and power loop through these players if their level is lower than yours. But you have experience from eras where spin was a bigger factor than it is today, so you are probably used to just reading thr ball, rallying with them and comfortably getting them to block long.

I usually just use backspin no spin combinations and heavy topspin backhand and forehand with the occasional flat hit. But the first thing IMHO is to accept the responsibility to read the ball. Because every pups is different just like inverted can be different, so if you accept the responsibility to read the ball, you can tell what eas on the ball when you make a mistake and then adapt. The reason why I don't take the power looping option off the table is that the first strategy is usually to serve a no spin ball long or half long and if it comes back long, it is almost always no spin, then attack that ball confidently. People who usually can't attack the no spin ball are the ones who complain about all kinds of pips the most.

If the level is lower totally agree 1000% or if the player is used to playing against a similar style. 1+1=2 if they understand what's on the ball...but the times I've seen really quite strong technical players play without any understable game plan and try and just bludgeon the ball and wonder why the ball comes back with interest and sparks on or doesn't land on the table. The same heavy serve or fast serve then next ball go for it and the same and same and same. The Blocker like a chopper starts to see the patterns and then it becomes very tricky.

Then repeat the same mistake over and over again. It's like they won't respect the ball if that makes sense as it different from the normal topspin ball they train against. Then frustration sets in and carelessness trying things they can't do with lower percentages of landing the ball.

I'm pretty adaptive and I'm quite lucky I flat hit/smash very well still off a higher ball. It comes from playing with the older ball maybe or against players with very effective pimples like superblock and hallmarks and where there was more spin maybe?. So along with a good ish heavy or low slow spin ball normally stand quite a good chance of outthinking the pips players or out varying them ready to put the ball away when getting the chance. It's not an exact science but like you say. There are things to do so you know what's coming back and can work the point.

 

[Ghostzen]

All of these things are true but level relative. If she was a higher level player than Gozo, then the pips were just the convenient explanation for how he felt. But if she was a lower level player or the same level, the issue is that Gozo just needed to adopting a mindset where he stopped playing on autopilot and started looking for patterns that he could use to reliably win points. Which of course, is a requirement to improve your gameplay in TT. Pips just make it more obvious because they add a new variable into the mix. But the Bottom line is if pushing a ball sends it upwards, it is not a backspin ball and you need to stop treating it like one. If Ma Long did this Gozo with a tricky push, Gozo would be talking about Ma Long"s genius and trying to figure out how to do it or win against it. But with long pips, there is the excuse to shut off and just say whatever, give up and go home.

Good explanation and put better than the post I just wrote before I read this!

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

So on Friday, I saw a guy who I have played a few times in practice and who has a good up and coming game about to play an older lefty long pips player I had played before. I expected the guy to lose badly and I watched the first game and he did the typical thing of acting like long pips are magical artifacts and kept pushing the ball off the table. I told him out loud to stop acting like he doesnt know what is on the ball, he needs to use the information from his misses to read the ball better and figure out how to setup his weapons. After this, out of nowhere he suddenly started looping the ball, getting attacking opportunities and lost a tight 5 game match. I am sure he can beat the guy when they play next.

As my old late coach used to say, it is your job to figure out what is on the ball and how to read it and how to adjust. In real life, people can play junk styles with all kinds of equipment. long pips just makes it easier. I have a friend who didn't have coaching when he started, most of what he does is wipe the ball with Rakza Z and attack hard if you pop it up, his blocks usually have sidespin and are hard to track. He is around USATT 1700, and if I rally with him without bringing in my weapons, I will lose because he will wipe the ball short and dead block me (he chops down on the ball to keep the ball short, which can make it unreliable but makes it deadly when it hits the table).

I get how you feel Gozo. And if you don't want to play her, don't play her. But your stubbornness aside, your game is destined for a much higher level than you currently play if you spend enough time playing and learn to spin the ball consistently. Especially with your serves and then your rally strokes. Then you will wonder why you had so much trouble with the woman. Even when they slap the ball at you, you can topspin the ball, it just takes a certain level of calm to do it with confidence.

NL,

I was assigned by the organizer to play with her, I do not have a say in who I play with, it is up to the organizer and it appears to be random / by chance because this is the first time our two club meet. So we have no idea who is who and who plays with what.

At the end of the match, I heard some veteran player were saying why the H 3 L L did you assign Gozo to play with a pipster? The organizing person said he had no idea she plays with long pips.

Anyway, I digressed. Just to give some context, within this week, I defeated two long time veteran player in my club. The first one is a J-Pen ( BTY One ply Hinoki ) with only one side T05 and painted with black paint on the other side. We had a bet of equivalent of USD 1.00 and he gave me a two point lead. I beat him 3-2 ( twice ).

Another veteran who uses shakehand two side inverted ( both side Dignics 05 ) with Ma Lin Extra Offensive seven ply, I lost close fight with him also twice. Both times I lost by a razor thin margin of 3-4 with many sets ended up in deuses.

These veteran players are in their sixties and have either 30 or 40 years experience playing TT versus me having around slightly close to two years experience if I were to start counting from the day I learn TT properly from a real pro coach.

My point is, I am not so noobie anymore and can hold my own against inverted regular and even so I have trouble playing a young lady with noodle arms using long pips. I mean all she does is just stand close to the table, right in the middle of it, hardly move and just use her pips to block all my loops and whatsnot. What she does well, is to block with good placement short near the edge of the table both side.

That negate most of my offensive shots really. In those short balls, I could only push back and that is where she bam! slap the ball to the other side. I have not mastered my BH short flick so I am at lost of an effective weapon when she block short to my BH side.

Again, my point is long pips gave an overly advantage to a player, it really makes the game unbalanced. Oh well, rant over, time to go look at Shopee / Lazada and check out some of the latest rubbers / blades and let EJ therapy heal my soul. Kthxbye.

 

[Ghostzen]

NL,

I was assigned by the organizer to play with her, I do not have a say in who I play with, it is up to the organizer and it appears to be random / by chance because this is the first time our two club meet. So we have no idea who is who and who plays with what.

At the end of the match, I heard some veteran player were saying why the H 3 L L did you assign Gozo to play with a pipster? The organizing person said he had no idea she plays with long pips.

Anyway, I digressed. Just to give some context, within this week, I defeated two long time veteran player in my club. The first one is a J-Pen ( BTY One ply Hinoki ) with only one side T05 and painted with black paint on the other side. We had a bet of equivalent of USD 1.00 and he gave me a two point lead. I beat him 3-2 ( twice ).

Another veteran who uses shakehand two side inverted ( both side Dignics 05 ) with Ma Lin Extra Offensive seven ply, I lost close fight with him also twice. Both times I lost by a razor thin margin of 3-4 with many sets ended up in deuses.

These veteran players are in their sixties and have either 30 or 40 years experience playing TT versus me having around slightly close to two years experience if I were to start counting from the day I learn TT properly from a real pro coach.

My point is, I am not so noobie anymore and can hold my own against inverted regular and even so I have trouble playing a young lady with noodle arms using long pips. I mean all she does is just stand close to the table, right in the middle of it, hardly move and just use her pips to block all my loops and whatsnot. What she does well, is to block with good placement short near the edge of the table both side.

That negate most of my offensive shots really. In those short balls, I could only push back and that is where she bam! slap the ball to the other side. I have not mastered my BH short flick so I am at lost of an effective weapon when she block short to my BH side.

Again, my point is long pips gave an overly advantage to a player, it really makes the game unbalanced. Oh well, rant over, time to go look at Shopee / Lazada and check out some of the latest rubbers / blades and let EJ therapy heal my soul. Kthxbye.

Hey Gozo,

You are progressing really well so no biggie on the loss.... Def don't beat yourself up about it. ...but I would say you are actually a noobie still against this style of LP play. It's not a negative it's just you haven't had the chance to get your teeth into this style and work it out. The more exposure you get to LP styles the more you will improve until you'll switch on and then think. 1+1=2 lets go and get the points!. It will add to your tools you need to win against all types of player and make you stronger all round.

 

[NextLevel]

NL,

I was assigned by the organizer to play with her, I do not have a say in who I play with, it is up to the organizer and it appears to be random / by chance because this is the first time our two club meet. So we have no idea who is who and who plays with what.

At the end of the match, I heard some veteran player were saying why the H 3 L L did you assign Gozo to play with a pipster? The organizing person said he had no idea she plays with long pips.

Anyway, I digressed. Just to give some context, within this week, I defeated two long time veteran player in my club. The first one is a J-Pen ( BTY One ply Hinoki ) with only one side T05 and painted with black paint on the other side. We had a bet of equivalent of USD 1.00 and he gave me a two point lead. I beat him 3-2 ( twice ).

Another veteran who uses shakehand two side inverted ( both side Dignics 05 ) with Ma Lin Extra Offensive seven ply, I lost close fight with him also twice. Both times I lost by a razor thin margin of 3-4 with many sets ended up in deuses.

These veteran players are in their sixties and have either 30 or 40 years experience playing TT versus me having around slightly close to two years experience if I were to start counting from the day I learn TT properly from a real pro coach.

My point is, I am not so noobie anymore and can hold my own against inverted regular and even so I have trouble playing a young lady with noodle arms using long pips. I mean all she does is just stand close to the table, right in the middle of it, hardly move and just use her pips to block all my loops and whatsnot. What she does well, is to block with good placement short near the edge of the table both side.

That negate most of my offensive shots really. In those short balls, I could only push back and that is where she bam! slap the ball to the other side. I have not mastered my BH short flick so I am at lost of an effective weapon when she block short to my BH side.

Again, my point is long pips gave an overly advantage to a player, it really makes the game unbalanced. Oh well, rant over, time to go look at Shopee / Lazada and check out some of the latest rubbers / blades and let EJ therapy heal my soul. Kthxbye.

If you practice and play against pips players, you will change your mind about this. But you are currently at a stage of this issue which many players do not progress beyond, often not because they cannot, but because they do not want to. It would have been interesting to watch the match, but sometimes, you can tell how someone really feels by how they describe the match, which is often very different from how the match really went.

Unless she was a much better player than you, it is virtually impossible at your playing level for anyone to keep balls short. Even with long pips. What usually happens is that the ball does not kick with topspin, so it doesn't come to your racket the same way that a regular topspin ball does, so you have to adjust to the change in timing. A version of this timing issue happens with short pips as well. There are also some trajectory differences, but again, none of this is stuff that you can't work around with some practice and mental stability. And of course, recording the matches is extremely helpful because balls that wobble in your vision do not wobble on camera lol!

I get that you are improving and that the pips did not let you display your improvement. Hopefully, at some point in the future, the pips won't matter. But that might not be any comfort to you at the current time. And some people never gain perspective. But I can tell you that the best time to get used to playing against pips players and practicing against them is *now*. Because your ability to get confident spinning the dead ball makes your game stronger the earlier you start doing it. And developing tools to handle the pips ball (good pushes, smashes and loops of no-spin and topspin balls, looping two backspin balls in a row) makes your game stronger the earlier you get used to it because you are less vulnerable to people who smash.

 

[blahness]

All of these things are true but level relative. If she was a higher level player than Gozo, then the pips were just the convenient explanation for how he felt. But if she was a lower level player or the same level, the issue is that Gozo just needed to adopting a mindset where he stopped playing on autopilot and started looking for patterns that he could use to reliably win points. Which of course, is a requirement to improve your gameplay in TT. Pips just make it more obvious because they add a new variable into the mix. But the Bottom line is if pushing a ball sends it upwards, it is not a backspin ball and you need to stop treating it like one. If Ma Long did this Gozo with a tricky push, Gozo would be talking about Ma Long"s genius and trying to figure out how to do it or win against it. But with long pips, there is the excuse to shut off and just say whatever, give up and go home.

Yes, but at the initial stages the pips can survive very well without investing the same amount of effort into stuff like body mechanics, footwork, actually reading service spin, etc... They get away with way too much at the lower levels that inverted players don't get to, this is where the "unfairness" feeling comes from.

 

[Metaxa]

Yes, but at the initial stages the pips can survive very well without investing the same amount of effort into stuff like body mechanics, footwork, actually reading service spin, etc... They get away with way too much at the lower levels that inverted players don't get to, this is where the "unfairness" feeling comes from.

Indeed, so it is!
Very many annoyances back in the day when we were growing. Not so much because they played with technical equipment but because they had to put (almost) no effort into it because I knew that if they played them with regular inverted rubbers, they had no chance against me. I had played enough against them in the past where they never or rarely won against me but once they started playing with SP, LP or anti the roles reversed.
Fortunately, over the years, we did learn to play against them but always with great difficulty and trial & error.

 

[Ghostzen]

Yes, but at the initial stages the pips can survive very well without investing the same amount of effort into stuff like body mechanics, footwork, actually reading service spin, etc... They get away with way too much at the lower levels that inverted players don't get to, this is where the "unfairness" feeling comes from.

Understand its frustrating but the idea of slapping on some LP's and being about to easily block topspin and easy return serves is not totally true without any effort in a match situation. While development for inverted players is drilling the topspin, serve plus receive and working on the basics to a higher level etc. The LP starter/intermediate players development is feel, placement, depth, touch. Read of types of spin, Ability to try and attack. Also to develop the other strokes like topspin from the inverted side or drive SP side. Twiddling. Lines of attack to defend Reading where the ball is going close to the table with minimal time and most importantly tactical awareness. Which alot of inverted players kind of forget they have to do.

A really strong LP player some years back was chatting to me and we sat down after our matches at a GP in the UK. I was amazed at how he seemed to cover the table so well and kind of always seemed to be there.... I remember he's answer... He smiled and said...

Is it luck?,
It's got to be luck... Right?
The bat?
Coincidence?
or maybe I am trying to out think the other player... To outplay them.

LP is a very cerebral style of play I think. misunderstood even and also maybe not respected.

It's different strokes for different folks.

Some adapt to it other don't or won't at every level. Interesting mind.

 

[NextLevel]

Yes, but at the initial stages the pips can survive very well without investing the same amount of effort into stuff like body mechanics, footwork, actually reading service spin, etc... They get away with way too much at the lower levels that inverted players don't get to, this is where the "unfairness" feeling comes from.

Not at the "initial stages" but at the lower intermediate levels. But that is because everyone usually tries to use inverted conventionally. I know because when I didn't, I used to cause my fair share of trouble to players as well. Like I said, the pips are just the convenient excuse ball reading issues.