Looper Vs Pushblocker as good as it gets

[Tinykin]

Mike from another forum found this. Proof that stand at the table LP blockers can be entertaining to watch.

 

[fais]

That fistbump at 13:58 - game recognizes game

 

[vvk1]

Great match. IMHO, it is so unfair to call players of this style "pushblockers" as there is so much more to their game, and their FH attack is outstanding.

 

[bobpuls]

Yes.. This is pretty fast game.. Small amounth of pussh blocking

 

[Tinykin]

Great match. IMHO, it is so unfair to call players of this style "pushblockers" as there is so much more to their game, and their FH attack is outstanding.

In this case, probably true. They are called pushblockers as their game is mostly about blocking with their LP and attacking very little with their FH. But this guy punishes anything loose by hitting with his FH. Notice also that his teamate is Karaksevic so his standard must be very high.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

There are a few spots where he crushes the ball with the pips too. Those are crazy shots with a totally flat trajectory.

But without the pips he would have had even more trouble with his opponent's serves. It was an excellent match. And good tactics got him a decent number of the money points.


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[Baal]

This is what pushblockers have to be when they are over 2400. They keep the ball low to set up a big forehand. Without that, higher level players just toy with them. I also noticed his effective attacks with the LP on the BH.

 

[mquevedof]

More heavy top spin to the backhand, high trajectory shots from the looper would probably have yielded a different end result. Am I the only one seeing this? Looper was putting more emphasis on speed rather than spin in my mind.

Easy to say... Harder to actually do it.


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[Baal]

More heavy top spin to the backhand, high trajectory shots from the looper would probably have yielded a different end result. Am I the only one seeing this? Looper was putting more emphasis on speed rather than spin in my mind.

Easy to say... Harder to actually do it.

You are right, the double inverted guy drove the ball more than he relied on spin. He may have played this way because he knew that heavy spin arc balls may just come back with more heavy spin or maybe the LP guy would have just hit through it with his BH, since he clearly has high skill attacking slow balls from that side (and his attacks with the BH were really effective). Perhaps the double inverted guy has played the LP guy several times before and knows it wouldn't work, or maybe he just isn't real good at hitting that slower spinnier ball. Also, the LP guy has a lot of skill but he is certainly not quick and so maybe playing more speed against him was a calculated strategy. Or maybe he just didn't think to try it.

 

[vvk1]

And here is the match between the "LP guy" vs "real looper" (aka Karakasevic):

I guess this kinda explains the extreme dearth of pushblockers at elite levels.

 

[izra]

on the other hand karakasevic is on a way higher level than kosta regardless of playing style. if kosta were more phisically fit his forehand would be a lot more lethal and his level higher. imo there is a still a lot of room for improvement in this playing style.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

And yet it does still show how the extra spin makes it much harder for Kostadinovic to track the ball and keep it down on the table. And how that level of spin contained his attacks and made them almost nonexistent. The guy is darn good nonetheless.

 

[Baal]

Yes, this was an annihilation. Huge difference in level. Karakasevic is hardly making an effort, and it's not like he's got the fitness of Wang Liqin and the speed of Kim Taek Soo himself. I'm not so sure it is extra spin, the different spin and timing of an LP shot simply doesn't affect Karakasevic because his timing is so good so he simply tees off on the ball.

My guess is the top guy in the world with a style sort of like LP guy is the Swedish guy who looks like Harry Potter.

At the end of the day when you are playing someone in the world top 150, you better be pretty dangerous from both sides (a few rare players like RSM are so ridiculously quick they can cover the whole table with one side effectively), or you have to be an outstanding defender. Changing the timing using LP doesn't work. Top players are too skilled to be taken in by that and all it does is give them more time to rip the ball.

 

[Tinykin]

Karaksevic is putting everything into it. It's just that he using slow top spin to neutralise the PB's game. One has to be very relaxed to play like that, it's not an easy game to play.

 

[NextLevel]

Yes, this was an annihilation. Huge difference in level. Karakasevic is hardly making an effort, and it's not like he's got the fitness of Wang Liqin and the speed of Kim Taek Soo himself. I'm not so sure it is extra spin, the different spin and timing of an LP shot simply doesn't affect Karakasevic because his timing is so good so he simply tees off on the ball.

My guess is the top guy in the world with a style sort of like LP guy is the Swedish guy who looks like Harry Potter.

At the end of the day when you are playing someone in the world top 150, you better be pretty dangerous from both sides (a few rare players like RSM are so ridiculously quick they can cover the whole table with one side effectively), or you have to be an outstanding defender. Changing the timing using LP doesn't work. Top players are too skilled to be taken in by that and all it does is give them more time to rip the ball.

Liu Song did a decent job playing that style and I have seen Chinese women give 2500-2650 US immigrant players issues playing that style. While the style has obvious limitations, I am 95% sure that Karakasevic would beat Kosta if you put pips on either side of Karaka's racket because of the difference in level of the players, so it's impossible to draw anything about the validity of the style from this match. I mean, Kosta probably lost enough points on inverted serve return alone to show the difference in level, but Kara didn't win easily by bashing Kosta's pips, he won mostly by looping to Kosta's forehand.

Where I do agree with Baal 100% is that the table is too small for you to stand there and let the world class guys rip the ball at you repeatedly because they give you too little information about where they intend to place the ball for you to easily anticipate them - at least consistently enough to survive while needing to take the ball literally off the bounce all the time close to the table. That's why this style will struggle to be taken seriously at the top of the men's game.

 

[Sali]

Most of cases good idea is to serve to Fh side to the guys like this. That guy is not slim and fit enough to play fast game, so Even if he attacks with Fh topspin it should not bo hard to block it and See him diving for the ball. Here is another example
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLO3Jaf9aZvO15cVVYMZAdGPIfDjmqsjKo&v=229r-zPEzW4

 

[Pnachtwey]

I enjoyed the first match more. Both players played a good game. I would call the LP player a punch blocker. He was very aggressive and attacked rather than just blocked the ball. This is hard to do. It takes a lot of practice and knowing how the pips will respond. I thought the first looper was smart to serve fast into the LP players pips. A lot of the LP player's serve returns went long. A good LP player can soft block, pull the paddle back slightly, fast serves to keep them on the table but then the risk is returning a ball short. I agree with those that say the LP player is much better than Push Blocker because he can hit much better with his FH and BH and keep pressure on the opponent even with the LPs.

The second inverted player has an awesome BH loop and had enough confidence to use it even against the LP back spin returns. The second inverted player pressured the LP player and was able to loop balls that the LP player couldn't attack.
What I found interesting is that the second inverted player would often make scooping type returns that weren't attacked by the LP player.

The second inverted players BH loop was key to his win. I doubt the second inverted player could have won if he had pips on his BH so he couldn't loop.

Top spin does make a difference. I once had a lesson with Sean O'Neil he was able top hit balls with extreme top spin so my balls went long or were returned high. I was playing with GD Talon 0X on a Firewall Plus. Sean's spin was great enough to bend my LP pips so they grabbed the ball so friction increased and the ball went long or high. Sean's advice was to match the spin with a sharp but short chopping motion so there was little or no tangential force on the pips so the spin would not bend them. That works but that isn't a punch block like the LP player was able to do in the first match.

 

[Baal]

Liu Song did a decent job playing that style and I have seen Chinese women give 2500-2650 US immigrant players issues playing that style. While the style has obvious limitations, I am 95% sure that Karakasevic would beat Kosta if you put pips on either side of Karaka's racket because of the difference in level of the players, so it's impossible to draw anything about the validity of the style from this match. I mean, Kosta probably lost enough points on inverted serve return alone to show the difference in level, but Kara didn't win easily by bashing Kosta's pips, he won mostly by looping to Kosta's forehand.

Where I do agree with Baal 100% is that the table is too small for you to stand there and let the world class guys rip the ball at you repeatedly because they give you too little information about where they intend to place the ball for you to easily anticipate them - at least consistently enough to survive while needing to take the ball literally off the bounce all the time close to the table. That's why this style will struggle to be taken seriously at the top of the men's game.

Liu Song was much more of a defender and certainly played a lot further off the table than this guy most of the time. Quite different style I think. I think the Swedish Harry Potter dude (Fabian Akerstrom) is the closest there is. He is unusual because he can twiddle insanely quickly. He is around 200 in the world. And against good players he gets pushed back and sort of turns into some sort of chopper.

Also to me it seemed like Kara would hit some sort of ball to the pips side and then rip whatever came back to one side or the other, it didn't really matter at that point. Anything coming off the LP from that close he just gobbled up. But he set up the attack by making the guy use the LP.

 

[Tinykin]

One thing though, I have never seen an LP blocker type player that had full control of his LP side. At times, they always seem to make strokes that went wildly off target when they appeared to be in position for a simple retuen.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

One thing though, I have never seen an LP blocker type player that had full control of his LP side. At times, they always seem to make strokes that went wildly off target when they appeared to be in position for a simple retuen.

100%. Great observation.