Short Pips both sides...

[ViperTableTennis]

On and off the fence because your yes stance is characterised with a very on the fence "oh, it's just an hypothesis that can't be proven wrong. But you ignore that you have followed up your original questions with some very off the fence statements, it's just because of this, it's just because of that

I never said my hypothesis can't be proven wrong. I said my hypothesis hasn't been proven wrong from what I can see. I also never said anything along the lines of "it's just because of this, it's just because of that"...what I said were statements along the lines of "it might be because of this or that etc"

It is not just because nobody is doing it.
Its because nobody is doing it because it was done decades ago and died because it cannot live in the current TT environment.
Why are there no dinosaurs?
This reminds me of a discussion with a friend decades ago where he was convinced (utterly convinced) that Jurassic Park could happen! It was an hypothesis, granted not his original one but from a book, but I couldn't prove him wrong.
Or maybe I say "let's try steamships, they'd be amazing in today's world".
And then I ignore everyone who tells me it was done for decades over a century ago but shipping technology had moved on. Or ignore that even Olympic was converted from coal and steam to oil and diesel, you get my drift.
Basically, to borrow from my shipping metaphor, the lack of steamships IS the evidence but your making a circular argument out of it (as is your perogative) to say, no, there should be steamships so we can check it out.

And then you're surprised that people are less than enthused to continue in debate about your astonishing hypothesis.
Hypothesis is a kind word at this stage.
Can't we just agree that it's a silly outdated idea?

If it'll make you happy then I'll agree that it's a silly outdated idea, on one condition...

that you come back to this thread in a day or two when you've calmed down a bit and actually read all my posts again from the start of the thread. I'm utterly baffled by why you jumped into this debate so aggressively (literally calling me a narcissist in your very first post and saying that me wanting to respond to comments was "trolling"!). I honestly think both you an Tony have presented "straw-man" caricatures of my position. What I can't work out is whether you've both done that innocently by mistake, or whether it was deliberate...and if it was deliberate, why?.

.

 

[ViperTableTennis]

and now you want sp attacking to become a sp chopper... you really all over the show haha

When did I ever stipulate that my hypothesis was based on an attacking SP player? I just posed the question of whether a double sided SP player might be able to break into the top 100, I didn't go into details about how those SP's would be used.

I'll say pretty much the same thing to you as I've just said to Sims. Go away and come back and read all my posts again in a day or two. Once you've calmed down a bit I think you'd see that there was no need for all your rudeness and that you've actually been misrepresenting my position so that it gives you something easier to criticise.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

When did I ever stipulate that my hypothesis was based on an attacking SP player? I just posed the question of whether a double sided SP player might be able to break into the top 100, I didn't go into details about how those SP's would be used.

I'll say pretty much the same thing to you as I've just said to Sims. Go away and come back and read all my posts again in a day or two. Once you've calmed down a bit I think you'd see that there was no need for all your rudeness and that you've actually been misrepresenting my position so that it gives you something easier to criticise.

i will leave you with one word
transform (change)

 

[NetProphet]

I

I never said my hypothesis can't be proven wrong. I said my hypothesis hasn't been proven wrong from what I can see. I also never said anything along the lines of "it's just because of this, it's just because of that"...what I said were statements along the lines of "it might be because of this or that etc"

Semantics dude. You're really hiding behind this. You're ignoring what people are saying.

If it'll make you happy then I'll agree that it's a silly outdated idea, on one condition...

that you come back to this thread in a day or two when you've calmed down a bit and actually read all my posts again from the start of the thread. I'm utterly baffled by why you jumped into this debate so aggressively (literally calling me a narcissist in your very first post and saying that me wanting to respond to comments was "trolling"!). I honestly think both you an Tony have presented "straw-man" caricatures of my position. What I can't work out is whether you've both done that innocently by mistake, or whether it was deliberate...and if it was deliberate, why?.

.

I am perfectly calm dude, calm as a Hindu cow.
You're getting worked up at all the objections and reading a tone into my posts that isn't there so maybe go easy a bit eh 😉
Yes I came in with my opinion on what I'd read in 25 posts because it seems clear to me that you're not actually absorbing what's being said by people and choosing instead to remain steadfast in your opinion. And I probably was OTT when I said trolling but it did cross my mind that you might have being trying to wind people up a little. So ok, trolling, no.
But floating a serious hypothesis doesn't go like this. It goes along the lines of you actually taking in what's being offered and using it to amend or expand from your original ideas.
To believe you're still correct and scold me for coming into this which conveniently leaves you to again ignore the counter points made is, yes, I've used the word already so no need to retype it.
But I'm not in any way worked up. You choosing to believe something crazy doesn't bother me high up or low down.
But your conjecture about 2 sided pimples is kinda pointless when you won't recognise why people don't play it.
Anyway that's me done.

 

[ViperTableTennis]

I

Semantics dude. You're really hiding behind this. You're ignoring what people are saying.

I am perfectly calm dude, calm as a Hindu cow.
You're getting worked up at all the objections and reading a tone into my posts that isn't there so maybe go easy a bit eh 😉
Yes I came in with my opinion on what I'd read in 25 posts because it seems clear to me that you're not actually absorbing what's being said by people and choosing instead to remain steadfast in your opinion.
Floating a serious hypothesis doesn't go like this. It goes along the lines of you actually taking in what's being offered and using it to amend or expand from your original ideas.
To believe you're still correct and scold me for coming into this which conveniently leaves you to again ignore and of the counter points made is, yes, I've used the word already so no need to retype it.
But I'm not in any way worked up. You choosing to believe something crazy doesn't bother me high up or low down.
But your conjecture about 2 sided pimples is pointless when you don't recognise why people don't play it

So you jump straight to calling me a narcissist and a troll in your very first post...but that's you being nice and calm? And if I take offence to that then it's my fault for reading a tone into your posts that isn't there?!?

I don't believe I'm still correct...I never believed with any certainty I was correct to begin with! I was tentatively mooting a possibility, nothing more. I've said it might be possible if enough people were seriously training in that way, and I've reiterated that tentativeness several times now...but if you want to continue to misrepresent me as saying something more definitive, then so be it.

 

[NetProphet]

So you jump straight to calling me a narcissist and a troll in your very first post...but that's you being nice and calm?

Yes. Because my first post wasn't your first post. It was my nice and calm take on what I'd read in 25 posts. As you say yourself, it's just an hypothesis, maybe it's incorrect, it's up for debate.

And if I take offence to that then it's my fault for reading a tone into your posts that isn't there?!?

Yeah. Because you spent 25 posts, 10 of them by you, not taking on board what people had said.

I don't believe I'm still correct...I never believed with any certainty I was correct to begin with! I was tentatively mooting a possibility, nothing more. I've said it might be possible if enough people were seriously training in that way, and I've reiterated that tentativeness several times now...but if you want to continue to misrepresent me as saying something more definitive, then so be it.

You think it can be done. Your slant is the titanic outlier here.
You don't really accept most of the points made and add it to your initial thoughts to change direction by even 1 degree. If you can't understand why that gets tiresome or boring for folk then....
We'll just call history and current trends a change in fashion rather than anything to do with equipment technology that maximises the manipulation a human can impart upon a TT ball.
It still seems you don't want to accept that the game has moved on from what you are suggesting.
OK. Cool 😎
Thanks for sharing your thoughts

 

[ViperTableTennis]

Yes. Because my first post wasn't your first post. It was my nice and calm take on what I'd read in 25 posts. As you say yourself, it's just an hypothesis, maybe it's incorrect, it's up for debate.

Yeah. Because you spent 25 posts, 10 of them by you, not taking on board what people had said.

You think it can be done. Your slant is the titanic outlier here.
You don't really accept most of the points made and add it to your initial thoughts to change direction by even 1 degree. If you can't understand why that gets tiresome or boring for folk then....
We'll just call history and current trends a change in fashion rather than anything to do with equipment technology that maximises the manipulation a human can impart upon a TT ball.
It still seems you don't want to accept that the game has moved on from what you are suggesting.
OK. Cool 😎
Thanks for sharing your thoughts

Not taking on board what people have said?!?!? I have literally said (on several occasions now) that my hypothesis might be wrong. Why would you think I wouldn't be willing to change my direction by 1 degree when I have literally said that my hypothesis "it's not a notion that I firmly believe in and it could be incorrect"?!

I've not tied myself to this hypothesis in any fundamental way; it's not a hill that I'm looking to die on, and it's not going to emotionally scar me I'm if I'm compelled to move on from it. But because my hypothesis is so tentative to begin with, it just doesn't really feel like you or Tony have offered any compelling evidence that it must be wrong. In fact, you've offered the opposite of that; you've actually already conceded that my hypothesis might be correct when you said "Yes, maybe if someone just wants to be top 100 only and never better than that, there's a 1 in a billion chance that it could work. So you are correct. There's a chance".

In hindsight, I should have just responded when you said that with "great, thanks for agreeing that my hypothesis might be correct"...at least then we could have both moved on to something a bit more productive.

 

[ViperTableTennis]

i will leave you with one word
transform (change)

And I will leave you with this little nugget of information. If you're going to say "I'll leave you with one word", it's better if you don't then follow that up with two words!

 

[NetProphet]

Not taking on board what people have said?!?!? I have literally said (on several occasions now) that my hypothesis might be wrong.

Yeah, just maybe.

Why would you think I wouldn't be willing to change my direction by 1 degree when I have literally said that my hypothesis "it's not a notion that I firmly believe in and it could be incorrect"?!

Because any sane person would likely by now just admit that they're very most likely just wrong and drop it.

I've not tied myself to this hypothesis in any fundamental way

Clearly

it just doesn't really feel like you or Tony have offered any compelling evidence that it must be wrong. In fact, you've offered the opposite of that; you've actually already conceded that my hypothesis might be correct when you said "Yes, maybe if someone just wants to be top 100 only and never better than that, there's a 1 in a billion chance that it could work. So you are correct. There's a chance".

Typical, all the things written and this is what you take from it all 😂 You are correct sir. Somewhere there is someone with a dream of making the top 100 but they just haven't figured out how to do it! I hope your paths cross and you can guide them on their journey.
Good luck with it all, I look forward to watching the movie!

 

[NextLevel]

It might be possible but I think with the 40mm plastic ball the advantage of SP is kinda gone down somewhat.

The advantage of SP like LGL used was that you can smash flat against massive topspin balls of the opponent because the pip would help to deal with the spin. However the new ball takes on less spin and players also don't try to hit super massive slow spins but instead hit more powerful loop drive kind of shots.

You don't need to SP smash opponent loops because now it is easier to hit a loop kill counter topspin while I think with the old ball that would be a lot more risky.

You also have to realize that spinny pips of the kind that LGL used were finally regulated and that is part of what sent him into retirement.

 

[NextLevel]

I take those points onboard, but I can't help think that it could be a somewhat viable style if more people tried it. Modern SP's can be pretty spinny, and with the plastic ball its a bit less emphasis on spin anyway. I reckon it would be possible to get a few double-sided SP players into the world top 100 if only a few more people would seriously train at it. I think it would be a more viable style for them modern game than chopping with LP's - and we still have a small number of those in the top 100.

This is pure speculation. Are you the lawyer?

 

[ViperTableTennis]

Yeah, just maybe.

Because any sane person would likely by now just admit that they're very most likely just wrong and drop it.

Clearly

Typical, all the things written and this is what you take from it all 😂 You are correct sir. Somewhere there is someone with a dream of making the top 100 but they just haven't figured out how to do it! I hope your paths cross and you can guide them on their journey.
Good luck with it all, I look forward to watching the movie!

Is it really that surprising that in a heated debate where you're attempting to counter my hypothesis, that I would want to highlight the bit where you actually concede that my hypothesis might be correct?

Anyway, this is all getting a bit ridiculous now; you've agreed that my hypothesis might be correct...and seeing as I was only saying it might be correct myself, we seem to have ended-up pretty much on the same page. Have a good evening.

 

[NextLevel]

That's an argument to support the notion that the double inverted is a more effective style of play that using pimples...but its not really an argument to counter my hypothesis, which is that I think it would be possible to get a few double-sided SP players into the world top 100 if only a few more people would seriously train at it. Mima Ito is one sided pimples player that is comfortably inside the women's world top 100 ranking...so in what sense is she evidence that a male double-pimple player couldn't get into the world top 100?

Speed is at a premium at the top levels and as crazy as it sounds to most people, the fastest and most consistent surface is inverted rubber. The reason why Ito is evidence is that her style hit a massive wall when others adapted to it. She hasn't beaten a top opponent who trains against her style since her hey day

I think in principle you are right that a player could be top 100 as a two sided pips hitter. The issue is that just about everyone would consider that a waste of talent. Even the Chinese switched to double inverted in the 38mm era when their best inverted shakehand players started beating their pips out penholders.

Of course Ryu Seungmin existed as a one sided penholder playing at the top level. Yoshida Kaii still plays well in European leagues. So I don't doubt you that it is possible for a talent to play any style at the top level. They would just consider it a waste of talent. Even now, it is extremely hard to find a single non-defensive male player using short pips on their backhand in the top 100! And that is focusing on only one side. Could you get a few because of stylistic diversity? Yes. But choppers struggle to be the best players in their country because of how easy they are to beat by teammates at their same level.

So yes. A player with that style could do well. But coaches would be accused of wasting talent without a good reason to justify playing that style.

 

[NextLevel]

Tony, my position is much more tentative that you're trying to make out. I'm not saying "just give some serious training and you will have a double SP top 100 in men's". What I'm saying is that if we had an environment where a lot more players were seriously training in this style from a young age, then it might be possible for some of them to break into the top 100. Like I said in an earlier post, my rationale for thinking that is that I think (again I think, I'm not making a claim to certainty!) that double SP might be a more viable style that being a defensive chopper using LP's...and we already have a small number of defensive choppers using LP's in the men's top 100! If some one like Filus can survive in the men's top 100, then I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that a double SP player could do the same. I'd also question your suggestion that a double SP player can't move away from the table. I've seen players chop with SP's away from the table in they need to. Sure, that might not be as effective as LP chopping...but there are players out there that actively choose SP's over LP's for a chopping game, so who knows!

The style in part depends on its novelty for its success. So if you have a lot more such players, then the inverted players derive a bigger advantage. Let's remember that Anders Lind can use his phone to beat 2300 players. But that doesn't mean that his phone is something that people should be training with to get to a world class level. If we replaced most of your posts with the claim that a player could be top 100 playing with a cell phone, they would come across largely the same way. I think that is the problem people are pointing out. Of course Anders Lind can play great with a cellphone with lots of training. But that is also what we call a waste of talent when he could be much better with dual inverted.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Waiting for op to actually walk his big talk
Because he is a parent of a uk junior champion, he must be right!

 

[driversbeat]

You also have to realize that spinny pips of the kind that LGL used were finally regulated and that is part of what sent him into retirement.

I've also wondered, way more money is obviously being poured into developing inverted rubbers simply because the market is way bigger. If pips rubbers had more $$ support and less restrictions would they be that little bit more prominent. Obviously there are still limits to the laws of physics and LPs seem to be doing just fine in the women's game even with the frictionless ban, but maybe older bans can be reversed since the style is already disadvantaged in the current meta.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I've also wondered, way more money is obviously being poured into developing inverted rubbers simply because the market is way bigger. If pips rubbers had more $$ support and less restrictions would they be that little bit more prominent. Obviously there are still limits to the laws of physics and LPs seem to be doing just fine in the women's game even with the frictionless ban, but maybe older bans can be reversed since the style is already disadvantaged in the current meta.

there is probably way more womens sp users in the world, especially asia that the west probably will find it hard to believe.

finding good sp pips is tough, and mostly we settle for Japanese pips.
I think companies like Victas/TSP are very good in making pips.

but in junior stage, they still competitive
its been a while we have a SP playing in the senior national team.

the closes right now is a medium pip that is border line national team and that would probably be the first in 1 decade

 

[ViperTableTennis]

Speed is at a premium at the top levels and as crazy as it sounds to most people, the fastest and most consistent surface is inverted rubber. The reason why Ito is evidence is that her style hit a massive wall when others adapted to it. She hasn't beaten a top opponent who trains against her style since her hey day

I think in principle you are right that a player could be top 100 as a two sided pips hitter. The issue is that just about everyone would consider that a waste of talent. Even the Chinese switched to double inverted in the 38mm era when their best inverted shakehand players started beating their pips out penholders.

Of course Ryu Seungmin existed as a one sided penholder playing at the top level. Yoshida Kaii still plays well in European leagues. So I don't doubt you that it is possible for a talent to play any style at the top level. They would just consider it a waste of talent. Even now, it is extremely hard to find a single non-defensive male player using short pips on their backhand in the top 100! And that is focusing on only one side. Could you get a few because of stylistic diversity? Yes. But choppers struggle to be the best players in their country because of how easy they are to beat by teammates at their same level.

So yes. A player with that style could do well. But coaches would be accused of wasting talent without a good reason to justify playing that style.

Thanks for your constructive input NextLevel. The only bit I want to pick up on this this notion of it being "wasted talent". I think that you are probably right in that regards to a large extent. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where say 20% of the global population of serious male juniors are trained in a double SP style, for a large chunk of those it may well be the case that it's a waste of time in the sense that they could have been better had they instead been coached in double-inverted play....but I don't believe that would be the case in all instances, and it would obviously be from that small percentage where it wasn't a waste of time that that top 100 player might emerge.

Let's look at Falck as an example of this. I've personally conversed with Falck and he told me that he changed to SP's on the forehand at around 14 years of age because he was struggling to properly use inverted rubber; he changed to SP on the advise of his coach and it saved his game. Falck is an example of someone who probably wouldn't be in the men's top 100 if he'd stuck to double-inverted, but he switched to something that suited him better and it enabled him to keep moving forwards....but how much better could Falck have been if he'd never started out as a double-inverted player to begin with, and had had SP's on the FH from the beginning of his TT journey (I think around 7 years old)?

So, if we flip your "wasted time" reasoning around the other way, are there any players (even just a tiny percentage) out there that are being held back from their full potential because they aren't being introduced to a double SP style and are instead funnelled down the double-inverted route without ever being given the opportunity to try anything else in a serious way, in a similar way to which Falck was funnelled down the double-inverted route but was thankfully presented with another option at a young enough age where he could still do something with it? And from that potentially tiny percentage, and there any that could be good enough at double SP play to get into the top 100? We are of course talking about a tiny number from a relatively massive starting point...but the odds of anyone breaking into the top 100 are tiny anyway!

Like I say, it's nothing more than a hypothesis and I'm not expecting the TT community to put it to the test. I just thought it was an interesting notion to discuss.

 

[NextLevel]

Thanks for your constructive input NextLevel. The only bit I want to pick up on this this notion of it being "wasted talent". I think that you are probably right in that regards to a large extent. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where say 20% of the global population of serious male juniors are trained in a double SP style, for a large chunk of those it may well be the case that it's a waste of time in the sense that they could have been better had they instead been coached in double-inverted play....but I don't believe that would be the case in all instances, and it would obviously be from that small percentage where it wasn't a waste of time that that top 100 player might emerge.

Let's look at Falck as an example of this. I've personally conversed with Falck and he told me that he changed to SP's on the forehand at around 14 years of age because he was struggling to properly use inverted rubber; he changed to SP on the advise of his coach and it saved his game. Falck is an example of someone who probably wouldn't be in the men's top 100 if he'd stuck to double-inverted, but he switched to something that suited him better and it enabled him to keep moving forwards....but how much better could Falck have been if he'd never started out as a double-inverted player to begin with, and had had SP's on the FH from the beginning of his TT journey (I think around 7 years old)?

So, if we flip your "wasted time" reasoning around the other way, are there any players (even just a tiny percentage) out there that are being held back from their full potential because they aren't being introduced to a double SP style and are instead funnelled down the double-inverted route without ever being given the opportunity to try anything else in a serious way, in a similar way to which Falck was funnelled down the double-inverted route but was thankfully presented with another option at a young enough age where he could still do something with it? And from that potentially tiny percentage, and there any that could be good enough at double SP play to get into the top 100? We are of course talking about a tiny number from a relatively massive starting point...but the odds of anyone breaking into the top 100 are tiny anyway!

Like I say, it's nothing more than a hypothesis and I'm not expecting the TT community to put it to the test. I just thought it was an interesting notion to discuss.

So a couple of things to remember - Falck has a tremendous backhand topspin and world class inverted serves. I have never seen him serve with the pips. To be fair, I also have never seen him topspin with inverted on the forehand either. But anyone who has watched him play will tell you that his backhand inverted game is as big if not a bigger driver of his success than his forehand smashing game. Watch him play backhand players like Harimoto if you doubt this.

Also, when someone is struggling to use forehand inverted rubber, what does that really mean? I suspect Falck had a preference for smashing on his forehand that his coach couldn't get him out of. But this is speculation. I have seen a junior that his coach debated for a long time whether to switch him to SP on forehand because the kid likes to smash loose balls rather than topspin them. The coach stuck with inverted because he felt when the kid backed off the table that he would have more options. Falck says the coach switched him because he lacked the hand speed or whatever. In the end, some people will argue that coach just couldn't get to Falck. Others will say the coach did the best with what he could. Table tennis solutions to many things are infinite and we never know all the considerations that went in.

Would Falck have a tremendous backhand topspin with short pips on the backhand? The new bigger balls have made it pretty much impossible to topspin seriously on the backhand with anything other than inverted rubber. Would Ryu Seungmin have been a better player with an inverted backhand loop? Even the Jang Woojins and An Jaehyuns of Korea to some degree play like penholders. So the truth is there is so much stylistic nuance in TT that having absolute answers isn't fair to the game. But while it is possible to be a world class player with pips on both sides, there are good reasons no one is creating players like that, and they are similar to the reasons why there are few to no one-sided penholders at the top level in the game.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

viper, you are from a table tennis tiny country. your view there is hardly what is happening in the world, especially of that of table tennis power houses

let me put Taiwan as an example.
they want to keep defenders and penholders alive, so the federation, over a decade ago set a rule, for schools (teams) taking part in elementary (grass root) teams tournament, the team entry prerequisite requires to have atleast a defender or a penholder that is on the playing roster.

Due to that, it forces coaches to develop these near extinct styles.
There is way more defenders than penholders though, but together, there are probably hundreds to over a thousand in the system today that was "forced change".

Now, I'm talking 20~30 hours training in elementary school from grade 3 onwards.

how many survive when they hit 13? and then 15?
not many

why?
well, they get beaten by double inverted shakehand players and are not good enough to continue, as it is a pyramid structure of up or out.

yes, strong ones do come through and I happen to know most of them. Including one of them I am sending to Europe in a months time to play league.
But they will never be top 200 in the world, yet along top 100
if you even know what is top 100, you will not even have a hypothetical scenario on top 100 and with such fundamental flaws. If you had 1 side SP, that is still a more realistic scenario. Why don't you ask Tintin why she doesn't use SP on both sides, or Falck?