Dunno about this, as a player who comes from an area where there's one tournament a year within an 6 hour drive, only competing in the lowest event possible would be a waste of time and money. What if I were to win the 1700 and have not entered anything harder.
then there would be a situation of "Well there was that one event per year, I still don't know where I stand since I won my event with ease. man I can't wait until next year to do another event.
Being in a TT starved area leads to statements like these. I get it. And everyone plays TT for a different reason.
Ratings lead people to make all kinds of decisions. One of my favorite articles is this one by Larry Hodges - it applies to adult amateurs as much as juniors, though the focus is on juniors.
http://www.tabletenniscoaching.com/node/65
IMO, the only time you should consider avoiding your own event is when you get good enough to be consistently a money player and you don't want to play events where there is no money whatsoever. Some tournaments set the money bar at 1800, some at 2000, some at 2200.
But I get where you are coming from - no one wants to play only one event and have that event be one where they do not feel challenged. But pgpg's point that you did not win your event is very important as well, because you don't want to be one of those people who is scared of losing rating points. In fact, learning to dominate lower rated players is part of getting better at TT. It closes gaps in your TT understanding.
Those players who duck their events have usually never won anything. When I first played, I Was rated 500 or thereabouts - I lost to everyone except the club owner's wife, who was rated about 300 or so. I wasn't training or anything and I was probably better than that rating but had no understanding of spin etc. I didn't have a job then so I waited until I had one to get into training. I started training 3 months later and then played my first tournament about 4-5 months after training. I won the U1000 at FIT in NY and the U800, U1000, U1200, and U1400 at NJTTC. I only came out about 1150 or so then I went to the NA teams and came out close to 1400. I had all kinds of rating anxiety though because initially, I had nothing to defend and when I finally had a rating close to that of my opponents, I often played like an idiot when things got tight against a lower rated player. My understanding of my game was too limited to put my play in perspective. As a coach of adults these days, I struggle to get them to understand how meaningless ratings are at their level and the true value of tournaments.
MY current coach saw me working with my former coach in March and felt that I was putting in too much effort to progress slowly so he told me that if I worked with him, even as I was 1400 or so at that time, and regressing to 1300 in my head, that I could be 1800 by the end of the year in 2012. So I ultimately switched coaches. IT was a bit taxing but I was in the 1700s by November.
But breaking the 1800 barrier was a hurdle for me because I had some bad habits on serve return and liked to block, so I passed up third ball opportunities. Playing against juniors trained to serve deceptive sidespin and kill the return, this put too much strain on my hitting and blocking game. I got as high as 1790 but fell back into the high 1600s and kept thinking all this stuff was really meaningful. But things came to a head for me when I lost to an older guy 0-11 in the 3rd - he limped and mostly lobbed and chopped. My junior practice partners who I was initially better than were leaving me behind. They and my coach talked to me about my general approach to the game. That was when I started taking the spin over pace approach seriously as a developmental tool. I broke 1900 twice that year in 2013 after making that fix.
I still had a lot of volatility in my results even into the next year. But the big day that changed every thing was when I was 1749/1750 and had to go play at NJTTC who had an U1750 tournament with a cash prize. I had already barely broke 1900 twice at this point the previous year as I Said. So my coach said I should win it all if I play the 1750. I was still wondering why I should be putting my ratings points at risk because I still didn't get it. But I went in and played it. I only had one tough match (the final) and it was against the second seed who was 1732. And tough is matter of perspective - he won the games he won at deuce (13-11 both times) while I beat him at 2, 2, and 8.
That was the beginning of my fully appreciating that players play matches, not ratings, and you learn a lot at our level by beating any kind of player in the proper way.
Ever since then, I have played many events as the #1 seed or the unknown #1 seed (maybe I had won tons of points from a tournament that hadn't been entered yet so people did not always know my true level) and won them or lost to someone who outplayed me. When I have played event as the #1 seed, or favorite of sorts, I have often played players in the final who have never played an event final before or have never won anything. Those tend to be the easiest matches as my level of play combined with their nervousness makes the match very easy (usually 3-0 massacres). But the lack of experience playing finals is extremely common with people who
never play their own events as favorites!
In 2014, I had my last major upsets - ever since I improved my serve and forehand game in 2015, upsets have been largely a thing of the past and the players I lose to now are players who are playing at a strong level within a 100 points of myself at least. Every "bad loss" I had in 2015 except 1 where I was tired and should either have eaten or not have played, the player got an adjustment from beating many good players or gained points a month after. I tell people all the time that losing is a possibility when playing good players (i.e. anyone over 1600) so you have to play properly once someone is above that level. You learn that when you don't duck such players. After all, pgpg himself had match point on me at Westchester.
I tell people - I am USATT 2000 against all playing styles - topspin, dead ball, pips, chopper etc. I have beaten 2000 players of all styles at that level. I did so by playing them and never avoiding them. No one walks up to the table against me with a different style and wins just because of that. They have to be good players who do something that puts pressure on me. And such losses are inevitable as you can't be everything in TT. You can't solve the problem of losing, but you can solve the problem of improvement.
OF course, the rule of playing your own event is not immutable - there can be good reason like scheduling or ridiculously large improvement or just boredom to consider it (for example, there is a tournament where people groan when they see me rated under 2000 that I don't play any more since I play league at the club and people think I am a sand bagger). But avoiding your own event tends to reveal a destructive mindset which I try very hard to talk people out early. I remember going once to an event with a chopper - we were #2 and #3 seed or something like that. Someone casually told both of us that it was hard to win an event as the top seed given all the improving players. I told the person that this was BS and I had done it many times and it is something losers tell themselves. To prove my point, semi-finalists were the #1, #2, #3 and #5 seeds. #1 beat #3 (me) and #5 beat #2, and #1 beat #5. Who would have thought that given the crap the guy was casually telling us?
There is nothing wrong with losing to anyone that outplays you. Once you accept that, then the obsession with ratings becomes far less and the key is competing to have fun and win.
