I made a ton of mistakes in the 1st game, but it was better after that.

I'm the penholder.

He messes with the spin on his blocks, especially on his BH side - sometimes it's the standard block and sometimes he kills the spin.

My serve return game is weak, no argument there.

I'm curious why you think the serves are weak.  Keep in mind we're used to each other's game.

My serves are actually what allows me to play above what otherwise would be my level.

I agree, but the fact that the players are somewhat familiar with each other is part of what makes that so.  As a first match in a tournament, yes.  But as a practice match between players who know each other, not so much.  

Now that I think of it, he doesn't often attack with his BH close to the table, but once he takes a few steps back he does and it's quite strong.

Can't do that - he just moved to Atlanta and can now play in larger more active clubs.

Maybe aerial has some footage of the BH.

I'll just leave this here... :)

This was our last match for probably a very long time since he moved to Atlanta for work--I'd like to think that made me "go easy" but in reality he played better than me in this match.

Edit: don't hate me snivy--this was my first video experimenting with captioning the points. I did not not caption yours on purpose... :P

Snivy and I'd come to visit ;)

I don't think that's the whole truth to be frank.  You guys also don't play tournaments often and artificially depress ratings so that you can get good results at Nationals and the Open.  I mean, most of the kids at the level of the Cali kids play tournament every month on the East Coast so they don't go to major tournaments underrated.

I don't think that's the whole truth to be frank.  You guys also don't play tournaments often and artificially depress ratings so that you can get good results at Nationals and the Open.  I mean, most of the kids at the level of the Cali kids play tournament every month on the East Coast so they don't go to major tournaments underrated.

I caught some of their conversations (the juniors at BTTC) and they said the last tournament they played was like the nationals or u.s. open or something like that.

The Bay Area is definitely a hot bed for TT in the States... hopefully the east coast catches up :)

I'd post my vids from BTTC here but I feel like I'm jacking Snivy's thread haha then again, we practice together in his man-cave (read: basement) so in theory if either of us raises our respective levels it should help the other one.

I play BTTC every week along with another club locally I enjoy playing  the  BTTC kids but most of the top  Juniors are at ICC and Alameda which also have RR play so the Bay Area RR play is tough its either practice or die A couple weeks a older PenHold player came by who was a strong player and was matched up against a 8 year, it wasn't close the old guy lost 3-1 and looked like he had been run over by a truck afterwards..huge ego loss..

I guess I'm glad I didn't go to Alameda or ICC 

I had a look at this after Nationals. After the ratings came out, I was quite pleased that our 9 players picked up an average of 357 points. Our players averaged 6-7 tournaments in the run up to nationals. Do players from other areas really play much more?

I did notice on the list of big points gainers quite a number of players from the south bay elsewhere who had only played 1 or 2 tournaments all year.

So while I do think "tournament avoidance sandbagging" does take place, it is not the primary factor for the ratings discrepancy.

In addition to what has already been mentioned, our local area has a very high percentage of improving players.

We have 30 players going from our club to the Sacramento Open tomorrow. Out of those 30, 22 are juniors in our program. Of the 8 adults, half participate in  some form of training here.

Improving players will always depress the rating system by consuming points from the static players.

I don't think that's the whole truth to be frank.  You guys also don't play tournaments often and artificially depress ratings so that you can get good results at Nationals and the Open.  I mean, most of the kids at the level of the Cali kids play tournament every month on the East Coast so they don't go to major tournaments underrated.

Thats a good point and to show how strong the local leagues are around here BTTC only had 26 players tonight everybody else was at Sac getting ready for the tournament this weekend.  Normally BTTC has over 50 players so its gives one a good idea how strong the local play is.  

Well, you said this before and I pointed out that while I might have played players from your club, you weren't the people I was referring to.  And even if sandbagging is not the primary factor, it clearly is a factor.  Again, having a high number of improving players would make no difference if they went out of the area to play tournaments.  California is a big state, but I travel to NY, MD and NJ to play tournaments so my ratings are up to date.  Many of the clubs I go to (Lily Yip, MDTTC, Westchester) also have training programs, but their players don't go to Nationals and make huge rating jumps because they play tournaments with lots of other players and  have their ratings up to date consistently.  

If I spend the rest of the year strictly in leagues, I guarantee you that I will win an event at Nationals in December if I play.  Wanna bet?

Best of luck this weekend at Sac

Something I think is important to take into account is perception of someone's level. You'll hear a lot of extra credit given from people watching a player if they simply have good looking technique, or can do something really standard but make it look good. That might have a bit to do with Mr. Rochester. 

Only the most well-established national chain franchises can exist in Watertown, and even some of those fail. Mom and Pop operations die the first year at a 60% rate.

The local market is so not interested in TT right now, I would require a very large flashing neon sign advertizing free beer and a photo op with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and that still might not generate enough traffic to pay the lease.

That doesn't mean it is hopeless, it just means it is financial suicide to open a club in Watertown right now. The POTENTIAL market in US for TT is SO HUGE I would be foolish to disregard it.

Besides, I don't really plan on staying in an area that you measure snowfall by the foot or yard when it snows, I retire in a couple weeks and it is off to phase two anyway.

As much as we do not like paying a lot of money, we have to know that a national organization that doesn't get a boatload of money from government has to make money to exist. We could all argue about how those monies generated could be used, but we gotta acknowledge that they gotta make money or they go away.

Sure sandbaggers are around. A really motivated person will find a way to beat any system, whether it is a numerical rating system or a divisional system.

If all there was for a tourney was the OPEN even, then only a few elite players would have any chance to win. It would be utterly hopeless for anyone else and they would soon realize that and not go to tourneys.

That is why there are different levels identified to give players a BETTER OPPORTUNITY to compete vs players AROUND their level, so they have a MORE FAIR CHANCE to COMPETE and WIN.

We could argue the last part too, by by and large, this system is much more effective than having just the OPEN.

If there is more subjective judgment by an authority, then that is the only way to move up a sandbagger specialist. However, you do that and that sandbagger might not participate much and get moved down later. 

You try to make elevation to a division permanent... just look at my situation. I was strong Div 2 city in my local area in Korea, that ended up being short of 2000. I have been so long out of practice, have older eyes, venues have worse contrast lighting now and I am injured. I am lucky to play at a 1600 competitive level. A player in my situation would not be competitive in that division and would not be motivated to participate in competitions.

Any way you slice it, you wont get rid of sandbagging, unless you get rid of sandbaggers, then unless you got a super explosion in growth in the sport, removing them from participation in competition is almost like pulling the trigger on bird shot aimed at Ur foot.

here is a thread I have made compiling all the comments that have nothing to do with what this thread was meant for.

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=71139&PID=869051&#869051" rel="nofollow - http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=71139&PID=869051&#869051

I tried to include everyone's concerns they mentioned in this thread and put it in the OP.

I'm guessing they are in the 1400-1600 range, but could be a little higher.  My guess is based solely on "who at my club do I think they could a) beat, b) play close to, and c) have little chance against.  In other words, it is a big guess!

The shakehands player has a really solid forehand.  With better serves (more variety, more spin, and SHORT!), better returns (less tentative - especially on the backhand), and a reliable (at least consistently "ok") backhand, I can see him playing over 1800.  Maybe well over...

The penholder seems to get good spin on his serves and he moves them around well.  More short serves would be nice.  I'd like to see him find a "middle" gear.  He misses way too many openings and attacks.  If he can be more patient and get more balls on the table, I can see him playing 1800-ish as well.  

bes

I think I (the penholder) have more service spin.  

I agree with you on the missing middle gear.

Of course everyone should develop good short serves as well because you will face opponents that you will need to use them.

As I have told you previously, this is not true.  Serving short is overrated to the extent that you can get away with it the way you do it, but there are advantages to short serves, especially a short backspin and no-spin combo.  Most people push short serves, so being able to serve no-spin short will earn you a good attackable third ball at any level if people misread it as backspin.  In addition, many players can't push short serves short, so you will get a long ball to attack.

The other problem with serving long is that it creates third balls that are harder to time with the backhand.  This is one of the reasons why you don't find short serves valuable - you don't attack enough with your backhand.

Also, the returns to short serves are far more predictably controllable than the returns to long serves.  Based on what you served and where, you can get an idea of the typical responses pretty quickly.

Finally, as you get better, there are opponents who will safely return most of your serves throughout the match, but when things get critical, will show their true colors and start looping your serves.  The only way to prevent this is to have the discipline to serve short at crucial points in the match.

If you get good enough to see the results of such bad habits as you get better (and I am trying to fix mine), it will be a good thing.  Getting a serve to be strictly double bounce short (as in low and not long enough to loop) is something that is best practiced early.  If you serve lazy long to higher rated players with the right skills, you will be picking up the ball because guys have developed the racket head speed to overpower just about anything that comes long with a relatively closed motion.  I am getting to a point where you can serve anything slow to my backhand and I can wipe it out with a similar stroke every time if it comes long.  Most players can do that on their forehand as well.  You don't want to be facing that kind of pressure in a match when you haven't practiced your short serves.

Exactly.  Moreover, there is a huge difference between good long serves and lazy long serves which are not fast and deep and just drift long.  The former should be part of a good server's repertoire - the latter is the kind of stuff that leads to embarrassment when you play a looper and find that you can't start any rally because your serves are putting you on the defensive.

It's not just about doing it - there is a whole game style tied to it that takes time to develop.  Part of the problem is that you don't attack lazy long serves fairly consistently so you don't see the danger.  You take the balls early over the table rather than waiting for them to come long when you can really punish that ball.  Think about it sometime - have your practice partner serve to you and see whether you can tell whether the ball will come long or not.  You will be surprised how many balls you think are short are going to come long and you could loop with heavy topspin to different parts of the table to put your opponent under pressure.  Because you don't do so, you don't have the spider sense of what you are giving your opponent an opportunity to do.  You and aerial should look at this closely as this kind of sensitivity to long serves sends your level up quickly. 

At first, most people who learning serve short tend to have serves that are high and are easy to attack and push long to dangerous sports because they don't get the first bounce deep enough on the opponent's side or the short serve is slow.  To produce an optimal short serve under pressure is demanding when you are not at your home club or practice spot.  Even top rated players mess it up all the time.  What most lower rated players don't want to deal with is the short push or being rushed by a push because their serve is too high, and this is okay if they aren't specializing in lazy long serves.

Lazy long serving is a hard habit to break.  I am going through the pains right now, and it is no fun, because you need to be able to serve repeatedly short with variation and deception or your opponent will be able to repeat the ideal response to your serve at will.  If I had consistent fast serves, I would be good, but those are also hard to master as well.

Another aspect to consider is when you serve short and opponent doesn't try a very fast push, and tries to bump it short or a meatball medium depth, is that you have a LOT of time to get set and it is much easier to open (especially on BH wing) vs such a slow ball that you do not have to track for the entire length of the table. You are surprisingly more consistent vs these balls then even a medium push from behind the table. You simply SEE it better. There isn't much ball to follow and read it much better.

Hookumsnivy thinks it's funny when people refer to themselves in the 3rd person

+1.  Mid distance Loopers, lobbers and choppers get some of their effect from having the ball travel a long path to you and you have to time the ball.  The forehand is more tolerant of timing errors, but the backhand unfortunately, being a shorter stroke, not so much.  So short serving is extremely helpful for backhand players in that regard.  There are some old school players who just do not know how to attack over the table, so you can serve them short and know they are going to push or give you a soft return every time.  You might also get something similar when you serve long sometimes, but occasionally, when they need the point, they are going to detonate that ball on you.   But by serving short, you are restricting their options a bit more.

There are short serving tricks that you can use to beat players very easily.  I won't describe some of them here, but I will hint at one.

There was a guy I played whose league rating was high 2100s (and USATT high 1900s, borderline 2000) and everyone was surprised that I beat him twice as a 1900 player in USATT events, even though he was beating 2200 players in leagues.  But the simple truth was that all I had to do was serve short.  Because I knew he would push (he just couldn't flick).  And that meant that if I didn't load the ball, I would get a light ball back (the height didn't matter as long as it wasn't loaded), and then I would simply use my backhand to load the ball in any direction or if the ball came long enough, do a barely over the table forehand loop.

Serving lazy long too often just because someone isn't attacking your long serves is going to leave your game in need of a serious overhaul as you get better because breaking habits is hard.

Don't get started and have Der_Echte chime in. :)