OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Here in Korea, they grab the thing with both hands, thereby soiling both sides of the rubber. Playing here is exasperating. Etiquette is bizarre, as is the whole country.

I love the guys you play against, and you're like in the final game, and then he asks to see your rubber... "Oh, pips.. sheesh, no wonder..." I laugh and say "You just figured it out, wow!" I had one high-ranking player do this. These guys are a joke. If you can't here the thonk of an OX rubber, then you may as well retire.

Before every match, I walk up and show them my blade and look at theirs. Basically, I'm interested in what they have.

Inspecting rubbers are important. I once beat a guy with the info I gleaned from his rubbers, two worn out Hurricane 3s. I pushed extra heavy to him the whole time and he had a tough time lifting it. The ball wouldn't grip the rubber.

You can tell a lot from the blade and the rubbers and now how to block and what shots to play. A guy with Dtechs I might feed more dead balls, while if he has a grippy pip, you might try slow, spinny loops, etc.

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Kim Kyung Ah + Skyline TG 3 Neo + 799 1.2mm

Why is the warmup there? Let's not warmup and just go straight into it.

Reminds me of a certain, er, denizen on Usenet. He was advocating spraying balls everywhere during the warmup just so that the other guy wouldn't "get used to your pips". Which would also upset him and give you a mental advantage. Pretty unsporting - a warmup is for warming up, and is even written into the rules. It's not for mind games or psyching out your opponent. Leave the mind games to the actual games. People who use pips usually warm up using the inverted side, and flip the racket around to hit backhands anyhow.

Iskandar