OOAK Table Tennis Forum

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To roundrobin: I value anything you say on this subject. I was having a bad day. Sorry.
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I let my older Chinese friend (who left China only recently) try the 802-40. Upon seeing it he didn't seem surprised (he didn't react as though he had never seen pips out). He quickly started smiling when he played with it. He was delighted and indicated that what he liked was how well it spins! He used only the red side, which some reviewers say spins more. Maybe he knew that. He has been playing with PF4-1, which spins well; so, what he probably meant was that 802-40 spins the ball with the stroke that he wants to play, or, as he expects from the stroke he makes. I guess. I hope it means that 802-40 feels more like what he used when he was young.

Flat hitting is a lot less strenuous. And he is yet another 16 years older than I.
During our three hours session, whenever he used my setup I played with H2 but continued playing a flat game.

Although H2 is harder and sharper than the other inverteds I've tried, the sharpness of its aim is limited by my ability to read the opponent's spin accurately, every time. (And unfortunately that includes spin left over from my previous shot.) Since I can't do that perfectly every time I experience a random jumping away from the direction in which I'm aiming. So, generally, I can't hit low as reliably as with 802-40. And if the shot isn't low I must apply topspin to bring it down. So, the over the table game with H2 (which is praised by many including myself) must be a hybrid game (and with a killer weapon held in reserve) compared to 802-40.
Thus, e.g. He Zhi Wen's game could be seen as severely principled; I guess he thinks that the advantage of playing in a niche style that's unfamiliar to the opponent is worth more than that killer weapon held in reserve (which strong players are well practiced and equipped to handle anyway). But he isn't playing hardbat; I guess he thinks 802 spins enough.
At the club, while I might suffer from spin-envy I can also see that high spin might be overrated if done at the cost of speed and placement. Of course, if the opponent has high spin AND speed AND placement I would lose anyway. Have I heretofore sacrificed speed and placement for the sake of spin? Yes. I've enjoyed that but I might enjoy severe principle more, if I agree with it.

Looking at spinners/loopers from this perspective is illuminating. I think most of them don't use their spin to hit in the way that would hurt me the most but are instead a little too flamboyant about it, a little too in love with spinning at some cost in effectiveness. (I never did really believe in "looping" and I had a more direct kind of game in mind as I sought H2.)

I'm not a good player but I can just imagine (if I were a little better) the spin of the players I played tonight being kindof beside the point, to be brushed aside. I think this because on so many shots I simply hit their stuff straight back, low and fast (just as I have imagined it in my mind and have seen on videos). I must be enjoying (without being fully aware of the extent of it) a big portion of immunity to spin (it's just skidding on the pips). I will understand this better when, someday, I pull out my H2 against one of these players to see what happens. I know what will happen.

Tonight I completely forgot to practice an important weapon - pulling back to drop two-bouncers. I love doing that to players who have stepped back! This thing blocks like a dream, it seems to me, and I feel good control over the forward direction.
And I need to work on a new serve.

They're still beating me up but they are simply better players, anyway. No need to be discouraged by that.

Since switching, for the first 12 hours of playing time I really focused on blocking "off the bounce" and I'm happy with how that works.

Partly due to advice and encouragement from the better players I started really hitting (at the top of the bounce) tonight. The stroke called for is much more forward "through the ball" and is much more natural and easier to execute than the big brush I was using with H2. And as I reported earlier in the thread, the spin is surprisingly strong. While it isn't a flamboyant hook it's enough to make a lot of balls land.

So, tonight I didn't feel like I was just target practice for the spinners but started feeling the offensive potential. A successful "hit" ends the point some good percentage of the time, and if not I can often hit it again. This is great fun, especially when alternating left and right!

Unless someone has questions I can close this thread.

With this rubber, and with the change in strokes that goes with it, seven weeks after I switched there is no doubt that I'm playing better than I ever have. It's pretty satisfying.

Tonight I played against Tenergy for the first time (that I'm aware of). It was T05. Yes, it was spinny. But to me, the guy's speed and placement were ten times more more dangerous than the excess spin itself. So it kicks upon bouncing? I already know that. Bah.
From the beginning (since I studied physics before I became a ping-pong* enthusiast and this framed my thoughts about the game) I considered topspin to be just a tool that enabled me hit the ball harder; I never believed in looping. I was naturally driving pretty flatly (and in hindsight this might be why I gravitated toward H2 and this kind of blade). H2 still spins very well with this stroke but the extra spin has a cost in reactivity as you all know.

I asked the question above "does H2 cause me more trouble than it causes the opponent". My own answer applicable to my own situation and skillset is yes. And now that I'm playing with short pips and assessing the trouble that the opponent's spinny rubber gives to me, I think the extra spin itself is nowhere close to my biggest problem.

Tonight I noticed how many of my shots were landing just behind the net. My "note to self", and I'll be working on this, is that I could have hit those balls a lot harder. These spinny players aren't focused on keeping the ball low and I hope to improve at destroying those balls.

I'll probably try a few things later (thinner, thicker, OX, etc.) but this experiment was a big success. Thanks everybody.

After this switch to pips out and a later switch to cpen, and after playing my first ten or twenty rated matches, I have a rating: U.S. 1300.

See you at 1500!

Edited: Sorry, the post was too ridiculous, even for me.

802-40 was changed at some point. It was definitely matte (presumably indicative of grippier rubber), while 802 was shiny. Now they're both shiny.

Edit: Cole also said it has changed.

Two and a half years have passed since the original post.

Most of this time I used Challenger Attack 1.9 on MPM or Defplay Senso (cut to cpen).

But while setting up a selection of some blades and rubbers for a friend to try I revisited H3NEO, my first Mark V, and my first T05, all on gluesheets on a Yasaka Sweden Classic or Extra cpen. (These were my choices to represent different kinds of inverted rubbers. My friend chose Mark V but I didn't like it.) I was surprised at how slow and easy to use the H3NEO was, as my reading of the opponent's spin has improved a lot in two years. And it wasn't glued to a Mazunov.

I bought Skyline 2 NEO (#39) for myself. I find it deeply, luxuriously elastic. Though I might try similar rubbers I doubt I'll stray far from this.

Hi Zhaoyang,

I just made the same change as you.
I was playing with H2 2mm on my FH and I switched to 802-40 2mm.
This is an other story, but after more than 15 years using long pips on my BH I switched to a special anti spin, the Transformer.
About change from H2 to 802-40. Maybe I loose some spin on serves or pushes, but with the new plastic ball I lost so much efficiency of spin that I think that H2 lost a lot of is advantages against soft pips. On the other hand it's so easier to hit against spin with 802-40 that I win more than I loose with this change.
With 802-40 I still can loop when the ball is too low for a hit. I'm still winning some points on serves and pushes with backspin.
Another good thing about 802-40 is that he isn't too fast on little shots as pushes and is very fast when hitting.

_________________
Capoblanco

Blade: Dotec Ovtcharov All +

FH: Friendship 802-40 2mm
BH: DMS Transformer 1mm

1)
At almost four years old this might be my oldest thread in the forum.

In the first post I described how I think about the game and why I loved H2, and it's amusing but also reassuring how much my thinking and feeling have remained the same over time, despite having tried different setups and different styles. For example, from the original post: "Ideally, I would overload the opponent with big spin in all different directions, and then cut one at a sharp angle that they can't touch." That's still the dream outline of an ideal point to me (though I now understand that the "big spin" can be provided *by the opponent* and sent back).

2)
It's unfortunate that the thread was diverted by various misunderstandings in both directions, but we're used to that, right? But some of the commentary I did not understand at that time but do now. For example, the immortal commentator and observer of Gao Jun and Miao Miao, roundrobin, said on 27 Feb 2013:

"Near the table attack is about producing speed, sharp angles and CONTROLLING spin by being able to hit/drive/block through it, not producing it. This style requires quickness and easy maneuvering of very spinny shots coming at you."

My current acknowlegment and reply to that is provided by the long pips on one side of my cpen. Zhou Xintong, Wang Qiu Yi and Gao Shaolin are the models.

He also said:

"H2 is a terrible rubber for near the table attack"

I understood that over time, and my play with the inverted side I guess could be called "near table all-around" with a lot of pushing and small-chopping to try to keep the point under control until I can topspin drive. It should look like Li Jiao, who looks like a more defensive and lower-powered Ma Lin to me.

3)
My previous post in this thread was two and a half years ago. I explained why I went back from short pips to inverted, Skyline 2 at that time (a little less "horrible" than H2), and I said "though I might try similar rubbers I doubt I'll stray far from this". And now I'll tell you why I'm posting: I did spend a lot of time and money trying modern inverted rubbers, and now I'm back with Skyline 2.

It is reassuring to keep coming back to the same thing, provided that I'm not "doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results". These favorite players of mine - He Zhiwen, Gao Jun, Li Jiao, Lay Jianfang, Zhou Xintong - all have something in common, and I feel like that commonality lives somewhere between my inverted and my long pips, as I said. If I ever put it all together and can post a credible-looking video, I believe you could see it too, but you would have to use your imagination.

4)
I arrived at my current equipment choice and model player and style via a "damped oscillation", ever approaching a "golden mean" which has remained constant (it's that thing that those players I listed have in common); *more* loyalty to the model player could have spared me the equipment changes, as I've posted. The problem with this method (of using what the model player uses) was that I didn't understand what I was seeing (for example when He Zhiwen was my model), so as I improved (or ran into the reality that I would never play that way) I changed models.

A special coach, a special curriculum, would begin with playing videos (of exemplars of different ways of playing), giving explanations of the pluses and minuses of each and of the special requirements of each (much as roundrobin tried to explain about short pips, above), and if the student expresses a special admiration for one and understands the training that would be required, *only then* would prescribe or provide the appropriate setup. The coach would not just say "it doesn't matter", as is popular with some commentators here; the heart matters; can you find the things that never change, within?