OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Based on Kees' excellent articles and recommendations by Coach McAfee I'm going to try something different. Due to some health issues my mobility has become quite limited and I'm going to have to play close to the table if I want to keep playing.

So the new set up is a Nexy Labyrinthos with forehand black 802 SP with 1.5mm Air Zero Sponge. On the backhand will be red Giant Dragon Crop Circles 1.2mm. I decided to use the Air Zero Sponge with the 802 since the Labyrinthos is a very fast and stiff blade and I think a little dampening effect will give me better control.

I'll have to practice learning the SP technique on the forehand, but I tend to be more of a natural hitter anyway and I think SPs might actually suit me better in the long run. I'll be trying this out tomorrow but plan to spend a lot of time practicing with the new setup before attempting to use it in competition.

 

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Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Visit Charlotte Table Tennis Club on Facebook

Do you have a favorite player to watch (videos)? I do.
Edit: You said you're adjusting your strokes. I was wondering if you're studying someone.

Holy Moly cyber1call!

Air Zero Sponge under 802!

Finally I meet someone who experiments similar to me!

I have used Air Zero under 802-40. And under 4 diff inverted sheets. I now play with Air Zero under Palio CJ8000.

As you probably know....The Air Zero is awesome if it suits your game!

Have you ever tried a sponge that was as slow as Air Zero? (I have never tried anything as slow as Air Zero, but I have never tried any Anti rubbers)

I think that's my next purchase...air zero and 802.

SP on the FH and LP on the BH...it's inevitable.

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A big bag full of blades and long pimples, donuts and coffee!

I went back and forth between short pips and inverted for years. For me inverted works better because 1) I can get more spin on my serves and 2) I get more topspin on attacking strokes, which drags the ball down to the table. Also I can attack balls that are slightly lower. SP tend to go slightly long more often.

Obviously there are a lot of players better than me that use SP/LP successfully, but that's my experience.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

Initial impressions after about 2 hours with the new setup.

I really (really) like the Crop Circles with the 1.2 sponge. On the other hand, I didn't like the Air Zero 1.2 sponge with the 802. Didn't give me any cusion effect at all on the hard Labryrinthos blade and felt more like a hard-bat. That would be OK if that's what you want, but not the feel I'm after.

I still want to use the 802 but will need to experiment with some different sponge. I want a softer feel but also don't want it to bottom out. So some medium-firm 2.2 sponge perhaps? Suggestions welcomed.

 

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Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Visit Charlotte Table Tennis Club on Facebook

Good luck!

I played with this style for around a year or so before settling on inverted/LP. It's really great fun.

Based on your limited mobility, you're going to have to really treat this style like a game of chess. Don't let anyone take you away from the table, and coax that high ball up for your short pips to take early and high and wallop. Your single minded goal should be the high sitting ball.

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Yasaka Sweden Extra
Yasaka Rakza PO 2.0mm
TSP Curl P-1R OX

"slappy slappy slappity slap"

Is that even a question in your mind?

I've been toying with the idea of putting an SP/LP combo together for a while to try, but its not been high on my list of priorities. I have the blade and rubbers sitting there waiting, just have to be bothered cutting and gluing. I've seen some guys have good success with the combo, although its not just a case of slinging an SP and an LP on a blade and...instant success. I'm thinking there is a fair amount of EJing required to find what suits. And given I'm happy with my inverted/LP combo, I don't think I want to go through all that. However, I might still put what I have together to see how it plays

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
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I tried this "Double Pips" set-up with Double Fish 1615 Ox on BH and 802 Mystery III on FH. This setup worked fine playing against lower ranked opponents, with a target rich environment created by my long pips.

Against better players, I found that I was a bit slow to take advantage and go to attack mode. I found myself doing more chops and pushes with my 802 rather than hit, block or smash. I found that with my skill set, I was better off using inverted/long pips combo.

But once in a while I may drift back to my Double Pips setup, just to throw some kink into an opponent's game.

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Joola Rosskopf Emotion, FH T05 red, BH Dignics 05 black

Latest setup is PERFECT! Ordered a Dawei 35d 2.2 sponge from ColesTT and replaced the Air Zero sponge on the 802 topsheet. It feels and plays great!

So it looks like this will be my setup for awhile:

Nexy Labyrinthos ST, fh black RITC 802 w/Dawei 35d 2.2mm sponge, bh red Giant Dragon Crop Circles 1.5mm.

I had a good practice session and a couple of boxes of multiball from my coach to practice hitting with the 802 forehand. I've always struggled trying to loop...I think my natural style is hitting and the 802 SPs with the 2.2 sponge give me more control than I've ever had. My coach had me concentrate on hitting different spots and I was very accurate with this combo. With regular inverted I never know quite exactly where the ball is going! The 802 even on the OFF++ Labyrinthos is no speed demon but I still found it necessary to heed the SP advice from Kees and not attempt to hit everything with full power.

And Coach McAfee's recommendation of Giant Dragon Crop Circles 1.5 for the bh is also great. It's the best LP (for me) that I've tried so far.


 

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Giant Dragon Kris Special : RITC 802 w/Dawei 2.2 35d fh : : Donic Blue Fire M3 2.0 black bh
Member of Charlotte Table Tennis Club, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Visit Charlotte Table Tennis Club on Facebook

One of the guys at my club, a full time double SP player, has changed to SP forehand and LP backhand.

He uses LKT Stranger on his backhand, 1.x sponge, and he says he's really starting to enjoy the setup.

I've played him quite a few times and he'd tricky to play against. If you give him the wrong shots on the wrong sides, you're absolutely dead meat. However, if you give him spinny loops into his backhand he really struggles to control it because his blade is a ridiculously quick balsa Neuebauer blade.

He attacks well with Stranger. It's more like an anti-spin to be honest, the reversal is pretty low, but he seems to be able to attack more balls than I can with my LPs.
At the level he's playing at (he's a mid level Premiership player in my local league) I suspect it'll slightly increase his win ratio but he may also lose a few games that he previously wouldn't have.

I'll try to keep this thread updated once we go into the winter season.

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[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

I'm glad to hear so many others have been able to tame the air zero sponge.
I played it under an Air Pandarama (short pip) top sheet and I really struggled to make it work.
I couldn't get enough spin with chopping or pushing and hitting had reversal!

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(\__/)
(='.'=) But there's no sense crying over every mistake,
(")_(") You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

I have inverted&lp combos, playing shakehand attack-defence, cutting more...a lot of footwork...left-right, back-forth...I'm 48 now...
I play penhold 5-10 minutes whenever I play..And one day when I was in a Stiga shop, I saw a cpen Clipper CR, bought it together with a 2.0 mm red Clippa short pimple rubber and kept on playing my 10..15..minutes with it, never needed to hit hard , single sided, enjoying so much...and after I gave my Clipper CR to a penholder friend and he gave me a PF4-032 cpen...now Clippa is on it ...an investment...
I played double sided sp shakehand with a Gergely blade ...no, feels like single sided cpen to go, close to the table...

I too have gone back & forth between inverted & SP and essentially I have come to the following conclusion.

Blade/Style: Jpen

Inverted feels more natural to me (probably always will) but there were elements to my game I wanted to change. I wanted to add more flexibility/versatility to my game. With inverted I tend to play ultra aggressive with the mindset that if the ball is off the table, I hard drive or loop it. For me, this mindset tends to lend itself to a lot of unforced errors.

So I'm playing SP 802-40. I like it. I just have to keep certain things in mind.
- Stay close to the table and play balls off the hop or on the rise. The drive stroke for me isn't that far off from a blocking motion. (I do like this quick attack, high pressure it puts on them)
- Never stand mid distance. That's no mans land where I'll get out looped or spinned from inverted players.
- If way off the table, the SP chops very nicely (much better than inverted) and forces the opponent to prove they can loop low spinny balls consistently. (previously I would attack these balls and if it was low on my end, I would sometimes stuggle with getting those loops in and were low % shots)

Switching to SPs I think has/will help my consistency. Plus I'll enjoy the bonus of players who are not used to the pips and struggle to account for the different spin and feel.

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Stiga Clipper Classic
FH - TSP Spectol Red 2.0
BH - Dawei 388D-a 1.5

I've been thinking about this after I quipped to dunc about it last week. I played with SP on both sides for about a year, and found for aggressive hitting it was an excellent approach. What I couldn't do was mix it in with my cat and mouse defensive style, as I couldn't generate enough spin on my chops, or enough control on pushes - probably because the blade I had was so fast. I now play inverted/LP, which works well for me, but I'm curious about replacing the inverted with something like 802-40.

Reasons to consider:

- I already have 12 months experience with BH and FH SP play - i.e. I can hit and block
- My BH with inverted isn't very controlled - I treat the inverted like SP and mess it up sometimes
- It's kinda cool

Reasons to avoid:

- Less spinny serves
- Less spin variation
- The fact my BH with inverted is poor should probably be fixed with technique not equipment

Just a few bed-bound thoughts... ideas?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
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