So I'm back home, well got home about about 1:30am, pea soup thick fog for about 300km of the way home too, fun times. Then watched the F1 which I recorded
. Go Mercedes !). Now I'm here to find look up who I beat and how many points my rating goes up.
It was good to meet Mallus and the mad professor Oskar and friend. They are actually pretty good players, Oskar almost caused a giant upset in the DIV THREE., almost got the #1 seed
I'll just type a bit about Div 2 for the old illusive coach Carbonman first. I'm not one for remembering game scores or which ones I won, the games per match is about as detailed as my brain goes unless they were exceptional. So first up I played JL, I won that in 3 straight I think, maybe 4 but in any case it was a very easy match, he plays medium pips with sponge so that was nothing too tricky.
Then I played PB, which I won in 3 after seeing that his forehand was weak during the o40s, after that I knew if I went FH to FH with him I should win, it was still a bit tight but I won that in 3 straight without too much of a massive effort.
Then I played DH, won that one easily in 3 so didn't have to get out of low gear there either, then played a guy DS, quite a funny guy. He was getting really angry with himself but I was on such a good form by then that I was just playing with him, then I decided I'd put in a full pace game and won that 11-0 just to show I was cruising and see how angry he got... (turned out pretty angry
), then another cruiser game to win that match, surprised I could take it so easy against a near 1300 point player but I was playing really well. I was having a run there for a while where I was beating 1200-1350 players one after the other like I was laying around having a picnic, unbelievable considering that's usually a big effort for me to beat those guys.
In the final I played a guy JK I beleive, I was starting to cramp up then, pretty hard to play a loose grip when your hand is cramped onto the handle lol, it was the last game of the day and he gave me a flogging in the first game, somewhere along the line I realised he loved balls coming onto him fast so I stalled them up a bit and he started missing, plus I started to go a bit harder at him and got one game off him but after that I really just wasn't at his level either ever or at least at that time of the day, probably ever
he was pretty good, very aggressive, there's no way I was going to win that match. That was my EIGHTH match back to back with no break
that's what you get for making the final is two divisions at once.
In the Div 1, that came around in the middle of the day somewhere, I played DP but I didn't know who he was or that he was the #2 seed, I actually thought it was a Div 2 match, anyway I cruised along, pretty tight games but he seemed a little better than me, then I put one game in full effort and won that ok, but overall it was going to take too much out of me to attempt to win that match so I gave it a miss, after the match someone told me he's one of the better div1 players and that I was still in div 2 :0 so that was a relief.
In Div3, I always tell myself I wont enter Div3 but I seem to always end up entering it, it's really no point for me because I can't win worth of nothing points by playing it but because I drive so far to play I feel like I don't want to go all that way to only play potentially a couple of matches in the higher divisions. At the end of last year I was tending to play at near 1300 level and competitive with the better Div2 players and my rating was starting to spike but dragging behind where I was really at a bit, just a time lag thing.. but it was just a mental problem or lack of confidence that keeps me entering Div3. Now I can only play Div3 in the next tournament before the new ratings list and after than I'll be out of it anyway so that will be the end of that problem.
Anyway the final of Div 3 was close in 5 but I had enough spare and only had slight cramp in my feet at that stage so I was ok to stay in front when I really needed to and got that one, during the end of the day I played 8 matches back to back, for a guy that hasn't played much since last year and not in the last 4 weeks it was a bit of a workout but I felt actually fitter than I was at the end of last year, probably because I've been doing a like of cycling.
Carbonman one of the finals between BB and BP was on when I left, BP was up 5-2? or 5-3 in the 5th not sure if it was 040 or 050.
I feel like with my game I'm on the cusp of being able to compete and win matches in the o40 open section. Pity I lost that first match with PB in the morning because that would have been worth 50 rating points to me, which would have been a huge gain.
When I first started playing tournaments last year, I'd only come from a small club of weak players, I was the strongest of them but I'd never been pushed so the idea with the tournaments is to just see if I could have been a good player had I had a bit more of a chance, if I'd been in the city etc.
I basically had no backhand and no serve apart from very basic backspin, sidespin serves, no pendulums or anything like that. I get a lot of good advice off the better players all the time, so whenever they say something to me I play x 10 attention because it's always something important. The backhands still a failure, or more a work in progress, the serves.. well I'm winning a lot of points on serve against all the Div 1 players so that's working ok. Another place I've improved a lot is learning how important variation of pace is, which I'm getting pretty good at now, it seems very disturbing to the other player. My forehand is as strong as any of the Vet players, much stronger than most so that's where I win most of my rallies, I was not holding back waiting for the perfect ball much today and that I think was the main reason I won so many big (for me) matches today. The thing I need to continue to work on to make the jump from Div 2 to 1 is going to be the quality of my backhand and especially a more aggressive return of serve, if I can get those down I'll make it to Div1... one day. I've set my goal at 100 points per year, which I made last year and again this year already, I've got the chance to jump 200 this year but we will see how that turns out.
That reminds me, no one was able to beat me in 3 none of the Div1 players etc so for a (ex) Div 3 player that was doing ok.
Of all my memorable moments today the best was when I was playing a match and BB was watching, I don't know him really yet but he's a bit of a legendary table tennis hero. I saw an interview with him where he was saying he wished he could still hit real big forehands like he could when he was a bit younger. Since I have a big forehand, I was remembering this during the match while he was watching and it inspired me to hit some absolute rockets, big big time rallys and then just drilled the ball straight through the guy, I probably have never had my forehand going with so much power as I did today actually. Anyway I turned around and the big man himself gave me a grin of approval
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Even if you did have to resort to "under-handed" means to get over me! 
Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
