OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Just wanted to post a note here, if your club is looking for a different type of format for a tournament, try a 2 man team format. Here in the Midwest of the U.S., we've seen a growth in team tournaments, notably the type where you have 3-5 people and play best of 9 singles. Our club decided to try to run a 2 man team tournament (where you can have up to 3 players on a team with 2 playing each team match) and the response we've gotten has been fantastic. The event is Saturday March 1. We had room for 20 teams, and we filled up almost 2 weeks in advance. 20 of the 37 players entered are above 1900, and close to half the teams will have an average rating of 2000 or above (for the top 2 players on the team).

We are running it with 2 sets of round robin play. In the first, all the teams will be seeded into round robins of 4 teams each. Placement for teams in the second session is based on how the team finishes in the first round robin. So, all the first place teams play together, all the second place teams play together, and so on. So the first round consists of 5 groups of 4 teams each, then the second round is 4 groups of 5 teams each. That's going to be a LOT of matches, which i think appealed to players, as we are only charging $80/team. Each team will end up playing 7 team matches, so every player will get a lot of matches to play.

Our only concern is that this is going to take too long to finish and we are going to run into issues with playing too late into the evening. We are starting at 9 am, and there are 8 rounds of team matches (3 in the first group, 5 in the second). I'm hoping we can finish in 10-12 hours at most. If anyone has any feedback on this type of format and what they've encountered, I'd love to hear it.

Anyway, I just thought I'd give you guys some ideas for something your club could run, if you're looking for something that has drawn a lot of interest for us.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Koreans ALWAYS have a team event at each city, regional, and national tourney.

Usually, it is 5-7 members and they face off opposite ends of a table, arrange under the table the order of their bats, and reveal them one by one to indicate who plays. If there are 5 matches, format is S/D/S/D/S or 7 matches is S/S/D/S/D/S/S.

Winner usually gets $100. Entry fee is usually $10 for the entire team. Usually a club has one team, but sometimes clubs field a "B" and "C" teams depending on how many under-classified ringers they can muster, since the 2+1+1 handicap system is in effect, Div 1 players spot a 3 point handicap to a div 3 player, so usually a club tries to stack a team with a lot of div 3 classified ringers who are actually div 1 level players who never win div 3 singles final to prevent them from advancing haha.

Sometimes the club in Yangju hosts a 2 player team tourney with first prize of $6000. Usually, only players living in reasonable distance, say 30 km or so would show up to a tourney, but this tourney draws the ringer sharks outta Seoul itself every time. You try to register to be one of the first 24 teams one day after registration opens and you are S.O.L. (Something Outta Luck !!) You have to do a wink/know agreement with the club ahead of time for that tourney.

I agree such a change in pace is fun. Why we take all day to do a tourney in USA is obvious, we do not place very many tables in one gym. Where USA uses 12 tables for a tourney, Korea uses 24 or 36 and forbids practice, plus they all have city volunteers directing players to tables about to become open. One venue could from 9AM to 10 PM host 500-1000 players doing 3 events apiece with total of thousands of matches. Needless to say front desk staff on stage are BUSY.

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Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Those sound like some fun tournaments. Yes, we are planning on having plenty of staff there, with at least a couple of people in the gym at all times. Typically we'd only put 10-12 tables in the gym for a tournament, but 14 won't be too bad, and we'd rather have the tables be a little tighter than normal but run a little faster.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Koreans would make 2 rows of 10-12 tables with nothing dividing the tables. They would have a row of barriers separating the rows of tables only.

This is a pic from the Uijeongbu City tourney.

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

[quote="Der_Echte"]Koreans ALWAYS have a team event at each city, regional, and national tourney.

Usually, it is 5-7 members and they face off opposite ends of a table, arrange under the table the order of their bats, and reveal them one by one to indicate who plays. If there are 5 matches, format is S/D/S/D/S or 7 matches is S/S/D/S/D/S/S.

Winner usually gets $100. Entry fee is usually $10 for the entire team. Usually a club has one team, but sometimes clubs field a "B" and "C" teams depending on how many under-classified ringers they can muster, since the 2+1+1 handicap system is in effect, Div 1 players spot a 3 point handicap to a div 3 player, so usually a club tries to stack a team with a lot of div 3 classified ringers who are actually div 1 level players who never win div 3 singles final to prevent them from advancing haha.

Sometimes the club in Yangju hosts a 2 player team tourney with first prize of $6000. Usually, only players living in reasonable distance, say 30 km or so would show up to a tourney, but this tourney draws the ringer sharks outta Seoul itself every time. You try to register to be one of the first 24 teams one day after registration opens and you are S.O.L. (Something Outta Luck !!) You have to do a wink/know agreement with the club ahead of time for that tourney.

In the 5 player format who plays the doubles? Say the order of bats are a,b,c d,e. a plays singles? b& c doubles?............????

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Re-impact Tachi+Juic Turbo 999 blk. BH- GD Talon Oxred.
Hallmark Aurora FH-GlobeNat 999 blk BH-Giant Talon Ox red.

Wow those tables look packed in there. I guess we're just used to having more room at the U.S. tournaments. I can imagine the complaining that we'd hear with that set-up. I think our tables might be almost that close together this Saturday.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Like you allude to, usually there are exactly enough on the team for everyone to play just one match, whether it is singles or doubles, but sometimes a guy will play doubles AND singles. What they will do if the team members have to also play a doubles, they will place the bat of the one doubles player playing only doubles and call out the name and show who will be his partner if that guy is also doing singles, sometimes happens.

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

It doesn't just look packed it is packed, but isn't the biggest issue.

In Korean Amature TT, everyone is moving through your court during the point. They call a let only if another match's ball bounces ON your table, your attack hits the player in the next court when there is a chance of a return, or there is contact with a player from the next court (or two or three). Those are the only lets for uncontrollable stuff. It is fair game for someone to try to retrieve a ball from underneath your table as you are playing your point. It is normal for someone to go into your court and retrieve a ball 2 feet from you as you are trying to look at the incoming ball and strike it.

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Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Wow, now that would be a serious culture shock for any U.S. player. That would take a lot of getting used to. Especially if you're playing poorly. I find that the worse I'm playing, the more those type of distractions affects me.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Westchester, a really squared away club by American standards, (or any standard) has there tourneys with a large chunk of their gym with tables in a row without barriers separating the adjacent tables. Whenever a ball rolls into the court, which happens every 4.3 seconds (it seems), you call a let, get the ball, and resart the point. This is American TT tourney etiquette. This also calls for a lot of stopping play and picking it back up.

That in itself is almost as irritating as all the obvious lets (like a player coming into your court during the point, ducking under the table and retrieving a ball) in Korean TT.

I would wish in American TT that you would not stop a point just because someone walks along the rear barrier in your court, he is no where near you. What happens is that play is often stopped on TWO courts as the ball rolled through one court and into another court.

Well, whatever, I still had a blast in Korea tourneys, even if all the let not called action was a drag, all the other stuff heavily outweighed it to balance out positive.

_________________
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Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

I agree with you on that, players here need to be far less sensitive to what goes on in the back of their playing area. There's not much you can do if a ball bounces right at your feet or of someone comes into your area, but at the back, if they're not in the way, I say play on.

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Yes I wish we ran by similar rules as Korea as I think the more often you get distracted the more you get used to it and learn to block it out. Also on that court in the picture, what support are the lines for around the outside, I can see the basketball lines but that court is even bigger. Handball? Soccer?

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The white lines are international basketball. Ironically, whenever we played the regional circuit, the Guri venue was the gym where the Guri Woman's pro team played. They had 10-12 meter tall oversized posters of all the pro players on that team hanging from the walls there...

The blue lines would appear to be indoor soccer, but we would think that the penalty box would be rectangular. Team handball has such a curved line for the area near the goal, but the court looks too long for that and I have NEVER heard of Koreans play Team handball anywhere. maybe the contract to build that venue called for the contractor to paint these blues lines to make foreigners wonder what the heck they were thinking...

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Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

The tournament was a big success. We got numerous comments about how much people enjoyed the experience. The only thing was, because it ran pretty long (I think it finished somewhere between 7-8 at night) our rental costs made it a break even or slight loss for the club. We would have to charge a little more next time (entry fee was just $80/team), and people said they'd be willing to pay more, and hoped to play in it again next year.

Our team ended up as the 5th overall seed, placing us at the top of our round robin in the first round, very close to the #2 seeds in our group. We won all of our first round matches 3-1 (including a win against a pair of 2000 level players in doubles where we were down 0-2). Then we went into the second round robin as the lowest seed in Group A, and lost every match. My play was very inconsistent, which disappointed me. No upsets pulled off, I will probably fall slightly below 1900. If I'm going to compete against the over 2000 crowd I think I need to be able to attack more with my backhand, so I am going to try some pips that I've read are a little easier to attack with (Dr. Neubauer Allround Premium with 0.6, Stiga Destroyer OX).

_________________
"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

Ask Tatlwai about BH OX attacking haha he is on it!

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter