OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Beautiful!!!

A bit of dilemma: try somewhat more aggressive rubber on FH (max thickness tensor?) to compensate for slower blade and beef up attack, while hoping that occasional chop will still be possible, or stick with current one (Baracuda 2mm) and focus on FH loop technique/other ways to win points, while leaning into FH chopping a bit more.

I've been chopping on FH more lately, mostly in practice - it now feels more natural and gives trouble to lower level folks (I know, not much to brag about yet). Just getting a feel for it, I guess, trying to make sure chops are deep and spinny. Still would like to improve my inverted pushes too - quite a few opponents underestimate amount of spin on these, at least on good ones.

Noticed that today I started to experiment more with long deep BH serves into opponent's FH, mostly with backspin - again, with people below me in level, this usually ended in start of chopping rally, or outright point win, since they frequently netted it or their attack sailed long.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Curious that no chopper has tried to answer this question for you.

I would say stick with your current rubber as looping is one of the easiest things to improve control and the power of, much harder to get the touch on strokes that don't get safety from topspin. That said, if you want to change your rubber, try one of the close brothers like Hexer or Genius or if you want to be more conservative, a max thickness Baracuda. Don't rush into something more powerful.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I'll tell you what Wang QingLiang told me...long back spin to the FH, and then mix in less backspin or nospin to the FH is a common tactic. The issue is, if they are Right handed, that usually means an attack to your FH. I don't mind that but you might. Keep it low and long, but not too long....closer to the edge. You want them thinking about scrapping the table wiht their knuckles if they loop (I suck at consistently placing distance on the long BS).

Rubber is fine, but it is probably a little tougher because of the throw. I personally like thinner tensors...keeps the throw lower on chops and still enough pop for loops. Max sheets will increase throw angle and that's harder to deal with for chopping than speed IMO. Everyone is raving about the speed and linearity of the Karis M rubber, I may try that next.

Tell me if you agree, but I find that sidespin either gets killed or it doesn't by certain opponents. If you make it long enough, they will attempt to loop it even if they are unsure. Bingo...chopping rally if it lands and it's medium speed. Mix it up between under, nospin, sligh sidespin, sidespin. But it will usually be to your FH....you may want to loop instead. If they kill it, abandon in favor of another serve.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

Well, Japsican chimed a minute after you - but it's an interesting question how many forum denizens consider themselves 'choppers' in general and modern defenders in particular, that is the ones who need robust FH. It's pretty obvious that universe of players with pips on BH is quite a bit larger.

Max Baracuda sounds like a more prudent way to go - I am used to it by now.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Forgot to mention that I serve BH a lot from middle of the table or even FH corner - so if something juicy comes back, I am somewhat ready to chop with BH. Unless they go with their FH down the line, of course. And yes - 'half long' serves that keep them guessing whether there will be a second bounce are great - just need to control the distance well to stay in that grey area.

Regarding sidespin - I occasionally throw one in, which frequently gives me a free point from folks who don't read spin well. I don't use it that much, though. 'Sidespin' serve with pips will often produce a free point too - I suspect people are instinctively reacting to the motion they see and try to compensate for the spin that's not there.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Recent match at Aurora Cup (I am in blue shirt).

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Had a 3:3 league night - at least one decent win, but also a somewhat painful loss - again could not get attack to work well enough against a retriever type opponent. It did get better later in the night, though: lost first 3 matches and then won 3 in a row. Wish I had videos...

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

It's at most a $300 investment for Camera plus the stand plus spare battery plus sandisk set up from Amazon. Add another $100 for comfortable budget with a travel bag. And it will save you lots of TT lesson money for the rest of your life.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

No argument here - and it's not a money issue. The way our league runs, I can't drag setup from one court to another, and there are only 2 courts where I can even place the camera out of action way (hmm, perhaps that might be enough...).

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

the retriever, was he a true retriever playing with lots of spin? Or was he a passive no-spin lobber and soft no spin blocker? The latter version is like death for me...particularly in attacking.

Attacking high, odd angled low spin or no spin balls is just white man's magic to me. My brain doesn't understand them.
I can't even get coaches to mimic those balls for multi-ball as typically those players are doing low-spin and no-spin lobs because they don't know how to spin the ball (at least the ones I face). Hard to get a 23-2600 level chinese-trained pro to recreate such low quality balls when I'm getting coached. It's painful for them.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

The further away the camera, the better the view. And sometimes, you can get a stand high enough for the camera to stay in one spot and just point to the table you want to record.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Not a classic retriever - he just gets a lot of balls back and my attacks were not penetrating enough. Not a lot of blocks from him either (I do have another blocker who frustrates me a lot). This tells me more about the quality of my attack, perhaps, unless I am missing some subtlety - we had pretty long rallies, and I just made more mistakes. Playing him also gets me out of my desired comfort zone since I don't get to defend much.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Give it up at Boston TTC. You MIGHT be able to place the camera on the outside near waiting area oriented towards the action and get SOME kind of video... but even then, people walk by and run over the camera or will stand or move in front of it.

The only time one can break out a camera is around 11 PM or Midnight. It gets real at that time and a little more space.

I somehow think pgpg would be severely reprimanded and have to sing "Bestraffe mich" all week long as a minor punishment.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

A cheepo collapsable tripod is $15 on amazon and so is a Smart Phone adapter for $15 (with bluetooth remote)... makes better quality vids.

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

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter