OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Many Asian choppers use a 5 -ply wood; however, some experts in this forum have claimed that a 7-ply wood is better for chopping away from the table.Is it because the blade is heavier? is it because the chops come at the opponent with more speed? and with this new ball the chopper needs more speed and spin?

Then, I do not understand why so many Korean choppers choose a 5 -ply blade.

I guess some people like 7 plies because is faster so easy to chop away the table.

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I found 7 ply woods to chop the ball faster and with more spin.The idea is to find a controllable off blade.

However, if your tactics are to consistently chop the ball onto the table ,maybe a 5-ply wood is the answer.With this ball maybe the advantages of a faster setup are overcome by the drawbacks .This is why ,perhaps, the Koreans choose 5 -ply blades .

According to opinion of good pips players slower blade has more dwell and create more backspin. But pure spin is not necessarily more important then other factors.

My opinion that 7-ply blades have lower thus longer trajectory. Control and better tolerance to incoming topspin is also important.
Slow blade away from the table needs more active forward stroke that diminishes control.

No comments since a while, and i want to add something here so it might help me also to understand better.

I tried three blades or say 4 blades with pimples for defense and chopping, i don't know one blade brand/name, but the other three are the following:

1. Butterfly Defence III with TSP Curl P4 maybe 1.0mm or 1.4mm sponge i don't know [mine]
2. YinHe N-11 with Butterfly Faint OX [mine]
3. Yasaka Max Wood with Yasaka Phantom 0012 OX [not mine]

I don't know the 4th one because it belongs to a player and i just took it to test it and i forgot to remember the name of setup, but it has LP OX.

Out of those 4 the best one was that Yasaka Max Wood setup, then the player setup, DefenceIII was only good next to the table, while N-11 has a lot of hot and miss close to the table or mid or far for the table, so i just went and ordered Yasaka Max Wood blade and also Phantom 0012 to make same or similar to that racket i tested, not sure if it will be exactly the same performance or not, but i looked at reviews or specs of blades and i found out that Max Wood has 7Ply and a bit faster than Defence and N-11, so does that means i can do better with 7ply any blade or some blades 7ply all wood do better than some others?

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First racket: Butterfly Jun Mizutani + Tenergy 05FX black [FH] + Tenergy 64 red [BH]
Second racket: YinHe Galaxy N-11 + YinHe 9000E black + Yinhe 9000E red
Third racket: Butterfly Defence III + Andro Rasant Grip black + TSP Curl P4 red
Main blade is under my profile name.

Hard to answer your latest question. I use LP with sponge on my BH and strongly prefer a 7 ply all wood blade. To me it is more linear. Five ply all wood blades have more flex and sometimes it kicks in and I lose control. Not all 7 ply blades are the same. I have tried some with heavy flex and they play like 5 ply blades to me.

I do find sponge much better for chopping off the table, but I also use it to attack and block (active blocks, not passive) close to the table.

I am not a full-time chopper, but for me the most important property of chopper's setup is no ball popups during half baked strokes. I name this as chop-block ability.
And for my limited bucket of used blades 7-ply blades are better with commonly lower response. And softer blades are better for light touch passive strokes.