OOAK Table Tennis Forum

for me the problem with anti is the predictability. Same as with the old f-less rubbers. Guys I play against loved playing against superblock as they had the control - they knew what to hit to the pips to set up their attack. Anti is the same, no matter how much reversal you have you can't manipulate spin too much, and if you can, the reversal is bad so again you cause yourself problems.
I really liked the control and the ease of attack, but in games when you loose the initiative, with anti you have real problems getting it back. With a pip, just because it has the pip structure, you have more options

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Yasaka Dynamix 17
Tibhar Q 50
Butterfly Raystorm

Don't do that i'll buy it off you!

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Don't do that, i'll buy it off you.

I want another Fibercomp, if it is recoverable, please pm.

Lots of players with lots of money on this site!

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Sorry Mozzy, the Fibrecomp is a dead. The handle and the blade face have completely sheered apart and splintered, so there would be no point in trying to repair it

Julian - I agree with your comments, but then I suppose you could say that there is no advantage with any rubbers. Let me give an example because I've played with both Frictionless, the new Anti's and also Insider.

Frictionless (Inferno)
+ Good for blocking and sending back spin
- Once passive shots were played, it was easy for the opponent to read

Juic Neo Anti
+ Great control (better than Insider)
- Just produced dead balls (I never managed to produce any meaningful spin on it as you're meant to be able to).

Insider
+ Good control, plays very similar to Inferno in it's speed and feel.
- Does not reverse spin, just seems to kill it.

New Anti (Gorilla 1.8mm)
+ The best reversal I've seen, plus the trajectory / sound of the ball after hitting is hard to distinguish from normal inverted rubbers.
- It's a little bit faster than the pips I've become used to.

Overall, it depends on the game you want to play. I agree that the frictionless way, once worked out, might be easy to play against, but this is why I started to twiddle. You should have seen the guys face I played the other day when he said to me "I'm just trying to work out which side you play your funny rubber on" and watching his face sink when I said "ermm...both, I twiddle".

Personally speaking, the frictionless style (if you twiddle) is the best of both worlds. You can send back some awkward spin but with the new anti's, they disguise the whole shot so much better than pips.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get you to buy a sheet of this, as it is personal preference, but I've never seen the advantage in using normal frictioned pips. My dad plays with BTY Feint Soft and he's excellent at standing away from the table and chopping back loops, but the ball that is sent back doesn't carry much back spin, nor is it difficult to re-hit IF your feet are in position. He does win a lot of points playing it back to a difficult position though.

Anyway, food for thought

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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When we talk about spin reversal, being newly converted, i assume we are actually talking about spin continuation, is that right?

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Yes, sorry, you're spot on.

For example, if I chop the ball on my inverted side, let the ball come down and bounce on my Gorilla, then let the third bounce back on my inverted side, the following happens:

1. Ball gets chopped with inverted.

2. Turn bat over and let the second ball hit the Gorilla. It bounces straight back up unaffected by spin.

3. Turn bat back over and let the third ball hit the inverted side. The ball then flies off with spin.

With my old Neo Anti, the spin would be killed on the second bounce by the anti. Then the third ball would bounce straight back up again.

Because the top sheet on Gorilla is so slick (and the sponge weird also), it allows the ball to continue spinning on it's surface on impact. Because the rubber doesn't grab the ball, it just pushes back unaffected by the spin and then the opponent gets all of their spin back again.

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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...and this is my problem. I'm still playing the frictionless way and actually enjoy playing in this manner. The Neo Anti, as good as it was, only gave me improved control over the Insider and nothing else. I'm sure given time and learning new shots, it would have been a good rubber, but as I'm not in the top division, struggling to get wins, I need to just play my natural game - e.g. the frictionless way.

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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I can see your predicament. All I can say is that the "frictionless blocking style" only becomes a problem if you just rely on the rubber to do all the work for you. This is why I'll block a few, dig at a few and twiddle the bat to use both inverted and anti in an attempt to confuse my opposition.

I mean you could say the same for anti rubbers in that when you chop at them, the opponent might work out that you're getting backspin and counter for it. It the becomes no better than inverted.

Basically in my mind I decided that I wanted to have two extremes. I want to have a slick spin reversing rubber and a grippy spinny inverted rubber. This way, I can use both when twiddling and really play with the spin. Sure if I stood there and passively blocked back, my opponent might read this and then it becomes a disadvantage to me. So when that happens, I twiddle and chop block back with my inverted. Hello Mr Backspin

I mean put it this way, whichever rubber combination you play with, be it pips, anti, inverted, tacky, slow, fast, etc, there are always advantages and disadvantages to playing with them. For me, this is what makes the game so interesting, working out what these disadvantages are and changing it in my own game to null this out, or working out my opponents disadvantages to my advantage

Ultimately there is no one rubber that does everything, otherwise we'd all be out there buying it

If it's a frictionless reversal style that you want, then the Gorilla (on a slow blade) feels superb!

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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Ever tried, Ever failed? No Matter.
Try again, Fail Again, Fail Better!

A few more notes:

Works pretty well moving around underspin, but not so easy to attack with. The original Gorilla could hit outright winners. With the 1.8 you get good control with a head down Kreanga-type shove. If you play the corner-to-corner game, you'll like this. Of course, anything long we should be trying to loop with the inverted.

Handles no-spin pretty well also with sort of a 45-degree angle chop block that keeps the ball low.

I hope this is one of those antis that lasts a long time. The attached glue sheet is very sticky and strong. So forget testing it on an assortment of blades.

Not sold on it yet, but will continue testing.

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

I've got a game tonight and will be using this rubber, so will add anything to my initial impressions tomorrow.

I would also say that I agree with NotBob as well in his thoughts. NotBob, when you say it's pretty good at "moving around underspin" do you mean backspin or slow spin?

I agree that it's not as easy to attack with, but then again, it's much easier to defend with. There is always going to be a trade off between control and attack, especially with rubbers such as these. Personally, I'd rather have better control and use twiddling to attack the ball Put it this way, when Gorilla first came out it was very hard to control and defend with (even though you could hit with it). Now they have slowed it down and addressed that problem, but it's harder to hit with. I don't think you'll ever get it so it does both, which is where twiddling comes in

In fairness, I never really managed to attack the ball with my Inferno. I mean that was so dead that I couldn't really do much with it apart from blocking, which is why I taught myself to twiddle.

I do still think though that it produces more spin reversal than my old Inferno rubber. The balls it was sending back the other night absolutely fizzed back onto the table

Anyway, the match tonight will be the real acid test and I'll let you know how it goes.

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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Good news, it works

I played my first game with the new blade and Gorilla last night and we faced out B team in a league match. They had put out their strongest side and having lost so emphatically last week, my confidence was pretty low.

Anyway, I stepped up first to play their best player (he was their best by a LONG way!) and lost the game 3-0. However I was close, 8-11, 7-11, 6-11. Then I stepped up to play my next two games....

The first was against a looper and he was playing very well, looping both backhand and forehand consistently. I lost the first game 9-11, but kept my head and took the next game 11-8. Into the third I took it 11-9 and the fourth game I was 3-9 down and came back to win 12-10!!!!

The rubber was working really well. Blocking back the loops was very very effective when I managed to get it back on the table. It is a little quicker than what I'm used to but it's a lot slower than the Gorilla with the original sponge on it. This new slow sponge really does bring the speed of the ball down, especially on my DEF blade.

My final game was against a hard hitter. Now I've never beaten this guy and he beat me 3-0 when I played last time with my Inferno. Anyway, he liked to chop at the ball and dig it around the table and once it popped up, he'd just crack through it. With his chops, I was digging and pushing into them. As I sliced into each one, the spin going back was very heavy. It only took a few dig pushes with the Gorilla before the ball was popping up off of his bat and I came in for the kill. Also, all of his services were just pushed back with a lot of spin reversal. The result? 11-9, 12-10, 12-10 to me To beat him is an achievement, but to win 3-0....well I never thought I'd do that.

What the Gorilla gave me was great control and the ability to return very awkward balls. I found that when blocking with an open face, it's best to take the ball straight off the bounce. Also blocking balls with little loop with an open bat face were not working. Each time they were going off the end of the table. Therefore on slower spin balls, I was chop digging into them and the ball was being kept very low and quite fast over the net. In fact, this is the one shot that was winning me a lot of points. Because it was staying so low, with a lot of spin reversal and then skidding off their side of the table, it was an extremely difficult ball to play back. Then when they looped, I blocked with a more open bat face.

In the doubles, I managed to block back an extremely heavy loop that in fairness, I would have struggled to control on my Insider. There was so much spin reversal that the opponent came in to push the ball back and it flew off his bat and underneath the table!!!!

So overall, I'm really please with this set up now and am going to continue working on it. Sure, there are some shots that need to be adapted such as the open faced block but what I've learnt is that the chop-dig shot is even more difficult to play against. I think given a bit more practice, I'm going to be a very difficult player to beat.

Oh and the best bit, when they asked what it was and looked at it, they said "ahhh anti, ok" and smiled. I said "yep, anti " The confused look on their faces when the ball was wobbling and popping up was quite amusing

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Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
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Ever tried, Ever failed? No Matter.
Try again, Fail Again, Fail Better!

That's a great effort ChrisBuer!

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Well done Chris.

It's interesting because I spoke to a league player yesterday who has tried this new 1.8 Gorilla and his feeling was that the ball reaction was inconsistent - he had the same view about the original versions. He would play a block one time and get the shot he wanted. He would play an identical block the next time and it would fly high and long. Have you found this?

I love to read about the spin reversal sending his return back under the table - no frictionless replacement has come anywhere near to this kind of reversal in my experience. I feel a ban coming on!

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Good review Chrisbuer I think i'm hoping for something slower still and will probably play less blocks now anyway. I'm glad your enjoying the rubber and your game more now. I'm still experimenting with rubber and style. MNNB thanks for your thoughts too. If one of his new antis is supposed to be slower than Gorilla 1.8 I may well trial it and of course review it here.

Agree with Dingwol2. I think we should always say after a review nothing will ever replace frictionless then if ITTF read it they may leave it alone. If they banned anti I would quit.

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Another one bites the dust.

Open faced blocking doesn't work as well as with the Inferno. However, you need to change the bat angle and the grip on the bat. Also I've found that it works well if you take the ball directly off the bounce, rather than top of the bounce.

Like I said before, I've got this on a very slow blade and it feels superb. It's still early days but it's the best thing I've found to cause an awkward game for your opponent. I loved Insider but just felt like it didn't do enough. This rubber certainly does!

Regarding the spin reversal, all I can say is that I find it better than my Inferno. The shot where the ball went under the table was a block from a VERY heavy loop and I managed to someone block it back onto the table. The opponent was quite far back from the table and tried to float it back from their backhand and the ball just shot downwards and under the table. I was surprised as I've never got to this level of spin reversal before.

I would say that if you were going to try it, make sure that it's on a slow blade as this undoubtedly helps. I think on my special blade or the Andro blade, it would feel too fast. Don't get me wrong, it is still quicker than the Insider, but I feel so much more in control with the Gorilla than I did with the pips.

Anyway, I'll keep practising with it and see how it goes. I think with any of these things, the best thing you can do is give it some time. I'm feeling very positive about it and I just hope that the ITTF don't decide to ban it. I mean if they did, where would it stop? Anti's next?

_________________
Blade: Ross Leidy custom blade
Forehand: Butterfly Tenergy 05-FX 1.7mm
Backhand: Dr Neubauer Gangster and Desperado 2 (testing both) OX

Butterfly Amicus Professional robot
-----
Ever tried, Ever failed? No Matter.
Try again, Fail Again, Fail Better!