OOAK Table Tennis Forum

1/4 final of the handicap team event tonight... against the finalists from last year. It was a very tense evening with some excellent matches and very close battles.

I got 2/3 - losing to a very under-ranked player who played very well. I won my other two 2-0 against solid/strong div 2 opponents, who had a head start over me.

We won the match 5-4, with a brilliant finish from our #3 who beat the fellow I lost to (who also beat our #2)

I found this a very tense affair - I would say my mentality was 75% - not perfect. A bit of wincing when shots just missed, and one or two "for heavens sake" after a string of nets and edges against me. I think the combination of knock out round, and handicap competition made it extra tough.

We have to play the same team next week in the veterans handicap team competition.

I did a bit more damage to the regular blade, owing to a kniock on the edge of the table.

However, in other news, the 651 (and 1 x 652) arrived in the post today, so I can make up the spare blade just in case. The difference between the 652 and 651 was as I remembered it. I'm pretty sure it's the same sponge. The top sheet is very similar but the 652 pips are a bit wider, and closer together compared to the 651. Not as closely spaced as 802, so somewhere between the two.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Now the 651s have arrived I made up the "spare" blade today, and took it to tuesday practice. I also took my inverted training setup - 2 PF4 on a 5 ply wooden chinese blade, because there's a guy who wants to do some exercises with me.

I trained with that guy for a bit, and then played some rallies with him... I'm playing double inverted all out attack, and creaming FHs and BHs... and the guy stops and says: s***, you can actually play, even without your stupid bat. Wasn't quite sure what to make of that!

Then we played some handicap matches - practice for next week. I'd say he's not quite as good as the #3 in our team that played last night. I gave him a 10-0 start up to 24. I won the first fairly comfortably. In the second I took way more risks and made some mistakes and he won. In the third I knuckled down, as I really didn't want to lose the match.... and I won 24-10 :-O

I think the guy was pretty upset and didn't want to play for a few mins :-/

Then played for an hour or so with the "spare". It is a *little* bit faster than the regular one, which I expected, since its tone was a bit higher, but I think it's within acceptable parameters. Mostly only noticed on BH where it felt a bit more lively.

I may try to wear it in during some practice sessions and switch between them a bit, so if I ever need to use the backup, it won't feel too different.

I have a match on Thu against BG (whom I played last week, when he tried a different bat), my old team mate and sparring partner RH, and, potentially, my team mate DH from last night, as a reserve. Should be a good match.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Well, tonight's match was not as I expected... I didn't have to play against my current team mate DH... instead the team had signed TF - a solid top flight player. So their team was BG (from Tuesday practice), RH (former team mate and practice partner) and TF.

I beat RH 3-0 - played well; the first was tight but the second and third were very comfortable.

BG played with the hardbat again... and played very well. As usual against no-spin players I struggled, and I retreated into a passive bumping or slow rolling game, not backing myself to attack. It was much closer than it should have been. I squeezed through 3-2, but I got some luck tat went my way, and it could easily have gone the other way.

I lost 3-1 to TF... but this time the luck went his way! I felt I should have taken the 4th and forced a 5th, where I'd have had the momentum but I made two mistakes in a row at 9-9 to give him the match. Still, he's a very good player.

He beat all of us 3-1; JC and I got 2/3 and CC 1/3. So it was down to me and JC in the doubles to win the match. RH and TF play together now in the the top division in the other league. But JC and I played well as a team, and won 3-0, taking the match 6-4.

I was 99% happy with my mentality - got a bit squeaky in the the match with BG, especially when I judged two balls were going long, and they both nicked the end of the table! But generally it was good.

Very enjoyable evening, and we stay 2nd in the premier.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

We had our veterans handicap quarter final today, against the same team we played last week. They fielded one player from last week (RS) and a stronger player (MT). Both RS and MT are what I would call lower-third, top-tier players. I gave RS a 3-0 start and MT a 1-0 start. I beat RS 2-1 and MT 2-0. Team mate DH won 2-0 2-0, so we won the home leg 4-0. We had agreed to play the away leg on the same night. I offered to drop out, so DH and JB played... and won 3-1, so 7-1 on the night, and we're into the semi final.

After the match I had a knock with JB. When we closed down our office a few weeks ago I found some of my very early bats in my desk drawer. The first I ever bought - Tibar Defense Plus x 2. I slapped some 651 on one side and C&F3 on the other on one, and then the 1.5mm 999 and Dtec Green 1.1mm on the other. Was quite an interesting feel. The inverted setup was very slow - attacks were not very penetrative. Interestingly the dtecs sponge was quite cushiony. I could attack fairly well, but it felt a bit odd over all. The 651/C&F3 was faster - not as fast as regular setup, but probably fast enough. The C&F3 worked well - I do like C&F3 especially for attacking.

I played three ends vs JB and switched bat each end. He won the first vs the inverted/dtecs, and scraped the second, and I won with my regular setup. Was fun to compare them. I think in the long term future my BH rubber might change to something more attacking, but I don't think I'd ever go back to the TBP blades.

No more matches this year. Social practice on tuesday and wednesday potentially, and then nothing until after Christmas, where I'm going to a camp for a few days, and then to play in the ratings tournament just before new year.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Went to the last tuesday practice of the year - was fun. I played a bunch of games against JB with regular bat and with the 651/CF3 - I won them all. The CF3 really is much better for attacking lose balls or float or backspin balls. I played a few doubles matches with it too - I definitely prefer the DDS blade in general, and I like the over-sized head, but it would be interesting to experiment with CF3 on the DDS.

With that in mind I placed an Aliexpress order for some CF3 (with and without sponge) and while I was at it, some C8, as that's the only DHS pip I've never tried!

Just received the draw for the competition next week - I've falled off the rankings list because I took a year off competition, so I'm in the bottom band, and everyone else has no points. A few have senior points, but no veterans points. If I actually cared about ranking points I might grumble, but for now just getting back into competition, and enjoying the day, and continuing to work on my mentality is what matters.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

I went to a training camp put on by my friend for the last two days. There were a couple of dozen players, mostly juniors and intermediate players, but there were about 4 stronger players, myself included. It was the usual sort of setup, with some exercises and some challenges and a bit of fitness. Our group of about 6-8 players got some good attention from the coaches, and the level was just right for me - of the four of us stronger players, two were ~band 3/4 and two were band 5/6.

I was very pleased with how I played - my control was very good and I played well in the mini competitions.

I spent most of yesterday with Chris Doran, and with the other band 5/6 player, doing multiball, exercises and sparring. Finished off with a bunch of deuce matches and up to 7 matches, with my playing partner... we finished even!

I took two main things away. One, I need to *really commit* to hand speed against heavy backspin - when I do that, I have no problems. It's when I play a half-hearted shot that I struggle. I think a lot of it is down to fear of missing the shot. Chris was sayng that he'd rather I committed to the assertive shot than went for the "safe" one - better to miss trying the strong shot than miss with a half shot. Two, I need to learn a 70% attack - if I see a lose(ish) ball I tend to go after it at 100%, with maybe a 30% chance of over-hitting. a 70% shot is probably a 95% certainty to not miss, and is probably enough to win the point.

I have a tournament today. I'm feeling a bit stiff from 2 days of hard(ish) work, but I'm feeling confident. I played well yesterday, I slept well, and I'm feeling mentally relaxed.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Well! I won my group with 7/7! I was seeded 3rd out of 8. Some tough matches - two 5 setters where I came back from 2-1 down to win, and tense one where I was comfortably ahead, 2-0 up but lost the 3rd after a long series of deuce points, then the 4th too, but a solid 5th took me over the line.

Really pleased with my mental side. General play was ok, and tactics felt good.

One of my matches was recorded (there wasn't much space, and one person already had a tripod up) so when they send it to me I will edit it and post it!

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

A good training camp always sharpens you up, even if you are tired you tend to play really well at the end. Was that the camp with Chris, Ed and Lee coaching? In Birmingham?

Sent from my moto g(30) using Tapatalk

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Timo Boll ALC ST
FH Tibhar Evolution MX-P Max
BH Tibhar Evolution FX-S 1.8
185g

Yep - enjoyed a good knock with Lee. You came up in conversation

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

I'm hoping I'll get a practice session in this week before next cup match on Thursday. This will be an interesting one. The team has two solid lower division players with generous handicaps, and another slightly stronger, with a very generous handicap, and a very good player, whom I lost to last year - the first and only time we'd played.

I'm looking forward to playing the strongest player - I actually get one or two points lead, as he's ranked above me. He's a very awkward left-handed retriever, very consistent. How I do against him will be a good benchmark. Obviously a win would be great, but I'm more just looking forward to the challenge.

My AliExpress orders should arrive in the next day or two, so I'll have some C&F3 and C8 with and without sponge to experiment with. I know C&F3 pretty well, although I've not tried it on the DDS. My expectation is it will be a good alternative to DG, but a bit easier to attack with. C8 I am intrigued by - not sure what to expect, but always fancied giving it a go.

I'm more used to playing with OX, but again, a bit of sponge helps when trying to play actively against floaty balls. I'll put an OX on one blade and keep DG on the other, and see which I prefer. Then the one I don't prefer will get the other OX, and we'll repeat. If I still like DG, I'll probably not bother trying the sponged ones, but if one of the DHS rubbers seems to be an improvement on DG, I'll then try the sponged version on the other blade.

I'm not *unhappy* with DG - it's very reliable for me. But every time I've used C&F3 I've really liked how well I can flick and attack with it, and blocks and chops seem to be as good or better than DG, so I feel like it's a worthwhile experiment. I don't expect C8 to be anything special, but I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity!

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

I managed to squeeze in a 1:1 with my coach last night. We did a few standard "scenarios" - 3-4 ball drills of the sort that come up in match play. We also did some service return practice, and I worked on fh receive against sidespin. Next we did some multiball from a few paces back, heavy chop anywhere, with float mixed in. Finished off with some conditional matches where he just defended/retrieved. Good session, and worth while.

Tonight was the semi final of handicap competition #1 (we're in the semi finals of both). The team was, as expected, the two solid div 2 players and the top half of top div player. I was 9-0 down up to 23 in both matches v the lower players, and was 3-0 up v t he stronger player.

I won my first 9-0 match 2-0, just by defending and letting my opponent make mistakes. I did the same in the first game vs the second 9-0 player, and won comfortably. They played much better in the second game, and got to 20-14 up, but I found an extra gear and changed tactics, and pulled it back to 22-22, before winning 27-25.

Against the strongest player I won 2-0, fairly comfortably - I think I'd have won with no advantage. My tactics were good - he uses anti on his bh and wasn't confident to attack, so I played floaty balls to his bh, and occasionally switched to his fh, and then chopped / chop-blocked the spin back to his bh, and attacked the next shot.

We won 8-1, and are through to the final!

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Also the DHS package arrived.... for reasons I can't fathom I got about 3 extra rubbers thrown in, but I'm not complaining!

Now I've got the important match behind me, I feel I can experiment a bit with the LPs.

I'm a bit torn - I have two DDS - one fairly new, and one pretty old and a bit battered. The newer one has had a few matches and some training, but the LP is still very new-feeling. The old one is a bit torn and wrinkled and old, but it's softened up a bit. I should probably replace it as it's borderline legal I think, but it's also the most reliable. I need to swap one DG out for a C8 or C&F3, but I don't know whether to swap out the new DG for a new DHS rubber, and compare it to the old DG, or to swap out the old DG and compare the newer DG with the new DHS. I think the latter is probably fairer, and a time will come when I do need to swap out the old DG anyway.

Any thoughts?

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Well, I decided to remove the wrinkly old rubber on the older bat, and I've stuck an OX C8 on it. I'm really intrigued to try it - it has a really nice feel about it.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

Well, quite a lot to report...

I went to Sunday evening practice, and took both setups with me: Donic Defplay Senso / 651 / Dornenglanz and Donic Defplay Senso / 651 / C8. I'd swapped the old and a bit wrinkly Dornenglanz for the C8 on my "regular" blade, rather than swapping it for the nearly new "backup" blade.

I started with the C8, and didn't knock up with the backup blade. I played half a dozen matches against a range of players all about my level or slightly better. I didn't win any matches, but most of the losses were very close. The C8 is definitely more spin-reactive than the DG, which meant that I made some mistakes on service return that I wouldn't usually make. I would definitely be able to adjust - it's not that I was misreading the spin, it's just that I don't yet know the outcome, and shots that I would make with the DG aren't quite the same with the C8. The C8 was fairly nice for attacking shots, but I made very few, and I felt it was noticably less good for close to the table blocks. I also felt like my blocks were higher and popped up more - again, probably because it's a bit more spin-sensitive. Where I did feel it had potential was in pushes and chops further from the table. Overall on the basis of about 2 hrs play, I didn't feel like I liked it more than the DG.

I swapped back to the backup blade, and played, and here the troubles began. I've already mentioned that the backup blade is a bit faster than the regular one, and I just don't like how it feels. I didn't play well, and made a lot of mistakes, but I stayed calm and cheerful, so I left the evening happy.

Yesterday morning I decided to remove the DG from the newer blade, and put the C&F3 on it. I removed the DG, but I think I must have unwittingly put the glue sheet on back-to-front, because when I tried to remove it the rubber itself wanted to come away from the sheet, and the sheet was hard to remove, and when I did get it off it took a fair amout of wood with it - not loads, but enough to see/notice.

Last night I had a notionally "easy" match, against the bottom team in the league. The team we played first, where I lost a silly game by messing around. I got my days and times mixed up and arrived at the wrong venue at the wrong time, and ended up having to drive as fast as I could across town to get to the match. I arrived with 5 mins to spare before forfeiting 3/3, and didn't get a warm up at all, as the match was well underway.

When it was my turn to play, I started to knock up with the C&F3 but it felt and sounded really wrong - very hard and high pitched and bouncy, so I got out the C8 one and used that. I won 3-0, but I didn't play well. In the second match I played with the C&F3 one, and it still felt wrong - much too fast and hard to control. I won 3-0, but again, I didn't play well. The third match was against the fellow I lost to last time. I went back to the regular/c8 combo. Obviously I wanted to win comprehensively, but I played really badly, and I was feeling nervous and lacking confidence because I was making mistakes, and I didn't trust my equipment - I wasn't sure how it would play. I scraped through 3-1, but I could've lost the 4th, and it could've gone to 5. It felt really unpleasant. But I did keep it together, and got through. I didn't want to play in the doubles, but my team mate insisted, and I am glad I did, as I did play a bit better.

So now I'm in a quandry. I don't trust the backup bat, and I think the removal of a bit of wood stuck to the DG isn't helping. I feel like I should probably just get rid of that blade. The regular bat feels fine, and I don't dislike the C8, but so far either no evidence or not enough time to determine if it has any benefits over DG, and I think I'd need a few more sessions with the C8 to make a judgement. I could try the C&F3 on the regular bat, or just put the wrinkly old rubbber back!

However, I'm now worried - I got the backup bat because the regular one is quite dinked, and it's probably only a matter of time before it gets even more dinked. But having had a bad experience buying the same blade and finding it not to be the same at all, I'm wondering if any of them are the same. Maybe my one is unusually slow, or maybe the backup one is unusually fast? So I'm now wondering if I should get a better quality blade and look after it better, or even get two, and hope they're the same! My mind is a bit all over the place.

I'll go to Tuesday social today... and only use the regular bat, but not sure if I'll put the old DG back on or stick with the C8 for a bit, and I have a 1:1 with my coach later today too - again - might stick with the C8 to give it some more time.

I'm regretting making any changes, but it may be premature to worry. I have a league match on Thursday and a tournament at the weekend, so I either need to go straight back to the DG or stick with the C8 until after the tournament, and take a view.

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!

So, I decided that the safest thing to do would be to try to slap a Dornenglanz back on the old blade. I grabbed the one I ripped off the backup blade, and removed the glue sheet (the one that I think I put on backwards!), and stuck it on the older blade. It's basically a new rubber, without any rips or wrinkles, and cut to the same size, so it went on ok.

I went to Tuesday social session, and played for a couple of hours. It's such a great environment for practicing stuff - zero pressure, and mostly doubles, so a range of shots and angles, and I optimise for control and placement, so a very good test for whether I'm feeling comfortable again. Everything felt much better again, and I even found that I was going for more of the assertive flicky shots with the DG just because I know how it behaves, even if notionally something else might be better.

Then a bit later I had a 1:1 with my coach, and everything felt pretty good, and my anxiety levels dropped a bit.

However, during play I did whack the blade on the edge of the table again, but the edge tape did its job and protected the blade, but it does add to my concerns about demolition of the one blade I really am comfortable with!

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Woodnut Dead Slow | DHS 651 | Spinlord Dornenglanz
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - soon entering its 10th year!