OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Not bad at all, wish we had something like that here in FL!
Normally you'd pay over $100 for 3 events and no lunch included of course.

To be fair, in 3 events you would play more matches, should be around 10+ I think. I played 2 singles and 2 doubles on Saturday, plus matches were in 'best of 3' format to help with pacing, so a bit less of game time.

Edit: I also want to acknowledge that things like playing conditions and competence of organizers are HUGELY important to me, event fees are much less so. Nothing upsets me more than having to wait forever for the match to be called while there are plenty of free tables available. This tournament was competently run, I'll be happy to be back.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Ready to rock tomorrow!

Hit for a bit with a JOOLA Prime ABS ball (bought a 6-pack) - feels solid with somewhat 'rough' surface. Table bounce is somewhat different from a club (faster?). Lighting is uneven across tables, depending which one you end up with - the ones directly under lamps (which are quite bright) measured almost 800 Lux, while ones next to them are around 370 (no guarantee my cheap light meter is that accurate), and difference is visible to the naked eye as well. Just something to adjust for.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Had a pretty good 1st day at Teams: went 10-1 while playing all 4 team matches (so much for sitting out some and trying to pace myself).

It boiled down to the last team match of the day being against the team one level above us (Day 1 is 'calibration day', where you play 2 teams nominally ranked above you and 2 below you) - we already beat two teams below us and lost to the '+2' team. We decided that we want to maximize our chances of beating '+1' team, so I had to play again - originally intended to sit that one out, given that we already were guaranteed not to drop to a lower division.

Did end up playing a deciding match against their best player (~1940) and managed to beat him in 5 - probably my best win ever. Somehow got in the zone and managed to move well and, more importantly, going for soft reliable shots when needed, especially on FH (hey, short game matters!).

Quite a bit sore right now, but curious how we'll do tomorrow. If I'm not mistaken, we're looking at 5 matches

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Day 2 at Teams.

We did get promoted to Division 8 and played 4 matches after all (3 more on Sunday). We were the lowest ranked team in our RR group - played our first match against juniors from Canada. Discovered just in time that they had very little experience against pips - it saved my match against their top player when I realized that I can serve short to FH with pips and he was unable to do much. My new best win against 2000+ player (edit: or may be not - can't find him in USATT database, so perhaps it was his Canadian one?? Edit 2: yes, they had estimated ratings obtained by extrapolation from Canadian ones) . Did beat other two players too, but we lost decider in 9th.

Things looked pretty good after that - went 7:2 with a couple of other good wins, two losses came against a junior who was way underrated, and a wily old man with SP on FH and a bag of TT tricks. Sat out the last match to save some energy.

We went 1:3 match-wise, which was not too bad for a lowest ranked team. Tomorrow we'll get a chance of revenge against Canadian team that beat us last year, and also a team of juniors, where all 4 of them seem to be choppers. That one should be interesting...

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Who in the photo are you?

Should be easy to guess, there is another photo on the previous page

(I'm on the right).

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Day 3 of Teams.

Regression to the mean kicked in: went 1:4 in 3 matches (which still makes for a respectable 18-7 for the tournament). Some things that were working during first two days, decided to take a day off - especially on FH side. Too much aggression in strokes showed up, with misses to follow.

Team with 4 junior choppers turned out to have only 3 choppers on their roster and they decided to sit one - lost to one of them and also to a speedy double inverted kid who punched a hole in my BH. Got creamed by a classic penholder on a Canadian team, it's amazing how long it takes to adjust to opponent having stroke mechanics you are not familiar with, all visual cues have to be re-learned. Finally, played a couple of 1800+ players in the last team match and managed to split it.

Ran into a fellow forum member 'notfound123' - we hit for a bit and played a very friendly match. His FH is much more mature compared to mine.



Watched a bit of Div 1 final - saw semi-limping Chen Weixing beating Tao Wenzhang in 5 at deuce. You could see how both players were making adjustments through the match, and how many tricks CWX has up his sleeve. Never realized how 'violent' his chops and pushes are: almost no backswing, just pure acceleration. His FH loops frequently have plenty of side spin, and side swipes with pips were very versatile (but not very frequent).

Overall quite happy with the way tournament went: played mostly smart, never got angry, won a few key close matches. Come to think of it, I won all (4) of my 5-game matches, which is probably a first. For the second year in a row all our opponents were quite nice which made for a pleasant experience too.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

I must add that during our friendly match pgpg basically wiped the floor with me and overall had shown a great tournament form. His close-to-the-table LP game is super deadly.

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Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?

I told you that I don't get to chop much in the matches... so had to compensate in other ways. Every time you got a ball to loop, though, I could only watch it zoom by (that is if it did not hit me in the belly first ).

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Made it to Setubal tonight after spending almost 2 days in Lisbon and Sintra (both are awesome, will get a chance to come back to Lisbon on the back of the trip). Checked into club's dorm (more than enough for a decent stay). David Diniz, the coach, is a cool guy, looking forward to training tomorrow:

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Setubal Day 1:

Started at 10 am with David to more or less evaluate my game: some FH, some BH (at the table and far away chops), serve/receive, practice match (I lost 1:3). I guess I did reasonably OK, since he called me a 'good player' in the end . Obviously I tend to do a lot of stupid things, so something to work on.

In the afternoon we mostly focused on some situational drills: FH-FH-FH (footwork), BH-BH-FH, 4th ball attack etc. Loved it.

In the evening a bunch of club members showed up for practice (not super structured). I hit with 3 guys: one (a lefty) was quite a bit better than me, but at least I did not embarrass myself that much; a younger kid who had great FH, but struggled with my FH chops (not sure how I even ended up there...). Finally a dude who needed some practice against pips for upcoming competition (hey, I have some use here!) - we hit for quite some time and then played a 'best of 3' practice match that I won 2:1. Overall, lots of fun.

Loving it so far - was given some pretty interesting homemade wines to try by club owner, which I'm sampling as I write this ('BRS' should've mentioned it in his reviews of the club - gotta love Portugal ).

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

JOOLA Teams results got processed - gained 130+ points, to reach my career high of 1911 . My tournament and League ratings are almost identical now, which is a rarity.

Looks like quite a few of my clubmates did pretty well too, with several crossing 2000 threshold.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

That's big, congrats!

Congrats! Only 89 points to go to reach the magic number

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Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?