OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I wish I could help you Reb,

the best I can do is look at a young American player called Joey Cockram( I think?) he played here in Melbourne last year against some of our best local players in pennant and superleagure comps. He did pretty well from memory and was given a local points ranking. I can not remember the exact numbers but my memory suggests that I noted this was approximately 200-300 points less than his US ranking which I found on a US ranking site. This would suggest our points system is generally this amount below the US system but please remember this is a very general observation only, you would need to do this with a number of other players before it may be considered accurate.
Reb has there ever been a topic trying to establish the difference.

It would be fun if all forum members could more accurately place themselves on a universal points system relative to each other.

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

Mars,

There is a website that we looked at a whiles back that did some sort of general conversion, but you needed to have an Aussie points ranking first - which only comes from playing tourney's of course. Silver put it up I think from memory. I'll try and find the thread and bring it up again if I can. I know Silver mentioned there being some fundamental flaws in the way it worked due to the small populations of ranked players we have.

I agree that it would be fun and interesting to have some real comparison of members here though. We do have our "fun" ranking thread though. Have you ever seen it? I put you in there ages ago before you really got involved here. I'll have to re-surface that one too.

So do you remember the rough US rating o the guy that came over? Was he 2000 or 2500? I assume he was playing in A2 or A3?

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

No I think this guy is a top gun young player in the US, if you google him he has numerous games and serving demos on the net. He was playing our top state players when I saw him turn up @ Dandy to play in the superleague series last year.
I will see if I can dig up stats/ranking on him but I would be surprised if the other US members did not know him.

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

Well I just got home from finishing our matches for week 3 of our Summer season, and I'm happy to report we had yet another win, albeit a very close one. An odd night actually. Looked like we would breeze it in, considering we were 4-0 up after 4 matches (that's hard to beat lol). That's where we then stumbled.

I played the 5th match and I decided to put the Joola R1 into a "live" test. A mistake? I'm not sure as it really did serve me quite well in the match and perhaps I wouldn't have gotten so close without it. Or perhaps the Cayman may have triumphed as it did in my first match of the night which was a close 5 setter. Who knows? All I know is in this next match, it was again a close 5 setter, but with an opposite result to the first match. I lost the first game narrowly at 11-9. The guy I was playing was a very strong looper, but he did get a bit tricked up with the pips. And every time he looped down my FH I just attacked it hard. Had pretty good success doing this with the R1 too. I put a lot of blocks and counter-smashes back on the table. Many of them I was then amazed came back to me though. Now normally if I counter-smash successfully that's that. But this guy had amazing recovery. One ball I smashed and had said goodnight to, he moved so quickly back and across and chopped it back on the table. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like everything had suddenly gone in slow motion for him. The barrier is about 15 feet back and he was about 2 feet off the barrier returning my smash. And he did it quite a few times, and not just to me, but all of us. So then winning the second game 13-11 I was pretty stoked. In the third he took back the advantage and won another close one 11-9. Often I get into this sitaution and feel like I've lost my grip, but in the 4th I held my tether and when I got the score to 10-8 he sent me down a stiff fast loop just off to my FH side and I smashed it back at him down the middle and he couldn't get the bat on it this time. Unfortunately, I then anti-climaxed. I think I was about done lol, cos I lost focus and before I knew it he was 8-3 up on me. I managed to drag it back to 11-5, but the marathon had gone his way.

My teammates also had losses in the middle singles and suddenly our opponents were at 4-3 and looking strong again. I played the second doubles as I did last week. We managed to repeat our performance of last week too, although we won it 3-1, not 3-0 this week. It was a good win though, considering the opponents pushed us very hard. Their best player, who had just taken our team captain through a 5 set loss, was tough opposition. He had a heavy and variable chop serve that you had to really focus and judge the right lift and push to get his serve back. Both of us sent more than one of his serves into the net, and equally gave them some pop-ups off it. We dropped the second game and were threatened on each of the others, but it was a relief when we pulled off the 4th game (and not having to go to yet another 5 setter).

It was lucky we won the doubles because we only scraped up 1 singles win in the last singles session. I played their best player and I was beaten 3-0, but I felt I did pretty well really. In the first game he let me get away to a 6-0 lead and I thought great. I might bag the first at least. However, he then put his mind to the game more and he drew level with me at 10-10. I won the next point, but that was all. He got the next 2 to be 13-11. He played very carefully to get here though, and feeling like I had nothing to lose played carefully until I saw opportunity and then got a bit blaze`. In the second, it was more evenly paced and we went along pretty much head to head. I got to 10-8 and really tried to win that next point, but no, he pulled a couple out when he needed them and got it to 10 all again. The deuce went back and forth a couple of times this time, but he got the advantage at 13-12, and took out the next point for a 14-12 win. In the third, I think I was just trying to get something going that had no more fire in it. I went down about 11-4 I think.

The guy I lost to in my second game hurt himself in the umpires chair, umpiring our doubles or one of the earlier singles, I'm not sure. He knocked his hand on the side of the desk trying to shoo away a fly. His finger swelled up. He was considering withdrawing in his last singles, is how bad it was. He decided he could hold his bat and play, and blow me down, but our player lost to him lol. Well the guy said our guy lost the match for himself, which I think is largely true. He knows it himself. He has one switch, and its labelled fast loop. As I get to know him, I found out tonight he played as a State Junior some 8 years ago. His serve shows the training he has had. So do a lot of his shots. But the edge is off them, and so often loop attempts end up in the net or flying 30 feet in the air of his bat edge. He also told me tonight he buys stuff of OOAK and reads the forum. I tried to convince him to join up here, but he seemed a bit shy to. I'll have to work on him through the season! So if you are reading this my teammate, join up and feel free to make your first post here lol.

Oh, I almost forgot to give the best scoreline of the night, which was my first match. If you read my other reports, the guy I played was the one I played 2 weeks ago after matches and beat him in about 6 games. Tonight started on a dream note. First game, I won it 11-1. Was hoping to do the 11-0 again lol, but he got a point when I was about 7-0. Hoping to do something similar in the next, but no such luck, he turned tables and beat me 11-6. In the third, once again I got the jump on him a bit. This time I had him 4-2, and I ended up beating him 11-4. In the 4th, the trend continued with one end seemingly blessed and the other end cursed. He won this one 11-7. So, in the last game I had the good end to start with. At the change I was 5-0! Now ordinarily you'd think breeze it in. But no, he started winning again, and got the score back to 6-4. I thought, this is ridiculous, I need to move my score along. It worked to a degree, I got to 8-6. Then it went to 9-7. I felt it was too close for comfort and went on a smash attack on the next point and ended up planting on after running around to my FH on a pop-up to my BH. I normally hate this, but with the achilles in the shape it was in, it was even worse. Well I managed to land a fairly heavy smash across his BH side without overshooting the table. On the next point he went for a smash on a shot off my pips and went wide and long down my BH, and the match was mine! Phew!

So, we were top of the table before tonight. We know the second team, who were only 1 game behind us, won tonight. What we don't know is what their scoreline was. So we may have been knocked off top. The funny thing is, 2 of the guys in that team (and it still has the same name) are the same guys that beat my team in the B3 final in the season I finished off with the snapped achilles. The captain of the team also just happens to be the nice 77 year old gent who is somehow distantly related to Mars, by marriage twice over or something lol. So I might get stiffed by them again, or maybe we can extract some sweet revenge if we make the final. We haven't played them yet, so we might get an idea of how we'd go in the next 2 weeks. If we keep this winning streak up, then we ought to at least make the final anyway.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Hi Reb. Sounds like you guys had nice competitive night. Cong. on win mate. One pice of advice dont swich bats betwen the matches.

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Blade:
F/H:
B/H:

Ratingscentral.

Has mostly USA players, TTQ has been using it though.

To reiterate the flaws of using this system to compare players, the largest "group" in the system will have the highest ratings and also the highest spread.

The (simplified) theory is easy to understand: two (or more) player groups that do not (or have very limited) interact between each other will have vastly different ratings. They're pretty much two seperate, closed, systems. The largest group on ratingscentral also includes ITTF matches that the ratingscentral people seem to be adding themselves. So basically you've got an extreme high end here. Now since they're closed systems and the system operates on a points exchange, the median where the group is initially inserted and the size of the group will determine the upper and lower ranges.

What ratingscentral have done to attempt to normalise the ratings is provide a stack of videos of players at various rating levels. Unfortunately we all know how hard it is to judge and compare people, so invariably something will be different.

TTQ has been inserting people all over the shop. I've seen a couple of people inserted at 1100 and shoot up to about 1500 in a couple of tournies and also people inserted at 1500 and dropping to 1100. This can introduce a stack (400) of points that slowly gets distributed around the system and push the median up, or vice versa.

In any case, this may mean that a 1500 player in the TTQ group may be equiv to a 1000 rated in the "USA" group, or maybe even a 1500 rated USA group player may be a only 1000 in the TTQ group.

Obviously the medians won't be that far (500p) apart, but they will still be different.

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Chasse Patate

Thanks mate. This was the first time in quite a long time I had used a different setup between matches. I just had to give it a go. I don't think it was a bad decision really, although in hindsight I might have been better to "test" it out on their best player lol. I have another Palio coming anyway, so I'll be trying to Palio on the R1 next. I think the feel between the Cayman and the R1 is actually like the R1 is just a heavier version of a similar feel. Not that hard to interchange.

Anyway, not to worry, still having fun!

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

My team suffered its first loss of the season tonight. It was about as narrow as a loss can be, and it was against the team that had taken over top spot from us, so it wasn't a disaster. Of course a win would have been much preferred as it would have put us back on top. It wasn't to be though. So we went down fighting at 6/5 with a few of the games having gone to the wire at 3-2. One of those games was our youngest player playing against the dual LP player in their team (if you guessed Mars63's brother-in-law's father-in-law, then you were right ). Their match finished at 16-14 in the final set. At 14-13 our guys way, the opponent blocked the ball back from a distance only to have it hit the net, sit their for a nanosecond and drop on our guys side. You could say that ball summed up the night. A fair bit was left to chance.

Once again I played first, except I arrived on the dot tonight having been held up at an earlier appointment. Usually I like at least an hour to warm up. The team we played tonight are all well over 70 years old, and they have the wood over most players in the comp (although only one is a pimples player oddly enough). I played the old Frenchman. He had a shoulder injury and complains he should not be there. Yet he aptly wiped the table with me as I tried to get a grip on things as they slipped away in each set. The first 2 sets I went down only gaining about 4 or 5 points each set. Then I started to get a semblance of order by the 3rd set and lost it 11-9. Too little too late.

My young Chinese friend then lost to the other player in the opposing team who would also be in his late 70's. This guy looked like he can barely play. He has almost no footwork or movement in his game and he blocks most everything waiting for the opponents mistake. Mind you when he gets an opportunity, he's like a snake striking with amazing speed when its least expected. He often lulls you to a false sense of security that oops that pop-up is ok, cos he doesn't do much but block...whoops where did that come from?

So then my older Chinese friend and team captain steadied the ship with a 3-0 win against their dual LP player. Then the 2 Chinese guys played doubles and added no points to our score with it. So we were 3-1 down and looking down the barrel. Fortunately, the younger player on my team managed to beat the old Frenchman and had us back to 3-2. But then it was my turn to play my "arch nemisis" as Mars puts it, the dual LP player.

He caught me still on the hop of not being terribly well warmed up and I lost the first game 11-2. I saved some composure in the next game losing it 11-7, but still wasn't doing well. The angled shots I rely on so much off the pips were just going beserk. I'd put a little bit of angle on the blade and the ball was exaggerating it and sending the ball miles wide. In the third game I got some control over this and started moving my opponent around and managed to take him down at 11-9. In the fourth game I thought I had a handle on his game and went along on a point for point type basis (well I did after he got the first 2 points lol). I ended up going down 11-9 in this one and so lost the match 3-1.

Our captain beat the old no footwork guy in the next game and we were 4-3 down going into the doubles. Normally I've been fairly confident in doubles with the captain as we hadn't lost a match up until tonight. However, these guys were tough old stagers and there was no guessing how we'd go. The first game was tight with a lot of blocking and running around out of each other's way, sometimes managing to block back on the table where they weren't, other times not quite reaching their smash for the block. Anyway, we managed to win it narrowly 11-9. OK so this was a good start. In the second game tables turned fast and we found ourselves on the losing end of 11-3. Still not sure how that happened. We redeemed ourselves in the next though, and won it more comfortably at 11-7. Mars would have been proud of me on this one as it was my serve nearing the end of the game and I served 2 serves that looked very similar. One was sent sailing back over the table and the next went straight into the net. Seems they couldn't pick the top vs the under spin I have on the ball. Anyway, we stitched up the next game as well, winning it 11-7 as well and equalising the match score at 4 a piece.

The next singles was the one I described earlier where our younger guys lost by the narrowest of margins. He admittedly had no idea of how to play Long Pimples he said. To his credit he tried different strategies and after losing the first 2 games, he switched to a lobbing type game where he went fishing for missed smashes. He was greeted back though with lobs back to him and it wasn't a bad strategy in some ways, because he was often getting a perfect setup for himself to then smash. If he hadn't missed so many as well he might even have won. He did get to 2 all in the match at least, and then had his net ball mishap.

Our captain then had an unusual loss of form and lost to the old Frenchman. I didn't see the result, but I think it was a 5 setter as well. So this sunk our night as it put us 6-4 down. I was thinking how I didn't rate my chances of meeting my personal goal tonight of winning a singles and a doubles. This last game I had to play was going to be tough I thought. I'd played the old guy in a championship game last year and he'd trounced me. And true to expectation, shortly into the first game he had me down 8-2. Oh boy, was this going to be a bad night! I decided to try a few different things with what I had left of the game and managed to drag it back to 10-6 before going down 11-7. I got my confidence just a little pricked by this, and in the second game I played a bit more cunningly and before I knew it I had evened the match score by winning the game 11-8. I'd managed to move the ball around more and even though he seemingly has no footwork I had him moving and stretching for the ball. I took the same strategy into the third game, but it didn't seem to be working quite as well. We levelled up at 8-8 and he was looking the goods over me. Then I hit one of the most amazing shots I can ever recall hitting in TT. Everyone who saw it was stunned. My opponent couldn't believe his eyes. He smashed at my body and my bat was almost out of position to even hit the ball. Somehow I dragged it in toward my chest and just to the ball before it hit my chest. The pace of the ball and the angle I hit it sent the ball back over the net at some pace and it landed 6 inches in front of the net 3 inches from his BH side. It was like watching it in slow motion as it went, and it was GLORIOUS! I exclaimed something like "Can you believe THAT!" It sunk my opponents will and I went on to win the game 11-9.

I was riding on high confidence going into the next game and I felt I had the momentum. We had another tough game still and it was no gimme. I got to 10-7 and still I wasn't convinced the match was mine yet. And with good reason as he smashed the ball past me to go to 10-8. The momentum felt like it has switched his way. We rallied a little on the next point and he went for another smash on me. My heart went into my mouth and then fell back with relief as his smash went long by a foot or so! So I had managed to pick up my singles match for the night still, and saved us from being 2 extra points behind this team on the table that we would have been if I'd lost.

The third team had a big 9/2 win tonight and are snapping at our heels too. Not sure if they have the points to kick us out of 2nd spot or not. We play the bottom team next week, so hopefully we can recover some lost ground! And somehow, we have to then work out how to beat this nemesis team, by the time we play them again... or in the Final at least...if we make it (I'm sure they will).

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Oh, I should also note, I played all my matches with the Cayman tonight! Even though I was tempted to pull out the T-8.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Bad luck mate at last you got one win in singles will be better next time.

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Blade:
F/H:
B/H:

Thanks mate. Yeah I was happy enough to win the one singles. Mind you if I had won 2 we would have won. But it was more likely that my younger teammate would have won 2. Oh well.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Bad luck Reb,
as I know most of the faces you are referring to I almost felt like I was there, good report.
Tight losses are never good but at least it should help your %ages up on the ladder.

I missed last Monday as I couldn't move for a couple of days after I pulled a muscle in my right side, made it impossible to play any kind of stroke, anyway its come good now.

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Blade Stiga Hybrid Wood FH Butterfly Dignics 05 BH Butterfly Tenergy 05 FX

Sorry to hear about injury,how is it now,can you play
My right shoulder is giving me some light paine lately I couldnt loop last night with full swing and got belted by total outsiders

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Blade:
F/H:
B/H:

Cheers Mars. Sorry to hear you had to miss a week's comp. Its never a preference, but better than missing several weeks by doing further injury. Glad to hear its come good again.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Your matches sound 10 times more exciting than mine...

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Chasse Patate