OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi everybody,

I was asked to compare the German table tennis ranking system with some other nations:
Some of you may have asked themselves what that TTR means that I mentioned in my videos.

The German TTR ('table tennis rank') is similar to the USATT. The TTR is an table tennis specific implementation of the ELO ranking known from chess and was introduced one year ago. Thus it is quite new, but contains all matches of the last 6 years of ~90% of all players in Germany.
It turns out that the TTR is a very good measure to compare different players all over Germany and the global differences are relatively small. That means that a player with a TTR of 1500 that plays in northern Germany is comparable good as an athlete of southern Germany, which has an TTR of lets say 1450 - 1550.

An athlete that plays on a very constant level fluctuates about +-25 TTR points - often much less, about +-10 points.

The spread goes from ~800 TTR (beginners) to ~2700 (Timo Boll).

Here some estimated domains of the TTR for the German leagues - whereby the names of the leagues differ in the different regions of germany. Here I mention the leagues of the WTTV region:

1.Bundesliga (2300-2700)
2.Bundesliga (2000-2400)
Regionaliga (1900-2200)
Oberliga (1800-2100)
Verbandsliga (1700-2000)
Landesliga (1650-1950)
Bezirksliga (1600-1900)
Bezirksklasse (1500-1750)
Kreisliga (1400-1650)
1. Kreisklasse (1350-1550)
2. Kreisklasse (1300-1500)
3. Kreisklasse (1200-1450)
Hobbyklasse (1000-1400)

I looked for comparisons to the USATT and found some german players that are both ranked in TTR and USATT. For example I found one player with a lot of matches both in USA and Germany. He has a TTR of ~1650 and a USATT of ~2100. But most german players participated only at one championship in the USA thus it is difficult to find more convincing examples.

Here some players that played both in the USA and in Germany - in bold I emphasized that players that did quite a lot of matches in Germany AND the USA:

name TTR | USATT
--------------------------------------------------------------
Aleksandar Karakasevic 2500 | 2850
Thomas Keinath 2420 | 2800
Lucian Blaszczyk 2500 | 2800
Joerg Rosskopf 2400 | 2730
Patrick Baum 2450 | 2730
Steffen Mengel 2350 | 2720
Stefan Feth 2275 | 2700
Andreas Ball 2130 | 2675
Tanja Hain-Hofman 2100 | 2500
Franz-Josef Huermann 1870 | 2230
Sebastian Lenzen 2050 | 2230
Thorsten Esch 1700 | 2140
Andreas Hain 1800 | 2130
Fabian Schulenburg 1800 | 2120
Markus Kirsten 1650 | 2100
Volker Schoeppe 1550 | 2070
Michael Backes 1600 | 1900

This means that my TTR of ~1750 is comparable to an USATT of 2100-2250.

Do you know some other players that helps to compare the USATT and the TTR?

Greetings,
Variatio

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

I don't know their TTR, but:
Andreas Ball - 2700 USATT (Bundesliga)
Michael Backes - 1900 USATT (Oberliga I think)

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USATT rating - 1971

Looks and sounds like a great system Variatio, are all games iresults collected weekly from League games and from other regional tournaments as well?
What about Jnrs and over 40's over 21's are these players grouped all in together? and then maybe ranked later?

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Very interesting and informative post Varatio

Its great to have another dimension of ratings to see and compare to.

How do you see that your 1750 is in the range of 2100-2250 USATT? That seems a wide band. From the people you posted it seems 1750 is likely to be more like the higher end of that range against the players who have played a lot in both systems (the bolded ones).

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Also if a German player plays in another Country does that effect thier ratings? I mean from the lower leagues?

I myself wouldn't take too much faith in the highest German players with the 2400/ 2730 such ratings exchange as the American would just say "Oh this is a high level player and our highest is 2700 so we will just judge him to be 2730" (slightly above the USA top player. but the lower rated players getting an average of 400 + rating points higher shows the real strength of numbers in the German Table Tennis system

Just one last thing are women players mixed into the Leagues? and how high are the top German women players rated?

_________________
Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
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The upper German leagues seem to have a consistant 300-500 point difference between TTR and USATT rating. However I'm not sure the big difference would hold true for Kreisklasse to Bezirksklasse. Looking at YouTube, most of those players look similar to club players anywhere.

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This looks really interesting. Thanks, Variatio, for all the hard work you've done here.

I think the thing that interests me most is your observation that a player ranked at a given level in one part of the country will be close to a player of similar ranking elsewhere. If any system is worth its salt, that needs to be a given. Equally, if this system were to be adopted more widely, it would have to give consistent results wherever it was used.

Are they any other European countries who use the same system? Is it possible to gauge relative playing levels with other nations?

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Added to the list - but he plays "Bezirksklasse" in Germany.

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

They are collected and updated daily!
Thus the TTR points are very up to date.

They all belong to the TTR system - juniors, seniors, women, ...
All official matches (championships, tournaments, ...) slip in the TTR. Thus (assiciated with a global initialization) we get the wide comparability of all registered players.

Tanja Hain-Hofman was TTR rated with ~2100 points when she played some tournaments in the USA. There she had a USATT of ~2500.

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

Well - I don't know how players in the USA would play against my material. If there are a lot of pips killer I'll be at the lower end of this range.

But in another thread a read something about local differences of the USATT in different states. Thus in some state I may be rated at 2100, in others at 2250.

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

From what I can see 2100-2250 seems in the right ballpark for your standard but possibly closer to the 2100 mark.

As far as I know the French use also an ELO based rating system. But I don't speak french, thus until now I got no further information.

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

It almost seems like he would be a ringer in that league. Any chance he used to play Oberliga and now plays Bezirksklasse? Cuz I could have sworn he told me he was playing Oberliga when I met him.

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USATT rating - 1971

Ah - ok. Probably it's a different "Michael Backes" ...
Now I searched for the moments of his results - two days before and after his USA tournaments he should have played in Germany. I don't think that this is useful - thus he is not 'our man'.

But the TTR of the 'wrong man' (~1600) correspondes to its USATT of ~1900.

_________________
Link: My Youtube-Channel
German TTR: ~1750 --> USATT ~2200
Material A: BBC X-Fusion, Hellfire OX, Vega Pro 2.0mm, 166g
Material B: BBC 8.5-10-8.5, Dornenglanz OX, Vega Pro 1.8mm, 157g

Link: Pimp-My-Blade-Forum

Variatio, could you find for me (or otherwise point me to where I can find) the rating for Henk van Spanje, who last year played for Bad Hamm in the 2. Bundesliga? I beat him earlier this year and I want my bragging rights.

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