OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I'm a chopper.
And more recently, my coach wanted me to ditch the long pips because my "pushes and downspin hits arent threatening" and that I wont get slammed when i "chop back downspin with my LP"
so he gave me RITC Friendship 802 at (2.0 sponge)

It chops WAYYYYY too differently
The feels all off and feels bouncy

The contact point and stroke does not feel right.
Everything is coming off way too low and almost always hits the net.
Help? :/

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Setup 1:
Forehand: Globe 999
BH: 755
Blade : Matsushita Pro

Hi RedDash!

Thanks for sharing your challenge!

I am a Short Pip chopper, And have chopped with Friendship 802, 802-40, 799, and Galaxy Pluto.

I have found all of these to be accurate choppers. However, my personal preference with SP chopping is to use a thinner sponge. This slows down the ball a bit and gives me more accuracy. I can get very good spin with my 799 and .6mm sponge.

This thread on this forum includes a video of a very good SP chopper who uses .5mm sponge:
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=18672

I'm a noob when it comes to sp but I had similar findings.

I tried btf ortho dx on Mat.Pro and it was difficult to control the rebound. Even just holding it out for a block felt weird. I could chop much better with inverted...

I tried dr.evil and when I was far away from the table, I couldnt even make contact with the fast topspins, the pips are so tiny...

The best pip I tried was the 802 with 1.5 sponge. The sponge helped alot but I totally agree its a different stroke because the pips are waaaay shorter. Of course I was using a LP stroke, guess I'm too used to it and its hardwired in my brain now.

If I wore a hat I would take it off to all you sp guys who can chop like the guy in the video! Too hard for most of us...

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A big bag full of blades and long pimples, donuts and coffee!

Here's the thing with short pips chopping. If you chopped for a month with short pips and then a month with long pips. Your 10 best chops from the two months would be all with the short pips. Problem is your 10 worst would be also.

Even though short pips are better for playing aggressively (not much better by the way) and they are much better at making heavy spin early in the rally they are much harder to use while chopping. I think at the elite level short pips would always be better if the user had grown up using them and never used long pips. I don't know that everyone can become a skilled enough chopper to use short pips though. Also once you can master short pip chopping with a lot of sponge it's really not any harder to chop with inverted and inverted is a thousand times better at everything else. Thin sponge short pips much easier though .5 or 1.0mm is pretty easy.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

At a fairly low level, SPs are also better than LPs in some respects - you can generate far more spin against flat-hitters and low-spin loopers. Obviously you won't win "pimples points" (where your opponent misreads the spin coming off the LPs) with them though.

The problem comes when players start using heavy topspin against you. The margin for error against heavy topspin is minimal with SPs, you have to time it well and make the right contact or the ball will simply fly off your bat and off the table.

The other issue is serve receive - if you've been using LPs to receive serve, SPs are significantly harder. The spinnier the SP (i.e. the more you can get on pushes and chops), the harder it is to receive serve. If you're comfortable receiving serve with inverted you'll have no problem at all with using SPs.

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My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtazeX ... oICGS9bqNg
Join the OOAK Discord!: https://discord.gg/Yw2hYUdz3g

[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

I've been playing with inverted for 25 years so using sp against serve needs no brain input, you just hit it back. The spin does basically nothing against sp compared to inverted. I find sometimes it's a bad thing because you can't use that spin to your advantage like you can with inverted.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

Yeah I know what you mean foam but if you've only ever received serve (on the backhand side or whatnot) with LPs then it's like learning a whole new part of the game.

_________________
My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtazeX ... oICGS9bqNg
Join the OOAK Discord!: https://discord.gg/Yw2hYUdz3g

[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)

For the same reasons receiving serve with LP is very difficult if you come from inverted. Its very un co-ordinated and un natural feeling. Because SP is more like inverted it's the easier one to transition too. But still a little harder to chop long range with. Overall coming from inverted the SP is still easier.

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Donic defplay senso
Haifu whale soft (grips-euro)
Nittaku pimplemini 1.0mm

See if you can peel the sponge off the Stiga Destroyer without ruining the rubber, then glue it back on the blade 0X. The Destroyer 0X should chop like a dream on a defensive blade. If you can't get it off you can just buy a new 0X sheet. Play with it for a month till you get used to it and don't give up easily. Learn to use it. Long pips are very different to play with, but since you are already playing with it, it will be less of a change. Learn to use the long pips to attack underspin and nospin, and when receiving serves take whatever spin people give you and add a "twist" to it so it goes back in a different nasty manner than they expected.

Try some thinner 1.7 or 1.8 mm sponge non tacky rubber on the forehand side that's known for both hitting and chopping. I'm using 1.8 mm Yasaka Rakza Soft. Donic Vario Big Slam chopped well too. Yes, you really do need to be careful how you stroke the ball to chop with it, but you can do one heck of a chop with it once you get the stroke right.

If I was going to try short pips, I'd go with TSP Spectol 21 1.8 mm and put it on the forehand with that Destroyer 0X on the backhand. When up at the table, ATTACK with it, and if you need to drop back, chop.

I'm no pro. Just my thoughts.

PS: That means when someone sends you a "DOWNSPIN" ball, you get up there and ATTACK with your long pips. If its low you need to sneak up underneath and behind it and flip it. If its higher you just crush it. If you are going to push it, push it to the opposite side (way to the side if possible) from where it came from or right at their hip, and push it long and fast. Otherwise full chop to the opposite side, back of the table. You need to surprise them with odd spins and fast balls, and make them move to do anything. Make it so it will be hard for them to get a good attack. If they give you a weak ball back as a result, hop over onto your forehand and kill it.

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--- Push/Chop or Attack ---
USATT 1684 left, Lost it all by playing sick and hurt.
No legs left, no more backing up, just smash it!
Blade: TTPiet OFF-/ALL custom
FH: Spinlord Waran Short Pips
BH: Joola Badman Reloaded 0X

I played a shortpip two sided hitting game for years (Clippa 2.0/Spectol 1.8 ) and was able to chop perfectly well with these attacking SP rubbers if required and in position. The difficulty was that they were too fast if I was not set up perfectly for the shot - no forgiveness.

I also played Hard-bat for years in tandem with this. I enjoyed hard-bat much more, so I switched a couple of years ago to playing exclusively with it. Stiga All-around with two Butterfly Orthodox rubbers.

Like many of the other posts on here however, I found that the really big shots were very difficult to return. I was unable to get my own chop on the ball. A hard-bat acts like a wall (or Anti) to the spin of modern inverted rubbers, all of the spin reacts on the racket and bounces back reversed. This could produce very heavy, usually high, backspin returns... OK... but the ball exited the racket so quickly that at my skill level it was impossible for me to get the angle right to get it on the table repeatedly when the attacker varied the level of spin, or especially, the arc of the ball.

So I started experimenting. Just 0.5 of HRS sponge grafted to the back of the orthodox slowed the ball rebound enough to still get the reversal, occasionally vary it, but also control the ball. Next, with the OX I found hitting anything but backspin/push impossible (as any topspin reverses heavily and drops the ball into the net). However, 1.0 of HRS and a higher grip top-sheet than the orthodox, allowed me to SP block and hit - even counter - on the forehand. So...
Stiga Orthodox blade
BH: 0.5 Butterfly orthodox
FH: 1.0 DHS 802

I can now play my hard-bat game effectively and with virtually no revision - except BH blocking - against inverted, and with a little variation coming from the two sides.

Chopping works well both sides with the BH mainly reversal of the income spin and the FH my own chop/variations. I can only Hit against backspin chop/push on the BH, but on the FH I can both Block, and even surprise counter-hit if at mid-distance (not deep).

As proof that it's certainly possible all the way to the top, there was a top world class chopper back in the 90's called Ding Song that played with thin sponge 802

maybe instead going thin SP sponge go for thicker LP sponge... u will have more spin and feel will be closer to normal LP
i tested few SP pips all are too bouncy comparing to LP even with 0.5mm
but if u want test it for urself try something good and cheap like friendship 799 0.6mm

curiosity: i know few chopper using inverted tibhar super defense 40 with 0.5mm sponge
its quite nice, high spin possible with strange spins potential, nice control on chopping, less bouncy than SP
fact: i have bigger problem with those than vs LP. due to strange spins/variations (eg. when they block, sometimes its no spin, sometimes its topspin with same stroke)
often i misread those spins looping into net or off table, its harder to read than from LP block

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Butterfly Defence II / Victas Curl P1V 0.5mm / Tibhar Evolution MX-P 2.0mm -185g

Red Dash, I cant read your signature on my mobile, so I dont know your blade, sorry.

so far, no much controllable pips than LKT Stranger 0.6 mm on chop for me, everything land on the table.

But, on my own experience,

Dr Evil + Tulpe 0.6 mm make great chopping pips on Def Alpha, better at creating spin or no spin than Feint 2, at sligthly more difficult spin handling than Feint 2. This combi also feel rock hard compared to rubbery feel of Feint, or very soft feel of Stranger.

I am still using it now, and still lethal even against university level player.

I've just tried 802 on a 0.5 mm sponge I reclaimed from tsps curl p1r. (which topsheet had lost 4 or 5 pips and bubbled up which I was most dissatisfied with)......
Anyhow on to the 802.....802 is just brilliant. Well, I've had mine for years, it's still fine and super quality. Originally, It was loaded on a 1.5 orange sponge, which, I never seemed to like. It seemed to bottom out a lot...I've never really liked 1.5 sponge as, I think they neither here or there. Not sure if that applies to all 1.5s i guess.
Loaded on this thin sponge chops are decent, a little fast maybe, but flicks and hits awesome. Ive got this on a donic burn allround plus which I sanded and smoothed with a little teak oil. Other side ive juic spin spiel. 802 to summarize plays well. It's good for pushes flicks and some chopping. But chops are quite fast. I'm introducing side spin and it's solid.

I found thin sponge SPs (even as "thick" as 1.3 Spectol) quite easy to control, but more often than not my chops had a fairly low amount of spin.

_________________
My blog: "Learning to play: as a modern defender": http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=22254
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtazeX ... oICGS9bqNg
Join the OOAK Discord!: https://discord.gg/Yw2hYUdz3g

[Other gear I've used]
Blades: Butterfly Defence 3, Butterfly Defence Pro, Butterfly Innerforce ZLC, Butterfly Innershield, DHS Power G7, Stiga Offensive Classic Carbon
SPs: Friendship 802 (1.5), TSP Spectol (1.3, 1.8, 2.1), TSP Spectol Speed (1.3), TSP Super Spinpips Chop Sponge 2 (0.5, 1.3)
LPs: Butterfly Feint Long II (1), Butterfly Feint Long III (0.5, 1.3), Tibhar Grass D.TecS (OX), TSP Curl P1-R (0.5, 1, 1.3), TSP Curl P4 (1.3)