OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Awesome, thanks. Last night I was extra dilligent in pushing/chopping to where they aren't, and to their elbow. All the while twiddling. This worked brilliantly when I was concentrating, and I was "King of the Table" for just one night. (Stayed at the winners table).
One thing I did while twiddling was that I stopped being too concerned with their ball and letting that determine which side I twiddled to (for the most part) but rather I twiddled randomly, and reacted appropriately to the spin with whatever rubber happened to be up. I think reducing one variable (thinking about where to twiddle to) helped me be more consistent. I suspect I've been making my game too complicated.


Another wonderful pearl of wisdom! I'm going to quote you in my signature (if that's okay) as a reminder. I'll remember this when everyone around me is trying to tell me to attack everything.

What do you mean with soft players, Jap? Can you elaborate?

I'm having a very good season this year. I probably will rise two grades this year in my league and I'm starting to beat +-2300 USATT players in training regularly. I even train regularly against a player who plays in the second highest league in the country and I don't have difficulties keeping his topspin balls on the table, be it FH or BH (this guy has an superb touch and superb loops).

In competition I beat everyone who comes in my way (material players, loopers, chiselers...). However, I'm struggling against one kind of player: 3rd ball loopkillers. I'm finding this is a tactic used more and more by young players (+-20 years and younger). I never/rarely encounter this type of game in my age level (+-30) or older players. Not even among the higher graded player I train with.

So, what do they do? They serve (some serve normally, others serve with less spin) and cream the next ball (or wait for a later ball played long with the pips). My returns are low, long and are mostly placed in an inconvenient place (BH, crossover point or far FH). That does not seem to bother them very much. They cream it to a very inconvenient place with their hyperboosted-in-factory rubbers and if the ball comes back, they smack the return (thse balls often still contain a lot of backspin, but are short and high).

Now I'm breaking my head over these kind of players, because if you see their player's card (the card mentioning all wins and defeats of the current season), you see most of them don't even will get a higher grade next season or they'll even receive a lower one. These players are also very keen to win against me, probably because they know I'm doing so well. F****** !

Anyway, I'm having four solutions to overcome these kind of players. These are:

1) Better placement: probably shorter and sometimes higher when deep to let them miss their loopkill. If they get it on the table, my return must be a lot deeper. Still it's a risky game, because I don't find any place on the table safe for these kind of players and I'm always under great pressure.

2) Learning to push backspin with my P1-R against their no-spin shots or even pushes: now I don't know if this can be done and if it can be done, will it be an effective method to prevent their loopkill? I read Joo uses a thicker sponged P1-R because he has better control in pushing shots (creating more of his own spin?) and I read a review on Noppentest of Fab (great review, btw ) stating you can create moderate backspin on pushes with the thick P1-R.

3) Switching to SPs: these will cover the whole weakness, but this will be a whole new learning curve. I'm also afraid SPs can't create the heavy backspin I'm currently producing and will have (a whole lot?) less control.

4) Quitting the game: Yes, even when having the prospect of rising two levels next season, I don't find this type of TT appealing anymore. I find the current plastic ball makes this type of game a lot easier for that kind of players. With the celluloid ball you had spin to work with and unpleasant ball flights they had to deal with. These two features have diminished a whole lot since the introduction of the plastic ball.

I'm wondering how the pro's dealt with these kind of players (if they ever did). You don't see that kind of game very often, if at all, at the top level. So pro defenders have to have a solution to deal with these kind of stupid games.

Any thoughts? Oh yes, I'm a left-handed defender.

Did you leave the game? Or is your issue gone?

I left the game. I'm playing petanque now. I'm having problems with the same kind of player in that sport too. I don't know what to do anymore. I might just as well stay home and only watch television as a hobby. Wait: I'm doing that!

I'm not experiencing that problem anymore or at least just in a small degree. It might have to do with the fact that my receive got better or that I didn't encounter these type of players anymore in recent times.

Boy, it feels like an eternity I played TT with the current lock down. My post of four years ago feels like an eternity x 10.

So you left or not? I presume your 1 part of message was some joke, because later you said the problem is gone.

Are you allowed to play this Pentaque at the moment Lorre? It's such an obscure game here I don't know what the cops reaction would be if they caught 2 people playing in a socially distanced manner as exercise lol