OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Wow LB super sound advice you got there! Solid one mate!

Yup. That's the new one!

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Your statement may be true for pro chopping, as they do the full chopping motion all the time, and without it they would lose control of the ball, because they have grippy pips.

With amateur chopping and not so grippy pips the truth is different. We have 3 defenders in our club with close ratings and we produce very different spin from far away chopping.

1. Heavy chopper with grippy pips and usually thick sponge, maybe heviest underspin in the country.
2. Me with varying amounts of chopping motion and not so grippy pips.
3. Older ox player that usually don't do any kind of chopping motion - he just put blade in front of the ball. With my 0.5 sponge he does the same and balls still land good (althought not so low).

It's not like we are in 45-55% range spinwise, but more likely in the 30-70% range or more.

Update:

So in my quest to adopt a shakehand modern defender game (coming from penhold. Yeah it's a big switch) last night's practice went well. Must have hit 500 ish chops & same number for forehands vs robot. Training partner is coming over tonight.

Forehand topspin is the biggest adjustment. But that's to be expected coming from penhold. Surprisingly though chopping is very easy. Reminds me of the same motion almost I do on a standard pendulum serve.

The chopping. I'm starting to like the Palio ck531a 1.0 away from the table. Getting use to it. Felt that vs topsin, after a couple of hundred of balls I started to tweak and found I was hitting the ball to flat or too much on the backside of the paddle. The balls were relatively fast and maybe not super spiny. I'll save that for the change up in spin.

But after a while I really started to feel like I was almost hitting the pure bottom side of the ball and somehow with the low grip of the LP, not popping the ball up. Maybe I was finally starting to engage the sponge and/or bend the pips. Anyways, this was taking off the spin of the ball immensely and adding a whole lot more spin & consistency. So that was pleasing. I found it helps if I let the ball get pretty low for this shot. Say between knee & waist level.

Robot was also on oscillating which helped remind me to keep my feet moving. On balls where I maybe wasn't in the best of place and coming right at my body I ended up having to do this side swipe chopping motion that would seemingly curve greatly in the air. i almost suspect that ball has a bit of side top on it. Not sure. Either way, that might give some opponents fits. However I'm not nearly consistent enough to rely on that shot.

We'll see how things progress.

_________________
Stiga Clipper Classic
FH - TSP Spectol Red 2.0
BH - Dawei 388D-a 1.5

When does it make sense to start to try to introduce intentional spin variation on FH chops into your game? Right now, I will only really introduce variation on purpose by alternating between FH and BH chops.

_________________
Seeking joy and fitness in recreational modern defense.
My blog: "Two rubbers, one racket"
Kill the game against long Pimps with Coach Li!

Currently experimenting with short pips: VKMO + Xiom Vega China VM + TSP Super Spinpips Chop 1 (1.5)

Err, the truth is,

The spin variation also the function of what rubber did You use for chopping, so, twiddling between Inverted and LP gave largest variation, assuming the player can do both inverted and LP chopping well, on both wing. You are not at fault here.

If You ask me, when to vary spin intentionally? I said, now, or as soon as possible.

Several good way to vary spin, whether intentional or accidental
- Twiddling. Some may argue, but I trust twiddling the best way to vary spin
- Chop slower or faster than incoming ball spin
- intercept the ball with blade face close or far from the handle
- bend Your wrist up or down, or even more evil, inward or outward, and stationary or moving when chopping
- chop early or late
- chop perpendicular or lateral to incoming ball
- chop higher or lower than table height
- see or not see the ball. I have seen player that red my eyes when receiving, and this little trick really catch Him off guard
- intercept the ball with chop when the blade going down, sideways, or up. This the best weapon from Victoria Pavlovich.
- chop down or stab down or sliding door retreat to the right. See Jang Song Man vs Cheung Yuk for reference.
- execute the chop or just stationary block.
- I may miss some good ways, so please add



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Not sure whether you're asking when in your development as a player it makes sense to start working on making spin variation on forehand chops a part of your game or when, in the course of a game/point, it makes sense to try to introduce spin variation.

If it's the former, I'd say as soon as you feel comfortable with your bread-and-butter heavy forehand chop, you can start working on spin variation.

If it's the latter question you're asking, I'd say that what you usually want to try to do is start off with pure heavy chopping on your forehand to get that in your opponent's mind (and also to see how comfortable he is looping those heavy chops). Depending on their level, many opponents will put your initial heavy chops into the net and might take two or three chops before they get acclimated to them. As soon as that happens, you can start introducing spin variation. This is easiest to do off of your opponent's drives rather than heavy loops, but it tends to be super effective in the middle of points. So, for instance, here's a pattern: let's say you just chopped heavy with your BH pips, and your opponent pushed the ball to your backhand, whereupon you pushed with your pips (a no-spin ball). If your opponent tries to loop or drive the next ball to your forehand, it's unlikely to be super spinny, which makes it easier for you to control, and so a fake chop here is effective.

Of course, once you get the hang of fake-chopping off of heavier loops, then you can really confuse opponents with back-to-back forehand chops of the spinny and non-spinny varieties. The key is not to overuse this stroke. You want your opponent staring in confusion at his rubber rather than realizing why he missed.

One thing I'll add is this: the reason many people find it hard to do a fake chop is that their "real" forehand chop isn't sufficiently heavy. They do too much scooping under the ball and not enough actual grazing of the ball in an axe-like diagonal motion. So, as I said, before you introduce this stroke into your game, you'll want to make sure you can actually do a real, heavy forehand chop.

_________________
I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

Might help to answer the original question, if you think about asking the question about loop instead of chop. How many points are actually won by fooling the opponent with a dummy loop fake top spin and how many are won by strongest possible top spin? I'd say very few are won by fakery and any fakery works best when the player is lower and thus you probably don't even need to fool them to win. The better the player the more they will see through your fakes because they see and evaluate each ball very well.

So my two cents, I'd say work on producing stronger chops that have to be lifted by the opponent and putting more chops on the table, just like you would work on stronger top spin and more loops on the table.

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OSP Ultimate cpen
Acuda S1 Turbo
Hallmark Phoenix ox

Would largely agree with that, which is why I said that the first thing you want to develop is a heavy forehand chop. I know many 2000-level choppers who still can't do a heavy forehand chop. I would say, however, that "fake" chops do work even at a decent playing level. Maybe they're not going to fool a 2300-level player too often, but at my level (around 2000), fake chops (and fake loops) thrown in at the right moment work wonders. This is because many players at this level are still so focused on their own technique that when they miss, their immediate thought is about what they did wrong rather than about what you did to deceive them. There are many players, even at this level, who are not even aware that fake chops and fake loops are part of the game. They don't know how to do them, and they don't recognize them. They see a chopper doing a chopping motion, and their mind just quickly checks the "chop" box and goes into the automatic response mode. The key, as I said, is that you don't want to do this too often. It should be an occasional variation, and you can use it, for example, when your looper opponent just netted one of your heavy forehand chops and is, therefore, like to overcompensate on the next attempt.

_________________
I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

Apologies for the thread necro, but I've been stewing for a while on a different perspective on variation of the backhand chop with the long pips. The source of this different perspective was the commentary given by (at the time, world ranked professional chopper) Matthew Syed on a pair of matches between Koji Matsushita and Ma Lin that were part of the European Champions League finals in 2000. In his match commentary, Syed repeatedly seems to imply that a chopper can generate useful variation when chopping loops with the long pips (ranging from heavy backspin to no-spin) based on whether he chops vertically behind the ball (no-spin/float) or more horizontally underneath the ball (heavy backspin).

Here are the videos in question. They're worth watching in their entirety for entertainment value, but I've also recorded some of the spots where Syed talked about how Matsushita was varying his LP chops; I certainly missed a bunch, but I noted enough to get the gist of what he was saying I think:


Note this one has some spliced footage where the guy who posted it apparently lacked tape from the English language broadcast so he subbed in a German broadcast, but most of the match has English commentary from Syed and his broadcasting partner. Comments on LP spin variation at:

• 15:40 ("[Matsushita] dug [Ma's loop] out with the long pimples, but by hitting the back of the ball he gave no spin, and Ma Lin lifted it, but there was no spin to lift and the ball floated off the edge of the table")
• 25:25 ("[Matsushita] just hitting the back of the ball on this chop, not coming underneath it, and Ma Lin misreading that one")
• 27:07 ("Ma Lin completely misreading that stroke of Matsushita's - it's got nothing to do with his rubber, that was a no-spin return")
• 33:30 and 33:40, two different examples, with the latter having Syed's best real-time comment of the match
• 34:08 ("that's no spin - and oh, Ma Lin read that one!"

I didn't jot down many notes from this one, but my recollection is that Syed's commentary about pips use was along the same lines - heavy underspin when chopping loops with the pips by chopping under the ball, light underspin by chopping behind the ball.


Am I misinterpreting what Syed was saying here? I certainly don't think I can generate that much spin variation with my pips. I can get some by simply chopping really hard vs. not chopping that hard, but that's probably really obvious to my opponent. I can get some by being more or less wristy around the point of contact, but that also affects my consistency. This game was played two versions of the ball ago, but I don't think that would make too much of a difference.

_________________
Seeking joy and fitness in recreational modern defense.
My blog: "Two rubbers, one racket"
Kill the game against long Pimps with Coach Li!

Currently experimenting with short pips: VKMO + Xiom Vega China VM + TSP Super Spinpips Chop 1 (1.5)

For me the spin variation is easier to do simply by the direction of the stroke. For heavy backspin chop downwards, for less backspin stroke the ball in a more horizontal direction, which creates less backspin and more sidespin.

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You can vary the spin naturally by chop blocking which sends the incoming spin back to them. Or alternate regular chops and chop blocks to vary the spin.

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Panda Drive / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH Xiom Omega IV Elite Max / Play right-handed
XVT balsa carbon 10mm / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH Globe 979 Long Pips OX / Play Left-handed shakehand
Stiga Def Wood / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH GD CC LP OX .. Play Left-handed
Cpen SOS Wood / 4H 729 802-40 2.0 / BH GD Talon use righthanded shakehand grip
HARDBAT / Shakehand Hock 3 ply / Friendship Dr Evil OX .. Play Right-handed

Well, there are a number of ways to vary the spin. You can chop behind/under, but that might be too transparent for some players. Generally it would be like trying to do a heavy spun serve vs a dead/float serve. If the change looks too obvious, it won't be any good against more skilled opponents.

Same thing with the chop. So you want to pick a stroke which CAN generate heavy spin, and then to disguise it with less spin, you can use less wrist for a slower brushing chop or you can just hit more into the ball and brush less entirely.

At the lower level of players, you don't need to focus too much on the disguise. Just varying the spin between chops is usually good enough. Having said that, you can still vary the amount fairly easily (not by a huge margin) to a degree that will cause errors and pop ups.

Also LP chopping vs SP chopping is quite different. LP can't change the spin too much, even with heavy strokes. SP chopping basically NEEDS to change the spin, otherwise you're not really gaining anything of value.

For instance the ones where Koji "hits the back of the ball" and doesn't generate much spin, has very little to do with his intentions. You see Ma Lin hits toward his body, giving him only a small amount of time to react. Koji is basically swatting at the ball (notice he is barely chopping those) and because of that, the return essentially has to be dead or with minimal spin. If he were using slick OX LP, then it could still be loaded with spin. But he's not. The grippy pips require a nice, full stroke to utilize them. A half chop-chop-block will bring about a low spin ball. This is even more pronounced with short pips.

And that is the reason why SP is hard to use. If you're not in position, your returns need to be done as you would with an inverted rubber. Blocking or hitting. As the advice was given to me, if you can run back fast enough each time to chop a loop... give SP a try! Otherwise you will be caught at the table blocking those loops and only chopping the ones where you can move back far enough, quickly enough. Having said that, if your opponents are not mega spin loopers... then it doesn't matter a whole lot. The real trouble only starts when you face guys who can loop with heaps of spin.

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SOULSPIN CUSTOM BLADES
Fh: Spinny rubber
Bh: Not so spinny rubber...

I don't agree with this. Choppers from that standard are able to vary the spin, even when hit into their bodies. The ball was speedy, but not at that level of speed Matsushita didn't have time to do a stroke. Choppers also need to develop a stroke to cover their bodies. If that wasn't the case, why wouldn't all attacking players just blast their loops at the bodies of choppers?

When doing a full chopping stroke next to the body or a chopblocking stroke in front of the body, the use of the wrist is the most important thing. When snapping the wrist at the contact point a lot of backspin will be generated. When not the ball will carry no or not a lot of backspin. It's even possible, like skilless_slapper mentions, to go a little forward to annihilate the spin completely.

Now what Syed says is true. That's because, when using the wrist, your stroke ends up under the ball. When not your stroke ends up behind the ball. The follow through of the stroke is the same. Choppers of that level do this intentionally, off course when there is time.

That's my understanding and experience in training of all of this.

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There's always stuff to improve!

My blog on being a LP defender beyond 2000 USATT and the pips discrimination that comes along with that

The bounce of the ball will indicate the sidespin on the chop and the backspin on the ball .

_________________
Panda Drive / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH Xiom Omega IV Elite Max / Play right-handed
XVT balsa carbon 10mm / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH Globe 979 Long Pips OX / Play Left-handed shakehand
Stiga Def Wood / 4H Xiom Sigma Pro 2 2.0 / BH GD CC LP OX .. Play Left-handed
Cpen SOS Wood / 4H 729 802-40 2.0 / BH GD Talon use righthanded shakehand grip
HARDBAT / Shakehand Hock 3 ply / Friendship Dr Evil OX .. Play Right-handed