OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Actually I won quite a few sets from MM that day including a comeback from 9-1 down to win!! MM certainly didn't trunch me and my game has come a very very long way since then as it was over 18 months ago. The thing is though, if I showed a new vid, my style will still look the same, so improvement may be difficult to actually see unless you really know what you are looking for and can directly compare to my old vids. I really want some new vids to analyse my game myself. Will have to figure out a way without disturbing the peace at the club

And I have beaten Mars in 2 sets since the meet with MM, on the day we played with SHFS. I also beat SHFS more times than he beat me that day, but that's history as he has also improved a lot and who knows what would happen in a re-meet now. Mars is still practising here and there from what I hear, but is no longer competing. I haven't heard from him for about as long as the forum hasn't.

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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 vote goes to Speedy. As in Eurovision song contest, You always have to vote for your neighbour country! That´s why the Russian´s do so well there!

In table tennis I´ve always had my thumb up for the Swedes. Ice-hockey: take a wild guess!

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Bty Tenergy 05FX 2.1/ Grass D-Tecs ox/ Stiga Offensive Oversize

By your logic Speedplay anyone who is Chinese should then beat you! Also by your logic, you should beat William Henzell or even our Haggisv or Supachop for that matter

Mars hasn't retired, he's just on a break due to work comittments, and had only just finished his season in A1 at that point, the elite level of the club.

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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.

Ahhhh Speedplay. If only your deception was as good in your serve as it is in your posting

Still old men still have skills I find. Depends on just how old they were of course. Past 80 they do star to decline, but depends. I'm talking Aussie men here, Swedes might drop off around 35 perhaps?!!

Waldner would make it as the greatest in your eyes, I mean he is Swedish. If he was another nationality you probably wouldn't even know his name! I doubt whether he would really have ever competed to be considered a great in today's game though. I think the Chinese of today would have made him look a much lesser player. Same thing that would happen if I ever really met you on court!! Maybe that could happen by the time I'm a sprightly 65 and you are an old and decrepit 55!

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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.

Is this just 1 game to 51? or best to 7? lol

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Blade Ulmo Duality| FH Tibhar mx-p Black, Dawei 388D-1 red OX
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It's 1 game to 8..... that is 8 days!

If I was umpiring this game, I would have called in the expidite system in a long time ago

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
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Yeah and just think its only been going for 2 days

Maybe the next one we cut to 3 days and have 2 games per week. I'm sure other competitiors won't have as much to say as me and Speedplay.

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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.

You think???

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Touche`! Actually, I think you sound more accomplished than when you say you are an advanced beginner Speedplay. Its very confusing because it conflicts that you should talk yourself down when you are not shy to talk yourself up LOL. If you have similar curiosity to me, it would be so great if we could actually play several matches over several days to see the truth. Even if we had video, it really doesn't tell the truth. Even to play a person once doesn't tell the full truth as it can take one person time to get used to something with anothers game before they then know how to defeat it. We're stuck with this game of words though, which is fun, but not as fun as hitting the little white ball!!

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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.

Actually your observations are very interesting. I have had similar perceptions to you about the USATT ratings. But I've formed the perception mainly from forum chat and the odd vid, which really is quite difficult to discern a lot from. No actual direct experience. So it could all be wrong.

Now if you tried to suggest anyone at my level was any sort of "beginner" over here, you could soon be involved in a fist-fight. A few elite juniors play up around my level, but they are trained daily and have been in the junior program at our club generally for several years, so even they cannot be considered any sort of beginner. While I understand you probably use the term beginner slightly differently to what we do here, I could not consider you a beginner given your time in the game now. Perhaps there should be a clearer word, as beginner to us here means "new starter" and would generally only apply for perhaps the first year or 2 in the game. I actually think that number of years playing does not exactly equate to level, and therefore using a term like "beginner" to describe level is a sort of misnomer. Perhaps we should start a thread to create a better descriptive scale. Like Bad.....Good....Very Good....Excellent or something, but maybe we could come up with something a bit more sophisticated.

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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.

If 1600 is considered a beginner in your area, do players just starting out not play in competitions at all? Here in the U.S., part of the attraction of the system is that even if you just picked up a paddle and started playing you can get a rating, play in official tournaments, and win official events. It sounds like, in your system, these players could not play at all until they achieved a higher level of play. In which case, I like our system better, it encourages more beginners to get more into competitions early on.

I'd say that a 2000 level player is a very solid player with good skills and a good amount of consistency. You have to be pretty good to reach 2000 level. Right now I'm just above 1800 and would consider myself to be intermediate, in relation to the other players in our region. In our state, we don't have a lot of high rated tournament players, so I'm relatively high rated in our state. But that's because a number of our better players only play casually at the clubs and don't establish a rating.

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"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

1600 is an average USATT player.

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The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

The thing about my game is, I don't think you can judge it truly from the video because it is an unorthodox style that, I admit, isn't pretty. But it's really effective. The more that someone plays me the better they do, because they get used to my style. But the first time I play someone, I feel like I'm most dangerous and that's why I can play above my level against someone unfamiliar with me.

I'd say that, based on my past results, I'm an honest 1800 level player. Do I think I could do well against people in the division 4 level in yours? I have no idea. For me, it so much depends on matchup and style, it really could go either way, and I'm not comfortable enough saying "yes" or "no" one way or the other.

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"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

The bottom line to me is that it's all conjecture anyway, since unless players play against one another there's no way to know. It's fun to have this thread and have these online matches, but I don't think an overall general statement can be made like "USATT 2000 players are intermediate and below are advanced beginner". I'm certainly not 2000, but I don't consider myself an "advanced beginner" either. Maybe it's all relative; in the states, maybe there are more beginners so 1800 is, in the U.S., intermediate relative to the level of all players. Similar to the example you point out about football players. Since we're making guesses here, though, I think you're underrating U.S. players.

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"The greatest teacher, failure is"
USATT Rating: 1725
Blade: Stiga Cybershape Carbon
FH Rubber: Butterfly Tenergy 19 2.1
BH Rubber: Dr Neubauer ABS3 1.5

I think I can only agree with you Doug. I certainly don't class myself as any sort of beginner after 32 years playing TT with 12 of that playing competition and 20 playing socially. Am I an expert? I don't think so. Are there better players than me in Australia? Without doubt, I'm am way lower than any State level players (in Victoria for sure and the other states I'm sure too), although I did have 2 sets against a Victorian State player a couple of months ago and took him to 11-9 and 15-13, (although he was using his pick of someone else's bats).

Maybe Speedplay is right and TT in Sweden is so much stronger than our countries that our level really is lower. I really don't know. That's not the point of these virtual games to find out either. Its all in fun and discussion prompting, which it is certainly doing. Does it even matter who is better? I don't really think so. What's imprtant is we all love the game and love to discuss it. As with lots of things we discuss on the forum, there are no solutions and the discussions can only go in circles. But the forum circles are fun!! And the smack talk of who is better is just that. A game where we can boost ourselves up (and some friendly put downs of our opponent) regardless of the truth. I think Speedplay is an expert at this and I'm not bad at it myself! I think we just have to keep the "fun" aim in mind and not get carried away and think any of this is serious.

I think we are having a good verbal (well written...hmmm, typed actually ) game here and I hope everyone is enjoying the banter.

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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.