OOAK Table Tennis Forum

The topic viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24148 inspired me for this question.

Since we are such an international forum, it could be interesting to collect how the league/competition is organised in each country. And also how the rating system works and how it can be compared to other country's rating systems.

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Belgian League

In Belgium, around 25.000 people are registered in the League. About 95% plays in the Regional league (divided in 10 provinces) and 5% play on a National level.

National level:

- Super division (with Jean-michel Saive, Philippe Saive, Yannick Vostes, Kou Lei, Gareth Herbert, Kilomo Vitta, Thiago Monteiro, Roko Tosic): each team consists of 3 players and each player plays two matches (six best of five matches are played in total)

In all other (male) divisions each team consists of 4 players and each player plays 4 individual matches (all best of five) and all matches are played (so result can be 9-7, 2-14, 8-8, 16-0)

- First national division A&B
- Second national division A-->D
- Subnational Flanders (Dutch language) or Walloon (French language) A-->C/E

Regional Level: Divided in the 10 Belgian provinces with each region having 5 to 6 levels

- First provincial: 1 category (A)
- Second provincial: A&B
- Third provincial: A-->D
- Fourth provincial: A-->D
- Fifth provincial: A-->D
- Sixth provincial: A-->B

Not included in this overview, there is also: women's league, veteran league, christian league...

Belgian Rating system (n= number of players with that rating):

(~international)
* A n=35

(~national)
* B0 n=50
* B2 n=159
* B4 n=303
* B6 n=514

(~provincial/regional)
* C0 n=683
* C2 n=838
* C4 n=1037
* C6 n=1235
* D0 n=1276
* D2 n=1359
* D4 n=1515
* D6 n=1621
* E0 n=1502
* E2 n=1729
* E4 n=2299
* E6 n=3177
* NG n=5418
* Total n=24750

To compare: USATT 2200 ~ Belgian C2/C4

Then there are also ELO-points, etc. but that's for later maybe

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I played in a tournament in Brussels in around 1999-2000 - man was it strong! I dont think it was a huge event but the depth was incredible. So many strong classy players, and this was not even in open singles. From memory every player knew their National ranking just like a chess player knows his rating. I must say that the french speaking Belgians weren't
the friendliest people or most polite I've come across.

Well, there is a language barrier for French-speaking people to speak English, maybe that 's got something to do with it? It's very simple to know your rating in Belgium as it can only change once a year. You probably played some C0 to C6 classified people (~usatt 2100-2300+)?

How exactly is the USATT rating system organised? I believe there isn't really a League in the states and only tournaments are played?

How is it for other countries? Germany? France? Australia? Lithouania? Come on guys, I'm curious!

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Lithuanian league system:

Since Lithuania is quite small there are no regional leagues. All leagues encompass teams from whole country.

1) We have the Highest league (it's called that way and I think is self explanatory)

• We have 12 teams in total
• Team can consist of any number of members, but for any given match we play 3v3.
• Team wins a match when it gets 5 points (total sum of individual member's wins). There are no draws possible. 1 team always wins.
• There are no doubles in Highest league (believe me, I LOVE this rule the most)
• There are 2 rounds of play: first we play each team (11 matches) after that teams are split into 2 groups based on results (first 6, second 6) and they play each other again (5 more matches). Worst 2 teams drop from league.
• My personal goal this season is to finish somewhere in the middle (like 5-7). Though I feel it will be insanely tough.

2) And we have 8 more additional leagues (named 1 to 8 )

• These leagues have around 24 teams each.
• Teams that can consist of any number of members, but for any given match they play 3v3.
• Team wins a match when it gets 4 points. There are no draws possible. 1 team always wins.
• Teams always get to play 1 doubles game per match.
• Teams are always split into 2 divisions for any league. They play each other once (11 matches). After that based on results teams are split into final groups of 6 (3 from one division, 3 from other division). There teams get to play another 3 matches. Best 2 teams of league are promoted to a higher league.
  
  example: if you finished 2nd in your division you will get to play top 3 teams from other division (there is no rematch between your division teams, results count from your first encounter).

Our ranking system is covered in these 2 posts:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19591&hilit=+ranking#p215571
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19591&hilit=+ranking#p215576

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Well in Australia there's only a formal rating system in Victoria, Queensland do enter results into ratings central but don't have their own system. The Victorian system does hold ratings for anyone who plays in national or open state events though so a lot more players are in there than just Victorians.

So we will called the Victorian and Australian system one and the same thing and continue.

The actual rating system is sorted into Divsions 1 to 6 (sometimes a 7th but this is technically unofficial). We also have classes above the divisions. The classes are as follows.

Elite = Above 1850 points, currently there are 10 players in this section
Sub Elite = 1600- 1850, 41 players
Division 1 = 1350 - 1600, 96 players
Division 2 = 1100 - 1350, 154 players. We have debated where US 2000 is exactly but it's for sure currently in Division 2 somewhere.
Division 3 = 850 - 1100, 205 players
Division 4 = 600 - 850, 302 players
Division 5 = 350 - 600, 273 players
Division 6 = sub 350 points, 329 players
Division 7 when in place is sub 170?? points or there abouts from memory

The average competition playing club player is on about 400 something points. The kind of guy who plays table tennis as a sport but doesn't actively train for it. There are a lot more players around than the ratings show but not everyone has a rating.

The national team are in the Elite section, Henzell, Powell, Hu, Miao etc , guys like carbonman and the other elite veterans in Australia are in the area between Elite and Sub Elites border. There's a sprinkling of very talented club players in Sub Elite but the vast majority of serious and semi serious club players who play a lot of tournaments are in Division 1, 2 and 3.

Each club plays it's own pennant, the majority of clubs enter the results of every match into the database and the results and ratings are released monthly (most of the time). Separate are various state tournaments Junior, Senior and Veteran tournaments. The results for those go into the same system after each tournament and the results come out in the same pdf with the pennant results. I don't know if there is still any interclub league in Melbourne? but there used to be in the past. There's never been a weekly interclub league outside the city as the distances between clubs are just impossibly great. There are however many annual interclub competitions all over the state, some that have been running continuously for many decades.

I've met quite a few Belgians in my time, only Flemish speakers though and they all don't think much about French speaking Belgium . None of them played table tennis !.

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Thanks foam, that was en eye opener for me as well!

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Fortunately, Victoria != Australia, at least here in NSW & I suspect in the other states and territories.

Here in Sydney, there are some local pennant competitions, Northern Districts, Western Suburbs, St George & Sutherland are the ones I know about. Each one has grades like A, A reserve, B, C, D, but they are locally based, not common across the board. There is individual movement between grades based on percentage wins.

Then there are weekend tournaments, mostly organised by the state body, which has Open, A, B, C, D & E grades. There is no correlation between these grades and those for the local pennant play. Movement between grades (up only I think) is by winning a tournament in that grade 1 or 2 times.

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What is a league?
If there are any in the U.S., I dont know about it.

a leauge can be any kind of organised weekly team competition usually consisting of 2 -3 players sometimes 4 who are sort of graded into a grade to play against simalar level players, In the past clubs would have entered teams into a interclub situation (maybe even home and away or at a large central location, but in Countries like NZ and Aussie the bigger clubs will have allow anyone to enter their own team in a weekly penant / league etc and smaller clubs tend to make each team fairly even
generally most league/ interclub results are nothing to do with any sort of National ratings but some places may enter results into some kind of local ratings central system

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I don't beleive it when I hear Australians don't have a National ratings system, of course they do , Victoria has 4 or 5 of the top 10 ranked players so there must be some kind of intertwined system to know seedings etc

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Thanks guys.

It is incredible that only about 2000 people in Australia play table tennis competitively if you imagine that in Belgium (10 million inhabitants in a very small country) there are 25000... Same for the USA. For over 300 million inhabitants, there is a very limited number of clubs there (I remember seeing a list at MNNB's blog). A limited number of clubs in such a big country might explain why there is no League. A 2200+ USATT ranking is rather high in the USA where in Belgium there are at least 3000 people having the equivalent of a ranking higher than 2200.

Foam, the relation between the Flemish and French speaking people is indeed tense sometimes. Mainly on a political level though. The most popular political party in Flanders is a separist party, which is sad. But if a French speaking guy meets a Flemish speaking guy at a TT-tournament, they will drink a beer together after the match, so I guess the situation isn't that bad Of course there is a language barrier that complicates communication sometimes.

I think a European country where TT is even more popular than in Belgium is Germany. France maybe? How about league and rating system in those countries?

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There are leagues in the US - mainly within clubs. But the matches don't count towards rating points (though leagues are usually set up BASED on ratings of the participants). Matches that do are in sanctioned tournaments. The point system is, from what I understand, based on the one used in Chess (which is used world-wide). In essence, you have a ratings number. The bigger this number, the better you are as a player. When you start playing tournaments, you are given an estimated rating - usually a tournament director will make you play a couple of matches against people with known rating. The number you have determines which events in which you are allowed to play. Winning a match earns you points, while losing a match loses you points. However, the number of points won or lost depends on relative rating. If you beat someone rated much below you, you don't gain any points, and he/she doesn't lose any points eiter. If, however, you lose to someone rated (IIRC) 200 points below you, you'll lose the maximum number possible (I think 35), which will go to your opponent. If you beat someone your own level you'll only gain maybe 2 or 3 points (I'll have to go look this up..!). Yes, people can be misrated (e.g. a recent immigrant), but that situation doesn't last very long since ratings can be adjusted in these cases. Rapidly improving juniors can also be temporarily misrated, but this also fixes itself over one or two tournaments.

American tournaments are set up so that there are a variety of sub-events in which people of various ratings classes can play. If you are, for instance, rated 1384, you can play in the U-1400, U-1600, U-1800, etc. but not in the U-1200 or U-1000. (You will still find yourself playing people rated below you because they will enter your class. Different tournaments will have different event break-points - for instance, another tournament will have a U-1350, U-1450, etc.) This allows EVERYONE to play against people of their own level, and a chance to win an event. Really big tournaments will also have age classes (Under-15s, Under-10s, Over-50s, Over-70s, etc.), gender classes (Open Mens, Open Womens), and an Open event (you will find adventurous 1500 level players entering these, just for the chance of playing the national champion!). Seedings are based on ratings. Team competitions (e.g. USOTC) are based on total team ratings - you'd have, for instance, the U-10000, U-8000, etc. Doubles are the same - add up the ratings of the two players, so you'd have the U-4000 doubles, U-3600 doubles, etc.

There are smaller, non-sanctioned tournaments, of course, which fall outside this system - Intramurals, Inter-school or Inter-University tournaments come to mind.

People might complain about various aspects of the system, but I have never heard anyone say they don't like HAVING the system. It's quite easy to understand, it gives people something to play for, it gives one a relative, rough estimation of one's strength vs. an opponent, and most important of all, it allows tournaments where ALL can enter, not just elite players. Ratings change once a tournament has been tabulated, usually within a month or two, and, at least in the past, were published in full every month in the USTTA/USATT newsletter. People who play in tournaments would wait in great anticipation for the latest issue to come in the mail, not only to look up yourself, but to look up your friends and rivals, and well-known national players too.

Iskandar

Ah.. I found it:

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis ... ystem-work

My recollections about points won/lost vs. spread were off - or maybe they've changed. The maximum is now 50 points.

And.. good grief, I'm still listed! My last rating was about 100 points below what my peak was and about 150 more than where I started. This was from over 20 years ago.

Iskandar

Norway:
The norwegian TT association handles rating system. I believe all licensed players get a point score set at first registration. If they don't participate in some sort of evaluation, or "rating event", or has a known rating from other association, the score is stipulated based on age (I think), generally around 1000 points.

Points are awarded and detracted for wins/losses in singles matches in registered events (series, tournaments, championship). Doubles matches do not count.
No running score. Rating is updated montly, and scoring is done based on rating of the two players at previous update.
For "unexpected result" (lowest ranked player wins), the winner gains the same point count as the loser loses. "Expected result" wins more points for the winner than what is detracted from the loser.

See scoring table. Some events (championship, top division in the series, etc.) are more important, and scores 1.5 or 2 times the indicated points in the table.

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