OOAK Table Tennis Forum

What's your looping technique and playing style like? It's hard to change a rubber like that and lose to players 400-600 pts below you. They must be underrated or more likely, you had a bad glue job.

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Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Glue job was ok. Ino a small club where we all know each others game 500 point differentials do not mean as much as at a tournament. But I do think I can play 500 or more points lower without a decent warm up.
My FH loop is decent. But at my level ( currently 1706 and highest ever 1899 as a chopper) I rarely win points from hitting loops past people in tournament play. As in average less than one a match probably.

Van, ONE of these days I'm gunna hafta see you in action live. You still gunna kill me on the 5K X-Country runs (I waz a weak-azz scrub anywayz in it for my health) but I gotta see this only one point per game FH attack that wins you many matches at or below your level. I gotta learn what makes U tick, we area ll different. Maybe you got excellent grip pressure control at impact.

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Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

I am only 1706 rating, so this may not apply to the lofty levels of 1900 plus such as yourself. At 1706 you can either win matches by winning the points or by your opponent losing points. If I play to win points I play solid 1300 level table tennis. If I let my opponent lose the point and occasionally hit a winner, i play 1700.

I don't think you can go too far beyond 1700 that way, is the problem. I'm 1700 as well and facing the same dilemma, in tournaments I am so tight I miss lots of attacks, so it's hard to keep trying them. But a coach told me you have to take your shots and let the ball do what it does. Easier to say than to do, but I think that's the way forward. One way to look at it is if you play 1300 for a while, you will win some trophies and checks when your attacks start landing consistently.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

I am not so sure. Here is a match in an U2150 final where the winner wins 3-0 and does not loop one time or at least. He hits, blocks and controls the game. Again this is well above my level.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL1uwBmU1-I

Rich is pretty unique in developing a short pips game with inverted but if you want to be a hitter, that is fine. What you cannot do (and what Rich does not do) is repeatedly pass up the opportunity to attack easy balls. And if you don't attack enough, easy balls remain at a relatively high level of difficulty for you as you don't develop the feel for attacking them.

What honing an attacking game really does is give you a comfort level.with what your high percentage shots are and keeps you willing to take them. Rich knows when a ball is weak.

If you have other ways of making your opponent give you easy shots, you do nog have to loop.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Rich, by the way, has a long and strong TT background and got good as a youth - he has even trained abroad. I am a strong believer that kids can be coached to play just about any style over the 2k level relatively fast. Adults, not as convinced. And we don't want to spend forever getting better.

One of the most interesting things about BRS will be to see how good he can get without regular exposure to higher level players.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

I've seen video of that guy before. Fair point, if you can play like that. I will not be able to play that way in any reasonable amount of practice time, if ever. I just don't have the touch. That would actually be a really fun style to play, by the look of it.

_________________
Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

I may have mis-represented myself. I am saying that I often will play whole matches in tournaments where I rarely loop a winner. I win by changing spin, pushing good, blocking to difficult locations and keeping the ball on the table until my opponents misses.

I lose when I flip all short serves, or try to banana loop or aggressively attach my opponents long serves to my BH.

I am not a hitter. I consider myself an all arounder.

Don't you lose as well when you play whole matches when you rarely loop a winner?

The question should really be whether you plan to improve your game and what your strategy is for doing it. The key is not necessarily to attack early in the point but to pose your opponents problems early in the point. I gave the template for a looper, but DeWitt does it a bit differently (I have a 1 and 7 record or something like that against him). Let's look at it from the serve, recieve, third ball, fourth ball and fifth ball.

He has a tight serving game that would fit into the game of many attackers - he serves the ball to the middle of the table to make it hard for you to get extreme angles or to take a hard forehand without going all out and taking yourself out of position. Usually, only people with strong backhands or over the table backhands can put pressure on him on the serve receive without exposing themselves to being blocked out position.

On the receive, he is usually weaker on the short forehand but will usually try to either float short serves or give them heavy backspin. If he has a read on the opponent, he will flick on both sides. He hits long serves and occasionally loops backspin.

On third ball, Rich will almost always attack you with a dead ball (dummy loop or flat hit, with a rare loop against backspin).

On 4th ball and so on, he counters with light topspin and backspin and mostly awaits the easy ball to send to your wide forehand with a wide angle. He prefers to rally on the backhand diagonal. Because he hits/blocks the ball with fair pace, most loopers who aren't used to that ball trajectory back up from the table but those who are inexperienced back up way too far because they don't know the ideal playing distance to play from and give them time while retaining power options. And uncomfortable with playing dead balls from distance, they start fish looping the ball weakly if they are juniors and then Rich blocks them from side to side and they are too far from the table to cover the angles. Most attackers also have relatively poor defensive skills so they are not used to their hardest shots being returned with fast dead balls and chop blocks, which is what Rich does at his best.

Believe it or not, I actually play this way with the dead balls on third ball and I play with more topspin on my forehand and backhand. I don't block as well as Rich, but my game is mostly backhand dominant. The difference is that sometimes, it is obvious that this game is not good enough to beat a player who ready to strike hard before I do and my blocking is one part of my game I don't practice. So I have to develop a comfort level with taking and making and missing my shots because that I can and do practice.

And as you get better and better, people are going to strike first if you don't so you either need to develop extremely high level defense or get comfortable with taking some risks to win points. Looping is the easiest risk to take when one can do it vs all the other risks out there. The problem with high level defense is that you need to practice it against high level attack. High level attack just requires you to know how to loop different kinds of balls and get better and better at it. You don't have to face high level defense on a regular basis to play high level offense. But you do need to face high level offense to play high level defense.

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Sounds like my kinda game on serve receive when I do not feel good flipping, or on serve/attack when the ball suddenly doesn't go where I wanted it.

I played vs Next Level in a very close match every game to duece last weekend playing just like that at least 60% of the points.

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

And you won the match because you played that way?

_________________
Cobra Kai TT Exponent (Mercy effs up your Game)
One-Loop Man: One Loop... Again????
Lumberjack TT Exponent

"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training" - Archilochus

Wow. Last post was almost 4 years ago. Time flies we you try stuff.

I spent a 12-18 months going to double inverted, followed by about the same time trying to be a SP (BH) chopper with dead sponge. I have now been back at double inverted for a couple of years. My fitness has gone down due to health issues. My attack on both sides of the ball is better. Yet my rating has fallen, as I have lost my consistent BH defense.

Now currently I am trying to play an attacking, double inverted style. My goal in this is to get as comfortable attacking with my BH as I do my FH.

A friend of mine who is like me-getting older, but not better (I am 55y here is early 2019) has suggested we need to use LP or antispin to help against those quick footed younger players. I tried antispin a few times but have had no luck. I am not going to try using LP at the table to set up my FH attack.

I am planning on adjusting which racket I use at my next tournament-against any LP or antispin player I am using double inverted. Against any significantly highly rated player, most juniors or super spinny players I am going to try my LP. I have always felt changing equipment at a tournament is a bad idea. But I figure all I have to lose is USATT rating points and I have been doing that regularly since 2011.

I am back with OX LP playing both a defense, but also aggressively hitting with LP against any high balls (particularly serves) and twiddling for variety. This style is not one of consistency-but I think it may win some matches.