Ping Pong- anybody else love to play?

[dnyk1337]

ping pong has been called "chess at 100 miles an hour" and indeed, at our club we used to play a lot of chess between games.

if you're interested in learning about this zulu mythology then find the nearest table tennis club and spend some time hanging out there and asking questions. your college may even have its own club.

Yea. Ping-Pong is a very interesting sport and it will get you sweating a lot if you're moving everywhere. You need to be quick and think on your feet. You have to have precision also. Dare I say, it is one of the most technical sports out there. Haters will hate though.

[KeylessEntry]

I was playing ping pong in ding dang...

[gigantes]

best return of serve i've ever seen:





the server starts with a tricky sidespin serve that bounces a little high and slightly long. the receiver loads up like he's going to powerloop, but instead of hitting on the front side of the paddle, he hits on the back... producing a sky-high underspin lob.

the receiver coolly backs up to see if the ball lands safely and prepares for a potential smash. he doesn't look up, which might give it away.

the ball lands on the other side, then the underspin carries it back to the receiver's half, giving the server almost no time to touch it. point over.

[Cocaine80s]

[ArbitraryWater]

best return of serve i've ever seen:





the server starts with a tricky sidespin serve that bounces a little high and slightly long. the receiver loads up like he's going to powerloop, but instead of hitting on the front side of the paddle, he hits on the back... producing a sky-high underspin lob.

the receiver coolly backs up to see if the ball lands safely and prepares for a potential smash. he doesn't look up, which might give it away.

the ball lands on the other side, then the underspin carries it back to the receiver's half, giving the server almost no time to touch it. point over.

That's horrible.. will be caught by most and is an invitation for getting smashed on. There is nothing you can point to for a "perfect" return.

Anyway, I'm in a table tennis club, and pretty good... Well, used to be even better, was one of the top players age wise in my city, took a 3-year break or so, and since then have never got back into a consistent rhythm, mainly because I don't train enough. I won bunch of tourneys when I started ('07).

[gigantes]

That's horrible.. will be caught by most and is an invitation for getting smashed on. There is nothing you can point to for a "perfect" return.

Anyway, I'm in a table tennis club, and pretty good... Well, used to be even better, was one of the top players age wise in my city, took a 3-year break or so, and since then have never got back into a consistent rhythm, mainly because I don't train enough. I won bunch of tourneys when I started ('07).

any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

[Thorpesaurous]

I was a pretty good ping pong player in my day. My grandmother had a table in her basement for a while, and I was definitely the best of all my cousins, and there are a ton of us. But I was also probably in the sweetest age range for it, like 12 - 16. But I was still pretty damn good.


We set up a table at my shop about five years ago. It has since come down. But there were three or four guys definitively better than me. I guess they used to have table here a hundred years ago, and one of the old timers used to win constantly, and he was about 65 at the time, and was still incredibly good. He played crazy defense and really really soft. He'd just barely poke the thing over the net.

But we do have one guy, also in his sixties, who played on a Jamaican national team. He wrecked his hip and his knee in a car accident 20 or so years ago. Still has sort of a Verbal Kent in step sort of limp. But even with that, the guy was unreal. He holds the paddle backhanded, and everything he sent over had some crazy english on it. And after a few months of getting his touch back, if you pushed him to a side, he would consistently hit the points on the side of the table. It was really crazy to see.

[ArbitraryWater]

any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

Well, I called it bad because you won't hit it that well most of the time.. here obviously it's perfect, the back spin carries it immediately onto his side again.. but I just think I would catch it, and if you do, most of the time it will be an easy one to convert. And by the way he casually serves the ball, it looks like he isn't even taking the game that seriously, tbh.

USATT rating? No idea.

In Germany a rating system was just recently (like 1-2 years) ago introduced.. before that you didn't have one in the youth stages, just overall groups (age wise and then like the top 3, A-C), I haven't checked mine recently, and I haven't participated in a tournament in maybe 5 years, since I wanted to get back to a comfortable level where I trust my game and know I can compete, but since they tracked all the former tournaments before the system was introduced, my rating is still pretty high.

As for my playing style?

I'm really an all around guy.. I have insane touch, which I maximise for defensive purposes, placement, topspin.. I can attack and open up points, but I don't do it enough, wait most of the time.. I see my serve as a weakness since its not a strength. But your serve should be a strength, one that gives you an inherent advantage for opening up the point, since I don't have that, I see it as weakness. My forehand is easily my good side, my back is great for blocking, defensive stuff, but I feel uncomfortable attacking with it.

[gigantes]

@arbitrarywater,
what about ITTF rating? could you make a rough guess there?

so do you like to punch-block, do drop shots, throw in some chop? (underspin deep off the table, not sure what you call it in german)

anyway, cool... i try to be all-around as well. for example-- close to the table / mid-range / long-range... positional blocks like JO waldner / clean countershots like timo boll / ferocious power loops and brush loops like many... high energy / low energy... whatever the situation requires.


@thorp,
many guys show up at the clubs who have been playing basement ping pong for a long time. they're king of their domain so to speak and 'want to take it to the next level.' which is cool with me.

problem is-- it's usually a major shock to them how poorly their skills translate to club-level table tennis. not because they don't have years of well-honed skills built up, but because a good clean counterstroke as taught at the club level is something they've rarely if ever seen. they don't know how to deal and usually lack the humility / motivation required to re-train their strokes... especially considering what brought them to the club in the first place.

now i don't know if this is an american problem or a worldwide problem, but i always try to work with these 'kings of the basement' players and welcome them to clubs. the transition tends to be brutal for them, and most don't last long.

but i think things are changing now with the internet. i mean, now you can go to youtube and whatever, find pingskills and stuff, and realise on your own how much more technical and correct the game is at the tournament level.

it works in chess anyway... and they have the exact-same rating system as us.

[ArbitraryWater]

gigantes, I'll try to reply to your other points later..

Usually, basement warriors don't/can't get to the level of club players.

They're good among casuals, but for example when I play in school against other casuals, that before told me "yeah I'm very good at table tennis" perhaps even "dominated their communities", they get shredded.. people are amazed at how I play, they don't see that much.. and thats right now, and I'm not happy with where I'm at and know I could/should be much better.

Back before my break (lost interest, had a bad interaction with someone), there was like a 1-2 punch here on the team, me and my friend were like the "talents"... He left the club at one point to go to the premier team where all the talent is at, I returned back at the same club (we have another guy who's 12 and just played the german cup for 17-18 y/olds, HUGE talent), meanwhile my former friend, partner, is now playing at an adult level, one of the better players for his age city-wide (Berlin).. I get pretty pissed when I think of this and my opportunities.

[wakencdukest]

https://youtu.be/SncapPrTusA


The true master

[ILLsmak]

any idea what your USATT rating would be? expert level is 2000 here. the top players in the USA reach about 2750 and are mostly former chinese nationals.

what kind of player were you? two-winged inverted rubber attacker i imagine?

strange that you would think it's a horrible shot. around the 2000 level this is going to surprise a lot of ppl when you throw it in there randomly. the height is insane and the unpredictability and backspin is going to make this tricky to return even for another 2000-lvl player. not to mention, it's obviously part exhibition / fun shot.

table tennis is very hard to understand for most ppl in the states and spectators need stuff like this. the clubs here don't make close to the money the euro clubs / leagues do.

I think it was luck maybe... but I did think of how it would be hard to hit it back because of spin.

I never really played table tennis seriously. I had some friends who would be like LETS PLAY and kick my ass. I don't think I'm terrible, but I'm definitely not good. I'm good for never playing by myself, I guess, or was.

The first thing you realize is DAT SPIN when you play against good people. I can imagine that a ball on that kind of hit would be hard to slam because of the spin.

-Smak