Zovier wrote:i,ve even seen some journalist wrote boxing and tae wondo is babarric and shouldn'nt be as a sport..

ngwoonlam wrote:I am so afraid of pips players.

dryvuuu wrote:

ngwoonlam wrote:I am so afraid of pips players.

Psychologically you already lost even before the game starts. Since you know you will lose to your friend you shouldn't feel any pressure & your aims are to play your game normally & try to get as many points off your opponents as possible.

This is what I have in mind when I face higher level players. I feel no pressure against these players & this helps me play my game normally & try to obtain more points or better still a game off them. I'm not afraid of their skills but I'm only 'afraid' I can't provide a good game for them.

dryvuuu wrote:So have you made any progress against your short pips friend? May be win more games/sets even if you still lost the match to him in the end?

ngwoonlam wrote:Will take some time though I could give him more pressure now.

dryvuuu wrote:
In the recreational playing environment there are a number of skill levels. If you're in the average level you can't just slap on a pips out rubber & beat the daylight out of someone with higher skills. If that's the case I would have beaten all the higher level players at 5T!

I believe it’s not accurate that you have to bring skill level into play here. I would be just as confident to beat someone who ‘just slapped on a pips out rubber’ to play for the first time, regardless of his skill level. Naturally higher level players would be able to overcome pips out players of lower skill. Good fundamentals, experience and skills negates the advantage of pips-out rubber I was referring to. Thus I was referring to the recreation playing field where most players do not have the good fundamentals along with their lack of experience of playing against pips-out rubber.

If inverted players don't practise & play against pips out players because they despise the rubbers (or may be they just don't like the players ) or they're just 'sacred' of the pips then they are never going to gain the 'get used to it' skill or overcome the pips 'fear factor'.

I believe you've just reiterated the kind of advantage pips-out players have over inverted players here.

In addition sometimes players do not purposely choose pips out just to 'gain advantage' over inverted players. I believe players' style 'requires' them to use pips out for eg. if they're more of a hitter it's better to use sp or lp if they want to chop. Whatever the choice of rubbers at the end of the day the players need to keep practising. Whether they can 'master' the use of their chosen rubbers that's another story. Different rubbers require different set of skills.

What you've described is the ideal scenario when players should choose pips-out. But I feel a lot of recreational players primarily choose to stick on a piece of pips out hoping their opponents aren't familiar with it, to give them a hard time. It's also to help with service returns.

Yeevel wrote:I believe it’s not accurate that you have to bring skill level into play here. I would be just as confident to beat someone who ‘just slapped on a pips out rubber’ to play for the first time, regardless of his skill level. Naturally higher level players would be able to overcome pips out players of lower skill. Good fundamentals, experience and skills negates the advantage of pips-out
rubber I was referring to. Thus I was referring to the recreation playing field where most players do not have the good fundamentals along with their lack of experience of playing against pips-out rubber.

Yeevel wrote:I believe you've just reiterated the kind of advantage pips-out players have over inverted players here.

Yeevel wrote:What you've described is the ideal scenario when players should choose pips-out. But I feel a lot of recreational players primarily choose to stick on a piece of pips out hoping their opponents aren't familiar with it, to give them a hard time. It's also to help with service returns.

Yeevel wrote:Of course I see your intention of helping fellow players. My intention to post is just like any other poster on a forum, to engage in a discussion, to share and also to recognize my own fallibility and learn, not to win. We can determine victory on the table tennis table. :)

Yeevel wrote:You mentioned the requirement to get used to pips-out, the psychological preparation etc. This is the kind of advantage I am talking about pips-out has against most recreational players. The kind of advantage(almost guaranteed, not 100%) I'm talking about is exactly the same as what you've mentioned about playing against left-handers (your point is based on the statistical fact that everybody plays right-handers more often than left-handers, and this applies even to left-handers themselves). That most recreational players really do not get to play pips-out as much as they get to play left-handers.

Yeevel wrote:That said, I do not think that pips-out requires less skill to play. All sorts of rubbers requires practice to master. Your few hours of LP playing surely do not succinctly show that LP does not have a certain advantage (nor disadvantage either). However, I also recognize pips-out has certain weaknesses and it's up to one to find out how to exploit them.

dryvuuu wrote:
I only said about my intention because I'm actually just interested in passing the 'positive message' to the players who have the fear of playing against pips out rubbers in the hope their confidence will improve. So I believe by saying "pips have 'advantage' over inverted" it doesn't actually help anything (may be you can share something on this one?) & it certainly won't make these players lose the fear at all. These players just need positive encouragement not feed them with 'negative' comments which will only lower their confidence level. Confidence is a powerful thing!
Having said that I do appreciate your views & the discussion we're having. It's good that we have forumers who can discuss or even argue in a friendly manner, the way it should be.

dryvuuu wrote:
How do you actually define recreational players? I classify myself & most of the forumers here under recreational players category. I believe there is a lot more pips out players than lefthanders at recreational or any level. At 5T alone I believe 50% of the players have pips out on their bat regardless of whether they use it 'full time' or not. Most if not all are good players - some I consider very very good at that level. So it's a matter of choice & decision whether you want to play against or practise with these pips players. The decison is yours, either you want to play or don't. I hope you join the 5T because you want to play with more pips out players - this can only be good for you & also the pips out players. We all can improve & play better!

dryvuuu wrote:
If my "few hours of LP playing surely do not succinctly show that LP does not have a certain advantage/disadvantage" then the same can be said about your belief on "The choice to use pips in the first place almost guarantees an advantage over most recreational players most of the time." We do not have any proof or statistical facts or any research study to suggest so. At least I'd tried to experience on the practical side of it before & I want to add that I'd also used both inverted to play against pips out. I have a conclusion which you may not agree with & I think you know the answer already. lol

Yeevel wrote:I appreciate your engagement very much as well. But what made you pass off my intentions as passing negative feelings to fellow players regarding pips-out? I am merely expressing my views on pips-out players and why I feel they’d want to have a piece of pips-out on their bat. They are just as able to express their disagreement just as you have. I have also twice acknowledged that pips-out rubbers also have weaknesses, and that I encourage players to discover these weaknesses and exploit them.

You have already acknowledged the fear of playing against pips-out rubbers many times in your previous post. My question to you is: Why is there a fear of playing pips-out rubber in the first place? Your argument is based on the assumption that there is less fear when laying against inverted rubber, is it not? The advantage arises not simply because of the physical effects it has on the ball but the psychological fear it instils in people.

Yeevel wrote:If I must, I would broadly categorise recreational players as players who have not received proper training in table tennis from young, and even if they engaged coaches during their adulthood, they have
not achieved the same consistency as someone who has trained properly since young. Anyway I have never rejected playing with any 5T players before(save for 1 uncle I misinterpreted as unwilling to play with me), pips-out or inverted. Please don’t make it sound like I have some ulterior motive to join 5T.

Yeevel wrote:I don’t think it’s fair for you to compare your few hours of playing with the LP, an isolated incident, with my belief on the advantage of pips-out rubber on most recreational players, a notion I’ve acquired over the years after witnessing many players expressing their fears of pips-out (ngwoonlam included) and my own school coach advocating it and using it to certain success before.

Statistically, I dare claim the inverted rubber is the most popular rubber in the world today. Thus it’s more about how likely it is you’re going to meet an inverted rubber or a pips-out rubber user nowadays. The fact that
the 5T group only plays on weekday mornings shows that its demographic is highly skewed. I bring this up again because I believe the main advantage stems from the fact that most recreational players play against inverted
more than pips-out. Thus it creates a sense of unfamiliarity and often fear when they meet a pips-out user. That’s all.