TT Psychology- more important than all

In real tournament even at low level, I have seen examples, one player can not get over a net ball or edge ball, and BIG fail eventually.

Here is an good example, of HUGH playing in Nationals (like Round16)

 

The point is that randomness becomes less of a factor in "mismatched" cases. So, the real question is: are the players closely matched? But on what grounds do we reliably make this assessment? 

In fact, it is possible that in a given match the players are always mismatched in some ways. That brings us to the conclusion that randomness as a factor should be eliminated.

FWIW, I don't buy the OP's premise that the edge ball affected Hugh for the remainder of the game.  Like Jay, I think this is building a narrative.  Even so, there are occasions when a single edge ball does affect a player's state of mind.

I've tried working on a similar serve, but have never gotten near a 60% rate on edge balls. If I were to improve my success rate, I'd certainly use it.  Such a serve is a developed skill that works within the rules of the game.

Yup.  He lost partially because of the edge and mostly for other reasons. Even with two back-to-back edge balls, they only represent 10% of the points.  

The idea is to create enough of a gap so that a bad run of luck is unlikely to determine a game or match.

vanjr wrote: Funny thread. I have no idea what the generic you are taking about in terms of randomness. Table tennis ball movement is physics. Classical mechanics. I may not understand all the variables, but there is nothing random in it. Psychology has less a part than it is given credit. I either play better than my opponent or I do not. In only very rare instances does psychology play a role.

VanJr does not realize that the only way I ever beat him is through the use of subtle psychological ploys.  There are subliminal messages on all my TT gear that encourage him to go for all those low percentage winners.  Every time during warm-up that he hits his Bh with wrong technique I compliment him on how much better the Bh is getting.  I pretend to lose track of the score often and always make sure to get it wrong in my favor so that he is distracted from planning his tactics.  I often groan, limp, and otherwise pretend to be infirm in various ways to play on his sympathy as a doctor.

Mark - Phd in TT phsycology

PS - Oops. Did I just say all that out loud.

The narrative can be even more interesting when you observe the "match" point by point. 

The first time I did this years ago, I simply used a coin toss to create the "match."  

FWIW, I got the idea when I read a bit (probably Taleb) about how if you ask one group to put a series of 100 random 1s and 0s on a chalk board (using just what they think is random) while a second group does so based on a coin flip (that is actually random), that it is usually easy for an experienced observer to determine which sequence was based on the truly random coin flip sequence and which was faked.  The faked one will have far fewer long runs. Intuitively we expect randomness to be smoother in the short run. We can learn that the longer a random sequence the more likely that there will be a long run, but we don't tend to intuit it.

Well it's been a while.  It must be time for another slanging match between fatt and me.  

Serving so as to hit an edge ball about 60% of the time is not one of those basic skill situations in my experience.  I spent hours practicing it.  It struck me that in order to be able to pull it off using a serve technique that would be both legal and not a dead giveaway would take LOTs more hours - which is why I stopped pursuing it.  However, I've always like the notion.  So maybe I'll start practicing it again.  I think it should be a bit easier with hardbat that it would be with inverted.

If I could hit an edge 50% of the time, miss the edge but serve on the table 25%, and miss the edge but serve off the other 25%, I'd be pretty happy.

It would depend on the opponent.  With some players it might be less than 50/50.  With some more.  It depends on how well they handle edge serves and how well they flip forehand shots.  A landed serve that misses the edge does give the receiver a pretty clear swing from the side of the table since the ball is close to the edge - if the receiver moves his feet. So it isn't a super hard ball to attack.  It also depends on my ability to disguise the ball's direction and whether my opponent lets the fact that I'm trying to hit an edge serve bother him.

And yes, it is far easier to target the side edge. What I tried was a motion that starts in a way that could be fast to the deep backhand, but that I change at the last moment to be short almost dead to the forehand with a very slight sidespin.  It could be that trying to use sidespin is a mistake since it is on more variable to deal with, but it seemed to make it easier to disguise the stroke. A short punch stroke might be easier to control.

Since the ball needs to be hit at a little bit of an angle, the depth of the shot does matter as well.

Well, he said, "about." Anything close to 50/50 would be impressive to me.