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(Mis)rating the tall player in this video

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    Posted: 06/09/2015 at 3:36pm
So, yesterday, at a club, I met this ~2150 penhold looper (in his 20s, very good power and footwork on FH, well trained, uses H3 / T05, recently moved back to China but here on vacation). I showed him this video - he had no idea of who the two players in it were.

I asked him to rate the tall guy after starting the video at around the 30s mark. He said around 1900-2000. I asked him why so low and he gave me a plethora of weaknesses - too upright, too brushy FH loop that has no power, slow / clumsy etc. He said that his opponent had good technique but was way too inconsistent.

Another good example of how it is difficult to get ratings from videos sometimes:

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote GeneralSpecific Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/09/2015 at 3:47pm
Something that really bothers me is that a lot of people who try to guess ratings look at a player and if they aren't trying to constantly hit loops and loop drives on every stroke then they must be below 2000. As if the only way to play is trying to copy either Timo Boll or Ma Long and that all other styles make it impossible to A) play at a high level or B) even come close to beating a player that tries to play like Timo Boll or Ma Long. Crisan is a great example of this. Crisan plays a very relaxed game. Crisan has excellent feeling for the ball, he's one of the best blockers I can think of, and he knows when to put a ball away without forcing himself to try to loop drive kill every single ball which would conflict with his overall style and strategy. This has made him a world class player who has beaten Boll many times.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ZingyDNA Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/09/2015 at 5:16pm
It doesn't have a lot to do with being tall. Crisan plays a very relaxed style, and he didn't take a U2500 player seriously. Played very passive.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote blahness Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 7:50am
It's really quite easy to see the really good players, they just don't make any easy mistakes. Their opponents have to force errors from them. This is quite apparent, especially in the pros vs amateur videos around. There was one video with Ma Long against another pretty good amateur where Ma Long was pushing and blocking the whole match like a wall and yet the other guy couldn't even touch him. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote bonggoy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 9:18am
I would have guess no more than 2300 if I did not know these two players. It's an easy mistake to make when there is a big gap in skills between the two.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 10:18am
Originally posted by bonggoy bonggoy wrote:

I would have guess no more than 2300 if I did not know these two players. It's an easy mistake to make when there is a big gap in skills between the two.

Where are you these days, man????
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 10:21am
Originally posted by ZingyDNA ZingyDNA wrote:

It doesn't have a lot to do with being tall. Crisan plays a very relaxed style, and he didn't take a U2500 player seriously. Played very passive.

Oh, I think he took Pace seriously enough.  It's just the way Crisan plays. What would you guess Crisan's rating was in this video if you didn't know his opponent or the stage?



Edited by NextLevel - 06/10/2015 at 10:24am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 10:29am
Originally posted by slevin slevin wrote:

So, yesterday, at a club, I met this ~2150 penhold looper (in his 20s, very good power and footwork on FH, well trained, uses H3 / T05, recently moved back to China but here on vacation). I showed him this video - he had no idea of who the two players in it were.

I asked him to rate the tall guy after starting the video at around the 30s mark. He said around 1900-2000. I asked him why so low and he gave me a plethora of weaknesses - too upright, too brushy FH loop that has no power, slow / clumsy etc. He said that his opponent had good technique but was way too inconsistent.

Another good example of how it is difficult to get ratings from videos sometimes:


Thanks for the video, slevin.  Really inspirational.  I guess the argument could be made that it's harder to get good playing like Crisan than it is playing like Pace - at least, you know the path playing like Pace.  With Crisan, the skills are harder to teach.  But I think Crisan's ability to read and anticipate the point is so far ahead of Pace (something I am trying to study more closely these days after hearing a lot of comments from my coach and other players) that it shows up when you look more closely at the video.  Pace has good strokes, but he is often late to Crisan's ball and misreads the spin and the trajectory, especially on Crisan's serves.  You can see that Pace almost never puts the ball where Crisan doesn't anticipate it.  It's uncanny.


Edited by NextLevel - 06/10/2015 at 10:31am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Speedplay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 11:11am
another thing to consider with these "guess the rating" videos is the level the player plays at in the video. If, say Ma Long was playing an exhibition match against a 2000 rated player, I dont think he would bring out his A-game. So, guessing his ratio from such a video could easily land at 2200, cause that could be the level he actually played at in the video.

As for this particular match, some styles are a lot harder to judge, and Crisians style is one of those. Pushblockers is another. In this video, I still think its easy to see that both players are high level, but I would hardly have guessed that one was inside the top 100 on the world ranking.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ZingyDNA Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 11:48am
You mean Boll pulled a Brian Pace in this one? Crisan still had to attack here and there..

Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:


Oh, I think he took Pace seriously enough.  It's just the way Crisan plays. What would you guess Crisan's rating was in this video if you didn't know his opponent or the stage?


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote V-Griper Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 11:59am
Originally posted by Speedplay Speedplay wrote:

another thing to consider with these "guess the rating" videos is the level the player plays at in the video. If, say Ma Long was playing an exhibition match against a 2000 rated player, I dont think he would bring out his A-game. So, guessing his ratio from such a video could easily land at 2200, cause that could be the level he actually played at in the video.

As for this particular match, some styles are a lot harder to judge, and Crisians style is one of those. Pushblockers is another. In this video, I still think its easy to see that both players are high level, but I would hardly have guessed that one was inside the top 100 on the world ranking.

Case in point-

 If you knew what to look for you could see the level differences in the serve and  serve return, but other than that not very spectacular. If not for their ages it would just look like well coached 2k level Jrs playing. 






Edited by V-Griper - 06/10/2015 at 12:08pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 12:16pm
Originally posted by ZingyDNA ZingyDNA wrote:

You mean Boll pulled a Brian Pace in this one? Crisan still had to attack here and there..

Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:


Oh, I think he took Pace seriously enough.  It's just the way Crisan plays. What would you guess Crisan's rating was in this video if you didn't know his opponent or the stage?



IMO, Crisan still had to attack Brian Pace here and there too as well.  Crisan plays a relaxed (some woud say lazy) style.  He backs off the table against Boll the same way he did vs. Brian and lobs.  He counterattacked balls in his strike zone vs. both players.  He made the same lazy returns but well placed to get a predictable third ball.  Brian was nothing close to as consistent as Boll is and Boll of course read the serves and serve returns better - that's the defining difference.  But the effort level wasn't radically different.  In fact, in some of the rallies Boll had, Brian's power to hit through Crisan would probably have been appreciated by Boll.

My point here is that this is not a case of a player playing down to the opposition as much as it is a case of a player with a very hard to judge style because what makes him good isn't what most people are looking for (I am agreeing with General Specific).


Edited by NextLevel - 06/10/2015 at 12:17pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Baal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 1:40pm
Much that was said here was true.   But even taking all of it into account...... 1900-2100?  Really?  I mean really?  That is just idiotic. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pondus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 2:35pm
Originally posted by Baal Baal wrote:

Much that was said here was true.   But even taking all of it into account...... 1900-2100?  Really?  I mean really?  That is just idiotic. 

If that's the case, my fat ass must look a lot better than I thought! LOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote NextLevel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 2:43pm
Originally posted by Baal Baal wrote:

Much that was said here was true.   But even taking all of it into account...... 1900-2100?  Really?  I mean really?  That is just idiotic. 

He may have watched parts of the first few points and not the whole match.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote TTFrenzy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/10/2015 at 9:42pm
Well it does not seem weird to me . Chinese players are taught excellent footwork techniques and power loopin as much as possible. 

Crisan has tremendous ball feeling and placement but his footwork is just awful comparable to other pro players but then again he is definitely a very smart player. His BH is also one of the best out there (overall game, not only a bh powerloop), he and kreanga are the only ones that can BH loop a ball that is falling towards their right knee.

Overall just because of his  really poor footwork I think Crisan is totally overrated when it comes to world rankings. Boll loses to him often not because Crisan is some kind of genius but more likely that Timo hates to play against soft handed players like Adrian and lets not forget Oh sang eun who destroys easily timo's slow FH spinny topspins

Romania hasnt produced a really good player since Filimon, so they are left with Crisan competing in the pro tours and world competitions, in the past 7-8 you can clearly see that romania focused more on female table tennis, unless off course romanian boys are not interested enough so they dont have a decent pool of players to compete


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Baal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 8:14am
Originally posted by NextLevel NextLevel wrote:

Originally posted by Baal Baal wrote:

Much that was said here was true.   But even taking all of it into account...... 1900-2100?  Really?  I mean really?  That is just idiotic. 

He may have watched parts of the first few points and not the whole match.


If you think you can judge level from one or two points you are an idiot.  If you watched more and judged Adrian Crissan at 1900-2100 you are an idiot.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote frogger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 10:52am

Baal do you really need to use such strong words as "idiot" to make your point known?

I'm not the moderator here but as I see it name calling doesn't help this forum.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote slevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 10:55am
I think Assiduous has hacked into Baal's profile! Smile


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Baal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 12:55pm
Forgger, not often would I do that but special circumstances require special terminology.  LOL  Viewing a video of a player ranked at one point around 30 in the world and saying he looks like a 1900 player has to qualify for the table tennis idiot of the day award!  I'm not quite sure what else to call it.  Besides, I wasn't slandering anyone who posted here.  (Mercy no).  Merely someone who was quoted here.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pgpg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 1:39pm
What was so special about the circumstances? It is comforting to snicker at the person who came up with the rating estimate of ~2000, but: you know both players - he did not. How well would you fare under similar conditions? 

All these 'guess the ratings' examples just show you that under at least some approximation of 'blind test' a lot of forum experts fail miserably. Just imagine what would happen if the same approach was applied to equipment reviews - "here is an unmarked blade with generic handle and some smooth rubbers, let us know what you think". Easy to sing praises to Viscaria when you know you are playing with one.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mhnh007 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 1:46pm
It seem like the question and guessing is at around the 30s mark of the video to a young guy, who may not even familiar with the US rating, so what do you expect?
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote slevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 1:49pm
So, Baal, assuming you've never heard of these 2 players before, where would you rank him after seeing the 1st video only?

I'm curious as to where a lot of the posters here would rank him under those circumstances. I would mis-rate him grossly to around 2250 - 2300. Of course, I'd be wrong.

So, apparently he was ranked world #21 at the time of this match (which would mean that his real rating around then was around 2900?). Currently, he is ranked about 30 spots below Eugene Wang on RatingsCentral (to keep his game in perspective).

Either ways, the main point of this post is that while developing footwork and strokes is the best, surest and most solid way to improve, there's more to that in the top players.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mhnh007 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 1:55pm
Originally posted by slevin slevin wrote:

So, Baal, assuming you've never heard of these 2 players before, where would you rank him after seeing the 1st video only?

I'm curious as to where a lot of the posters here would rank him under those circumstances. I would mis-rate him grossly to around 2250 - 2300. Of course, I'd be wrong.

So, apparently he was ranked world #21 at the time of this match (which would mean that his real rating around then was around 2900?). Currently, he is ranked about 30 spots below Eugene Wang on RatingsCentral (to keep his game in perspective).

Either ways, the main point of this post is that while developing footwork and strokes is the best, surest and most solid way to improve, there's more to that in the top players.
Did he watch the whole video before guessing?  My impression from reading the OP is that he did not what the whole video before guessing.
 
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No, he told me his impression halfway through. He probably made his mind up after his 3rd ball @ 1:07. He was shocked when I told him his real rating. He said that before I revealed that piece of info, he was sure that he could beat him (by getting to the balls that Brian could not - he has lighter feet).
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pgpg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 2:00pm
Originally posted by mhnh007 mhnh007 wrote:

It seem like the question and guessing is at around the 30s mark of the video to a young guy, who may not even familiar with the US rating, so what do you expect?
 

I think it said that he started to watch it from 30s mark (presumably so he could not see player names). OP knows better, I 'm sure.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote skip3119 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 2:05pm
Originally posted by pgpg pgpg wrote:

What was so special about the circumstances? It is comforting to snicker at the person who came up with the rating estimate of ~2000, but: you know both players - he did not. How well would you fare under similar conditions? 
All these 'guess the ratings' examples just show you that under at least some approximation of 'blind test' a lot of forum experts fail miserably. Just imagine what would happen if the same approach was applied to equipment reviews - "here is an unmarked blade with generic handle and some smooth rubbers, let us know what you think". Easy to sing praises to Viscaria when you know you are playing with one.
================================

That's a very good point.

Many forumers here already know that Adrian Crisan is a world-class player (ranked around #30 when he played often).  That's why we know he is not a 1900-2000 player.

The top US players (around 2600 usatt) are outside world top 200.
So, the world #30 can not be between 1900-2000.


Edited by skip3119 - 06/11/2015 at 2:06pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Baal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/11/2015 at 2:32pm
Originally posted by slevin slevin wrote:

So, Baal, assuming you've never heard of these 2 players before, where would you rank him after seeing the 1st video only?



As very very very good players.  That's about all I would be able to say.  To suggest from the entirety of the video 1900 is almost hilarious. 

Guess the rating threads are really hard, so I avoid them.  And I would not know the exact rating of these guys either, especially since the two players are so very different in their level.  But clearly they are both really good even if some of it is really sloppy.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wilkinru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06/16/2015 at 6:15pm
I've played people who I would say have very strong forehands and backhands in practice...but the rating is so low that I'm shocked.

So even at the lower levels it's very hard to tell, even from practicing with someone.
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