The Spirit of Pong

It's here!!! This is my fantasy table tennis novel about an American who goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis, and ends up training with and learning from the spirits of past greats. It's in two formats, Print and Kindle, both on sale from Amazon. I've kept the price low - only $6.99 for print, $5.99 for kindle. Buy now so I can afford to eat tonight!!!

I was up half the night working on the kindle version - lots of formatting.) The cover was created by Mike Mezyan, based on a previous table tennis artwork I picked out. It's a relatively short novel, exactly 100 pages. Here's the description from the back cover:

Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness) and Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis?

Is There a Mathematical Advantage in Winning a Game If You Serve First?

No.

I guess I should explain. Some believe that serving first is a mathematical advantage in winning a game, since it means you will sometimes serve more than an opponent in a game. For example, suppose you serve first, and win 11-7. At that point you will have served ten times, your opponent eight. So you won because you served first? No!!! Even if your opponent had the two missing serves, and even if he happened to win both points (the odds are against it), you still would have won 11-9. Mathematically, serving first means you have a better chance of winning by a larger margin (or keeping it closer when you lose), but it makes zero difference mathematically in who wins.

Here's another way of looking at it. A game to 11 is really a best of 20, where we go to deuce if it reaches 10-all. In the case of deuce, you alternate serves, and both players have served ten times before that, so there's no mathematical advantage there to serving first. If it doesn't go to deuce, it means that one of the players scored 11 points within the first 20 points - it just so happens that in our scoring system, we stop the game as soon as someone reaches 11, and so don't play out the entire 20 points. If we did, to use the example above, then both players would serve ten times, and it might change the final score, but no matter how you work it, the player who scored 11 points first is going to win that game, even if the other player were given his missing serves.

In the example above, if the loser were to win both points on his missing two serves, he'd still lose 11-9. If he split the two points, he'd lose 12-8. He might even lose both of them, and lose 13-7.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Dying Arts in Table Tennis

The game has really changed quite a bit in the 39 years since I started in 1976. Some of it has been for the better, but some has been for the worse. From a technique point of view, the biggest loss is the dying of so many techniques and styles that were so common in the past. The game is simply more interesting when there are more styles - modern players often have no clue that the game wasn't nearly always a match-up of looper vs. looper, that there used to be huge battles between styles. Here's a short listing of ten dying styles or techniques.

Tip of the Week

Covering the Wide Backhand.

Beetle Baily Cartoons

Beetle Bailey ran a table tennis cartoon yesterday (Sunday). Cartoonist Mort Walker has long had a partnership with table tennis, regularly running cartoons, often featuring epic matches between Beetle and Sarge. In the early years, apparently Sarge would win, but in recent years it's been all Beetle. Below are all the times they've featured table tennis that I can find. Considering the cartoon has been running continuously since 1950, I'm pretty sure there are plenty more, but they didn't start putting them online at beattlebailey.com until 1996. I'm determined to find them all!!! I found mention of a cartoon from Aug. 25, 1975 that is titled, "Blast it! I lost to Sarge in Ping-Pong Again!", and described as "The Chaplain counsels Beetle on his anger...and his ping-pong game," but I can't find it online. So I just ordered the 1975 Beetle Bailey collection (only cost about $7, including shipping), and will scan and put that online when it arrives. (NOTE added later - I received the comic book in the mail, but it was the wrong one, so I still haven't found this one.) (Yeah, today's blog is a bit short - very busy on various USATT and MDTTC issues, and editing the new coaching book by Samson Dubina. But I think there's enough here to keep you occupied.) (NOTE - I'll likely update this periodically with newer ones.) 

Current Activities and USATT Work

My todo list currently runs approximately the length of three football fields, and that’s in 6-point font. I won’t bore you with the small stuff.

This past week, and hopefully finishing today, has been “The Spirit of Pong” Week. I had eight people read and critique the fantasy table tennis novel, which I blogged about on March 16 and a few times since. It’s now complete, except for the page layouts, which I hope to finish today. Since I wrote it for the table tennis market, I’m self-publishing it. (If I were aiming for the general fantasy-reading public, I’d have to go through a publisher.) If all goes well, it should go on sale in a week.

Next week (probably starting tomorrow) is Samson Dubina Week. He’s written a new coaching book, and I’ve agreed to edit it. I really need to finish it within a week because the following week things get even busier. I’ll probably have some long afternoons at Ledo’s Pizza. (I get a lot done there, sometimes going there at 11AM and staying until 2:30 PM, when I leave to do pickups for the afterschool program.)

The following week (May 18-21) is Disabled Veterans Coaching Week. Here’s the flyer about the camp I’m running at MDTTC. At the end of the week I’ll also be attending Balticon, an annual science fiction convention. I’m a panelist, and will be promoting my fantasy novel Sorcerers in Space.

Coaching Between Points

I blogged about this on Tuesday. There has been a lot of online discussion, such as at the Mytabletennis forum and the OOAK forum. The gist of most of the discussions agrees with what I wrote - this is not a good thing. I’m still in the mode of “Wow. Just wow,” and keep checking my calendar to see if it’s April 1. The rule will take effect on Oct. 1, 2016. Has the whole world gone mad? Here is the new rule, with the old wording crossed out, and the new wording in bold:

3.5.1.3 Players may receive advice only during the intervals between games or during other authorised suspension of play, and not between the end of practice and the start of a match; if any authorised person gives advice at other times the umpire shall hold up a yellow card to warn him or her that any further such offence will result in his or her dismissal from the playing area. Between rallies persons who are authorised to be at the bench / field of play have the possibility to give verbal and visual coaching instructions.

Here are some more articles on this:

USA Wins Bid for 2018 World Veterans

Here’s the USATT article, here’s the ITTF article, and here’s the newly created home page. This is one of the single largest table tennis tournaments in the world, if not the largest, with up to 5000 participants expected. It'll take place in Las Vegas, June 18-24, 2018.

A special thanks needs to go to the USA Organizing Committee, which has worked tirelessly on this - Dan Seemiller, Dave Sakai, Stellan Bengtsson, Mike Babuin, and Dean Johnson. USATT CEO Gordon Kaye did the final presentation at the ITTF meeting at the Worlds, and I'm told did an excellent job. USA beat out bids from table tennis powers France, Japan, and South Korea. I've seen the PDF version of the USA bid, and it's excellent - it practically screams competence and excitement. (I hope they'll put it online - I’ve already spoken to them about this, and will link to it when/if it does.) Here's the USATT notice from April 14 of our being one of the four finalists.

For perspective, here's the home page for the 2014 World Veterans in Auckland, New Zealand. Here's the results, which show the 31 events held. If you can't wait until 2018, here's the 2016 World Veterans, held May 23-29 in Costa Blanca, Spain.

Coaching Between Points?

The ITTF has apparently passed a new rule that says, starting Oct. 1, 2016, coaches will be able to coach players between points. Here's a link and discussion at Table Tennis Daily. Here's an article on it by Matt Hetherington. Here's a Facebook discussion. And here's my primary commentary: What???!!!

Until 2001 games were to 21. This meant that the only coaching in a typical two out of three was after the first game, and if it was tied one-all, after the second game. Since games were longer and you could see more points, coaching was much easier. In fact, I had times where I coached as many as three matches at the same time, by rapidly switching from watching one to the others. (Since most time is spent between points, you don't actually miss much.)

Tip of the Week

Good Tactics Lead to Confidence. (This is an expanded version of my blog from last Thursday.)

My Arm, Weekend Coaching, and The Spirit of Pong

It was another busy weekend of coaching. My arm is about 90% healed, but I'm still having some problems, especially if I attack too much with my forehand, whether looping or hitting. Once it gets a bit aggravated, then hitting backhands or simple multiball makes it worse. So I still have to go easy.

On Sunday I gave a one-hour lesson to Navin Kumar, the bionic man with a partially mechanical heart and Parkinson's. Here's video (1:33) of part of the session where he works on his forehand while moving side to side. He's a little rushed, taking the ball a bit too quickly off the bounce, but part of that is because he plays with long pips on the backhand, which keeps him close to the table.

Following that was a 90-minute junior training session. Many forehands and backhands were hit, a few beginners were introduced to pushing, and we finished with around-the-world, knocking down paper cups, and the ever-favorite, hit the bottle and make Coach Larry drink worm juice.

Then came the 90-minute Adult Beginning/Intermediate Class. We started with drills - side-to-side footwork drills; a backhand-to-backhand contest to see who could get the most (most was 202); then looping and/or smashing against block. Then I gave a short lecture on serving (which we've already covered extensively), and then did serve and receive practice. Then came a tactics lecture/discussion, where we focused on playing choppers, lobbers, penholders, and Seemiller grip. We also continued some of the discussion of racket surfaces that we'd started the previous week.