Greg's Guestbook

Want to add your entry to the guestbook? Then email me with your comments, and I'll add them below. Remember to tick the box on the form saying that you want your comment put on my site!

Wednesday 15th March 2006

Othmar (Otti) Beerli wrote:

Hi Greg

Once more congrats to your phantastic performance in Albany. The standard was (for WA circumstances) quite high I thought and not seen too often down here (This means something coming from somebody like me who has regularly been to Pluederhausen - JOW' Club over the last few years). As far as the increasing & humid temperatures (similarly like at WATTA)are concerned, this is another matter....

I have read your recent report about the WATTA Grand Prix. Although I have been involved in the WA TT scene for quite a while, I have never heard about this event. What are the rules, costs, requirements, times etc. to participate in this interesting formulae?
Would be quite interested to participate myself in the future".

Kind regards & keep up the good work
Otti

Greg replies:

Hi Otti,

Thanks for your kind words - it was a pretty good match I thought.

As far as the Grand Prix is concerned, people are invited by the Tournament Committee to enter the tournament. So I would think that the Tournamante Committee need to be aware that you are playing in WA, and then they need to think that your standard is high enough to be competitive. Perhaps in future requests for entries could be put in the 11-UP so that anyone interested can let them know?

The Grand Prix's are run every month for 5 rounds (Friday at 7pm - the next one is 7th April), and then the finals are played with just the top 8 players. It's good fun and a chance to play several good matches in a night - usually a minimum of 5 matches, and a maximum of 7 or 8. Quite a workout!

Cost is $48 for the whole 5 rounds - very reasonable.

Greg

Friday 10th March 2006

James Poole wrote:

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your excellent site, keep up the good work.

I have found it to be probably the best resource I have found so far on
the subject. I find your writing style to be informative yet sometimes
humerous and thus it is always a good read.

I live in England and me and my fiance have recently taken up table tennis
at a local club and are really enjoying ourselves. I have a question if I
may. We have limited space in our home but would like to get ourselves a
table tennis table. We have seen a smaller table which is made by Jaques
of London and measures 6ft by 3ft and standard height. Here is the link
(its the 67760 Foldamatic Mini 6 x 3 Compact ) :

http://www.jaques.co.uk/online_brochure/table_tennis_collection/index.htm

What are your opinions on playing/practising on a smaller table like this.
Do you think it would hinder our playing progression or not really matter?

Many thanks for your help,

James Poole.

(See Greg's reply in the Comments section of Choosing A Table Tennis Table )

Thursday 9th March 2006

Walter Nehaul wrote:

I am introducing the players from the club to the site and they like it very much especially the new service edition. incidentally we play out of Scarborough Kings Table Tennis club which is one of the largest and oldest in Canada.I do hope that one day you can visit.

Now back to the SERVICE you know I think that the STARE should be practised, I thought that only Schlager did it but I noticed quite a few players do it too, I find that it works with my fast serve.It also helps concentration and slows up the tendency of most players to play too fast.

still the best site.
Walter

Thursday 2nd February 2006

B.A. Ang wrote:

I just want to thank you for sharing the articles with everyone. I just started playing TT about a year ago. Sure benefitted from reading them. Thanks again.

Wednesday 1st February 2006

Nelson Kevin wrote:

Greg,
I found your site informative & entertaining . I look forward to your very interesting articles on megaspin.net all the time . I was born 1970 as well ,and I find sound of a TT ball very soothing the nerves in my "old age"(almost as good as sweet Reggae music !) ;))

Please keep up the good work !

regards,
K.Nelson,
Jamaica W.I.

Tuesday 24th January 2006

Paul Brandrick wrote:

Hi Greg,

Great site I have learned a lot from it.....I am 43 yrs old and just got back into TT about 2 months ago.....when I was younger from the age of 13-16 I used to play a lot at my youth club but not really played since.....I am now addicted to the game and improving every week....it really does keep you fit I must have lost 10lb in the past 2 months and feeling fitter than I have for a long time....I have a question about playing blockers....my style is looping and general attacking and at the club I play at most people are blockers with the occasional attacker.....some of the blockers are very patient and just seem to put the racket on anything I send at them...I am wondering if it would be better for me to put more spin and less speed to combat them.....any help would be greatly appreciated thanks

Tuesday 27th December 2005

Gregg Davey wrote:

I have just read your selection of articles on Long Pimples and am encouraged by your comments. I have just switched 3 months ago from medium Pimples ( RITC 561 -1 non chopping hitting raw pimples) to Long Pimples ( Xiom Guillotine S rough top surface soft pips). There are very few defenders in New Zealand imports or local it is interesting to read comments on defending as a style of play. We have 580 people play interclub per week in Christchurch where I play, and we only have about 4 defenders.

As an aside I was lucky enough to be able to play against Joo Se Hyuk while he was in NZ last year, and what an incredibly nice guy he (and all the Korean Army team) was. Watching him on DVD and seeing live helped me change to aggressive defender, I loop on the forehand with smooth Xiom Yanus Df 2.0 and chop if required and I use a Dr Neubauer Kinetic blade.

My coach is an ex professional Female Korean defender, who is a qualified coach with a degree in sport coaching. She is coaching me to attack as often as possible including a long pimple rolling hit ( as you outlined in one of your articles) and defend with varying spin options.

I enjoyed your comment about a game of chess between a looper and a defender, I personally that great delight in the expression on my opinions face as they misread a turn ball from me, as the ball dives into the bottom of the net or balloons off the end of the table.

I will enjoy any feed back and are going to purchase some video soon, Do you have any defensive players movies.

Tuesday 27th December 2005

George Zimmerman wrote:

I would like to say thank you for your having a site that does more than sell comnsumer goods. Your writing style and subject matter blend well to make come back to peruse for more articles and additions. I enjoy the blog and the sharing of your trials and tribulations as you persue your goal.

Thank you

GeoZim

Wednesday 9th November 2005

Dom Lynch wrote:

Awesome site Greg - I am like you in many ways (I love THE GAME) - same age, like chopping (+ attacking, especially counterhitting/smashing), and have many of the same problems eg. too upright, feet too close together etc...Your understanding of the game is great and the insight into technical & mental areas is EXACTLY what I think about now when I play and when I watch others play...it really is a mind game just like chess... Your site allows physically limited players like me (a man's got to know his limitations.....) to have an intellectual yet practical insight into the game and most importantly to have more FUN..

Great article about the likes of Dragutin Surbek (players/styles of yesteryear!) etc etc and the wonderful styles there used to be - classic chopper vs classic looper (my favourite style matchup) etc...I feel the game misses heaps without this these days - long live ALL styles at ALL levels..

I know exactly how much work you put into the site - its practically a full time job ! I hope you reach your goals for '06 and thanks for your insight into our game..

Sincerely

Dom

Monday 7th November 2005

Matt Sharrett wrote:

Nice site big fella

(Note from Greg - Matt is an old mate of mine - normally I am hoping for a little more detail in the comment! ;)

Tuesday 1st November 2005

Agent HEX wrote:

Greg, you should consider taking the physics article off the site. It's incredibly errorenous. For example: "At the point where there is a minimum relative air speed, a slight vacuum occurs." This exactly the opposite of the benoulli principle which creates the magnus force in TT.

I can provide more examples as the author has no fundamental understanding of physics and generally uses equations incorrectly, if you know what I mean.

I see that you've also included an article for me:
http://www.gregsttpages.com/articles/forumetiquette.html

It contains a very one-side view of the purpose of a forum. But really, I suppose you might not care.

Greg replied:

Hello Agent,

First of all, thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback - I appreciate when people can be bothered to say what they think about the site or it's articles.

Secondly, not being a physics or maths major myself, I couldn't say whether Jonathan's article is totally correct or not - I'll add your comments to the article and you can both feel free to debate the correctness of his hypotheses. I would always be happy to put up your own version of the maths and physics involved if you would care to supply your own explanations. Getting a bit of debate about the subject would be terrific as far as I am concerned. You could always email Jonathan directly as well, his email is on the article in several places - I'm sure he would be happy to chat about it.

Thirdly, I agree that my view of a forum is probably one sided - I wasn't trying for a balanced article, just saying my point of view. Again, please feel free to email me your own view of the purpose of a forum, and I'll be happy to add it to the comments section of the article - an different point of view would be something interesting for other readers to think about. (Was the article meant for you? Any reasons why it should be? ;) )

Best regards,

Greg

Friday 28th October 2005

Tony wrote:

Hey Greg! I just wanna say that this is an awesome site. Thanks for all your hard work and you're doing a great deed for the world of table tennis. Good luck and may all your TT dreams come true!

Your Buddy in the US,

Tony

Friday 14th October 2005

Scott Houston wrote:

G'day Greg,

Great website!!! This would have to be right up there in the top 2 or 3 Aussie table tennis sites. Great to see some video footage on offer too. You never know, maybe one day a game of ours might be able to get a run on your site.

See you at the Nationals next year, it is in Perth after all.

Regards,
Scott Houston

Friday 7th October 2005

Ankit Balaria wrote:

Great website Greg. I am just a full time regular engineering student and practice about four hours a day in the evening with whoever I find at the TT place in my hometown ( Fairbanks, Alaska ). Since there is no big pro to practice with or learn from here, I just search internet for ping pong videoes to learn from or check out the tips available on internet. I just found this website on random search today. Its a good website, good job in putting things together. I hardly send comments but couldn't help writing to you, knowing that I am not the only one guy crazy about table tennis.

Ankit

Thursday 22nd September 2005

Joshua Chu wrote:

Hi Greg,

Congratulation on your website, especially on the long pimple article, it gives explanation in depth as to why long pimples behave like they do.

I play with long pimple, antispin, short pimple and soft rubber. In total I have 4 blades with 4 different combinations of rubbers, albeit, am able to play equally good on those combinations.

So depends on the mood, I can easily adapt myself to play from close to table offensive combination game ( with twiddled long pimple or antispin), to play B/H and F/H loop and drive using two soft side rubbers, in the 2nd set. Some of players suggest that it may be illegal. Is that so? (Click here to see Greg's reply to this question)

Also some suggest that by constantly changing the blade and rubber combination, it would stuff up my game as much as the opponent's. It, therefore, should be avoided if I wish to bring my game to the next level. What do you think about this Greg?

(Greg replies to this question: I don't think you would have too many problems changing from one style to another (although it would have to be between matches, since you can't change your bat as mentioned here). I've done it myself frequently in the past. I find that changing from combination bat to two winged looping is easy because the games are so different, it's a completely different set of tactics and shots. What I find harder is to try to play combination bat defence, then combination bat attack - there is too much overlap and I get confused more often. Does that make sense?)

At the club level (with a few NSW state players), I am at the lower end of A grade group. Occasionally, though I can beat the top end of A grade players, thanks to my "junk" rubber game.

Thank you for your kind answer, keep up the good work Greg..

Regards,

Joshua...

Monday 5th September 2005

Othmar (Otti) Beerli wrote:

Hi Greg

Congratulations to a very well set up webpage. (that did not exist in 2000) As I am unable to access any "official" website (Unfortunately Chris Marsh website is blocked by our administrator), this is a good way of being informed about what's going on in the WA table tennis scene.

I have just come back from Europe after having left Perth in June 2000 and be ready to start playing table tennis in this part of the world again. (Between 1993 and 2000 I have played top B Grade for both Innaloo and Armadale and some players will remember me.)
I have also brought back a few ideas of how to make "our" table tennis scene more attractive. Watch this space over the coming months.

Best regards
Othmar (Otti)

Tuesday 30th August 2005

Chris Strybos wrote:

Great site for understanding playing against pimple out rubbers.What a top resource for young and old.i'm the latter. Iplay at the goonelabah t.t. centre just outside of lismore. good facilities and range of players.Number one is werner borkhardt,currently playing in vets aus champs in Darwin,ranked no 3 in over 60;s.

Can you do some articles on tactics for players with coventional i.e pimples in players.

regards and thanks .

Chris Strybos

Friday 12th August 2005

Kong Linghui wrote:

Hi Greg,

Don't be alarmed...it's not really Kong Linghui, just a wannabe "Kong Linghui" aka Vu from WA here!

I though I surprise/scare you a bit there...hehe.:-)

I just want to congratulate you on your great web site. It's very informative, helpful & fun for all TT enthusiasts everywhere. In my opinion yours is one of the best if not the best TT site in Australia. Keep up the good work mate.

Cheers,

Vu

Monday 8th August 2005

Alex Vanderklugt wrote:

Greg, I'm a TT player (DIV 1) in Adelaide and i found your article on long Pimples very informative. being a LP player myself (837 OX) I was hoping to find some information on sponge thicknesses and what the effects are. I personally use no sponge which gives me good control and the best 'LP effect', but it's hard to attack with or play against deep chops/ pushes. I've tried 1mm, but this seemed to not trouble my opponents at all. What are you thought on this? Do I need to try say 0.6mm sponge, or perhaps a different LP rubber?

Any comments much appreciated!

Monday 8th August 2005

Max Richardson wrote:

Hi. Thanks for your articles on Long Pimples. As a new convert, I am not sure as to the best attacking stroke to use on my backhand with Halmark super special. Also, I am interested in the differences between short pimples and inverted, all I can read is that short pimples are for hitters - but without any more detail.

Regards, Max

Saturday 6th August 2005

Phil Ngo wrote:

HeyZ! You have a great site with the most detailed and correct information I've ever seen in an article!! Keep it Coming.

I'd just like you to post an extremely detailed article on the blade 'BTY Timo Boll Spirit'. I believe this is your favourite blade... and it will soon be mine!

And also can post an article abbout the advantages of handles?
ecspecially a ST and FL comparison

onli if u have time! u can just email me a brief one though

Friday 16th July 2005

Paul Langley (yes, that Paul Langley) wrote:

Hi Greg,

Not sure if you remember me or not, I used to play some time ago for South Australia. I just wanted to say, great website, I really enjoyed reading it.

Regards,

Paul

Greg says:

Of course I remember Paul - he was a great champion and also a very friendly guy, which I remember well since some of the other top players of his time seemed a bit unapproachable in comparison. Nice to hear from you!

Wednesday 6th July 2005

Narciso Kit Adiaz

I found your site quite informative. I was searching the Internet for information about speed gluing, blade, and rubber characteristics, since I'm a developing player.

Thanks, and congratulations for making a fine website.

Thursday 9th June 2005

Rocky Dotzler

Greg,

Congratulations on a great site. It's hard to find the type of in depth analysis you provide elsewhere. It's obvious you put in a lot of time and I just want you to know that it is appreciated.

Regarding your response to a question about the rubber logos being cut off, which I didn't know, my question is: I use a pistol grip paddle and, before you scoff (Note from Greg - too late!), let me say the effects on my game were startling. What started as a novelty while I was in China soon became serious when the improvements were too big to ignore.

Anyway, the pistol grip, which I'm sure you know, has a hole cut literally in the middle/bottom part of the blade to accommodate the middle, ring, and pinky fingers. Unfortunately, this hole is located exactly where the rubber logos would normally go. When the rubber is trimmed, most of the logo is cut out. Is it still illegal if part of the logo can be seen? For example, G6 (for G666), or CR (for Cream). If so, what do you suggest?

Hope this makes sense. Thank you for your time.

Rocky Dotzler

Want to see the answer to Rocky's question? Click here to find out what Greg has to say!

Thursday 26th May 2005

Walter Nehaul

very good site.

with regards to playing the chopper, unless i missed it, when to hit. at our club we have probably the best defender in ontario, he once told me i should try to hit at or close to the top of the bounce, it works most of the time, unfortunately he is a master counter attacker, so it only solves part of the problem

Monday 16th May 2005

Chris Strybos

Greg your site is really informative. For those like me too old and remote to have a coach this is a marvelous resource.Your article on how to play against anti-spin was most illuminating and easily understood and concise. What other tt web site is that clear. Looking forward to more similar articles. Nice one.

Regards Chris.

Friday 6th May 2005

Bhagirath Thaker

The various articles you have written are incredible. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Question:
Say that I server or return a ball and the ball comes back on its impetus onto my side of the table, then what should I do so that I do not lose a point? (I am not sure if I am supposed to hit it or the opponent automatically loses a point or something else.)

Request:
Could you please have an article that talks about the mechanics of TT. For example, when you impart a TopSpin then the ball is rotating this_way and after hitting the table the spin is more and when it touches your bat then do _abc to impart more spin or _def to return it close-to-the-net, or _ghi to convert it to a backspin etc.

Request:
Pictorially show how to return various sidespin servers at different ends of the table.

Thanks.

Regards,
Bhagirath

Thursday 5th May 2005

Adrian Barnes

A couple of additional thoughts on playing weaker
players:
Try giving the (not too much) weaker player a start; say 3 points. This can make
you work/concentrate harder to win. If the weaker player consistently
wins/loses, adjust the start accordingly. Some players are happy with this as it
at least gives a competitive match.

I am erratic, but competent (and awkward) enough to give better players in the
club a challenging game. They want experience of a different style (Japanese
pengrip, twiddler, short chops/floats from b/h and f/h hits (rev & LPO) on
f/h..) and it gives me a chance to sharpen my game against their topspin loops.

I found the LPO series' very interesting. On the subject of LPO,
http://www.masatenisi.org/english/utirtil3.htm has proved helpful to some
colleagues.

You may also want to look at http://www.tenisdemesa.com.br/ (can use Alta Vista
translation tool), and Alex Li's Canadian site (sorry I dont have the URL
handy).

Thanks for the good work,

Monday 2nd May 2005

I just wanted to ask if you had any info on like tricks and tips when playing...or when playing againsts shorts pimples. antispin, or long pimples....like things to do againsts them... or like just tips in general...on playing. And plays to do...thanks any help would be apreciated

regards brian

Friday 22nd April 2005

David Brown (father of Australian Olympian Trevor Brown)

Hey, Greg. Nice to see our Olympians like William Henzell, Russell Lavale, David Zalcberg and my boy Trevor Brown on your DVDs. Also our Olympian women -- Maio, Lay, Cho, Campbell-Innes, etc -- and our up-and-comings as well. What a nice way to showcase our talent. Our top Aussie players are pretty good, eh?

Nice sample clips. I don't get to see Trevor play much these days, as he is in France most of the time. I'm seriously considering buying some of your DVDs. I reckon your work can't harm Aussie TT at all. Some good quality stuff like that should excite some of the youngsters and urge them on to better things. Nice for the sentimental parents too! I'll get back to you soon.

Cheers
David Brown

Friday 4th March 2005

Philippe Dassonval

Hi there ,
How are you Australia ?? I am a Frenchman who lives in New York city for the
last 19 years . I am getting a little bit tired and I am getting old too . So I
was thinking to move to Australia .(Either Brisbane or Perth city ), not Sydney
or Melbourne. I am also a good table tennis player (2040 US rating )Also I may
want to have a family if it's not too late .( I'am 40 years old now , but I look
more like 30)So again, I was thinking about Australia . I just want to have your
opinion ,to see if this could be a good move or not . I heard a lot of good
things about Perth , except it's far from everywhere .but if it's safe enough to
raise a family, I will not mind at all.

Currently , I am working for the Sheraton Hotel in NYC as a Front Desk Agent .
Also I use to be a cook in France , but no more .

Thank you so much for reading my e-mail and I hope that you will kindly reply to
it.

Have a great day .
Sincerely ,
Philippe Dassonval