5:17AM

That’s what time it is as I write this. (I posted it at 5:22AM; it normally goes up between 9AM and 10AM.) No, I didn’t get up early; I’ve been up all night working on various projects. I’m going to go ahead and post this shortly before going to bed. So what have I been working on tonight?

• Samson Dubina’s new coaching book. Get ready to mark your calendars: it’s coming soon!
• This blog, a little shorter than usual as I’m a bit too tired to have deep thoughts right now.
• Regional Table Tennis Association Sample Bylaws. But I won’t be going public with much of my work on regional associations and related issues until this fall. (I’ll be pretty busy all summer due to our summer camps, which start in a few weeks.)
• US Open plans. Are you going? C’mon, you have to!!!
• Top secret discussions regarding the serving rule, which could lead to a better service rule where players don’t hide their serves, leading to peace on earth, the destruction of ISIS, and banana splits for all. I’d explain more but it’s TOP SECRET!!! Shhh.

Arm Problems Non-Problems

Yesterday I did my first private coaching in ten days, due to the arm problems. I blogged yesterday about the new arm brace; it's working great. I was able to do an entire hour without any serious problems. I still can't smash lobs at full power or backhand smash, and I have to go a bit easy on my loops and serves, but overall, it's a miracle. The arm is still injured, and yet I can coach with the arm brace protecting it from further injury. I wonder how many others are out there with arm problems that would be basically fixed by these braces?

Disabled Veterans Camp

We had nine players in the camp yesterday from 10AM-1PM. A big thank you goes to assistants Steve Hochman and Josh Friedlander, who volunteered to help out as coaches/practice partners. It was another great and highly enthusiastic group. We covered all the basics - grip and stance, forehand and backhand, pushing, and serving. We finished with the ten-cup challenge, where everyone had two chances to see how many cups they could knock over with Steve and I feeding multiball. 

The camp was made possible by a grant to USATT from the USOC. Not only is the entire camp paid for - the players don't pay a cent - but they sent a box of goodies for the players. Each of the players received a nice Stiga racket with sponge. It was an honor working with these servicemen. I'd like to thank them for all the hard work they put in, both in uniform and at the camp! I'd also like to thank those who made it possible - the USOC and USATT, the Department of Veteran Affairs, MDTTC officer Wen Hsu, and especially Jasna Reed, USATT's Director of Para Programs. 

Arm Problems Non-Problems

It's a miracle!!! Yesterday for the first time I tried out the new Bandit Therapeutic Forearm Band that I blogged about yesterday. (Paul Choudhury emailed me a month ago recommending this – I should have listened! But I did receive a LOT of recommendations.) I'd thought it would at most be a small help - after all, how much can something wrapped around the outside of the arm help an injury on the inside? Boy, did I get that wrong!

Another Eventful Day

Here’s a rundown of yesterday’s events.

• Disabled Veterans Camp. From 10AM-1PM I ran the first day of a two-day clinic for disabled veterans. (I did this last August as well, so perhaps it’ll be an annual thing.) It was supposed to be four days, but we didn’t get anyone signed up for Wed and Thur. We only had three signed up for the first day, but have about ten coming today.

  I went over the basics – grip, forehand, backhand, pushing, serve, receive, and looping. We used the robot a lot. There was a wheelchair player, so I spent some time with him going over the differences there. I also explained various organizations – USATT and Paralympics, MDTTC, and local leagues. The players were surprisingly good – probably close to 1000 level with a little practice.

  There was an interesting juxtaposition at the start – on three nearly adjacent tables we had two disabled military veterans (one in a wheelchair), two Buddhist monks in full robes who had come in for lessons, and two 2550 players (Wang Qing Liang and Han Xiao).

Tip of the Week

Become a Player of Routine.

Number of Hours and Hits in a Lifetime

Let’s do the calculation for myself.

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.