1. 11 players came today (Bill came back after spending time with son in University Fair!)
Store Valued Card balance is at 18 so Andrew may decide to call for next collection for new year (if we finish for season for practice and get together dinner on 11/24)

2. All catch up games and playoff games were completed with exception of Jeff versus Andrew (away) for Position 7 – 8.

3. With Jeff’s help, all participants were presented with a WYKAAO Inaugural Inter Club Table Tennis Ladder Competition Participant Award and photos taken.

4. All members are invited to come next Saturday 11/24  2 PM for more exercise, decide whether to resume activities in January, decide on a new handicap system
I proposed to create even closer competition for future series (see previous post) and to have a Christmas dinner together after as originally proposed by Andrew
(place to be suggested to Andrew or Andrew calls the shots). I suggest Carmelina on Woodbine (next to Fish House) as this is a cosy but authentic Italian restaurant I recently re-acquainted with (saw several changes of management over the years and Ivy & I like our recent experience)

5. The final standing of this Inaugural Ladder are: (Jeff has asked me to look into a permanent trophy, cost to be shared by the Association and members pool for future)

#1 David Ho (who beat Sonny Sie 3- 0  in SF and Michael Luk 3-2 in Final to claim top dog spot. Several deuces in first 3 games.

#2 Michael Luk (who beat John Kan 3-0 in SF and lost to David 2-3 in Final)

#3 Sonny Sie who beat John Kan 3-0 and is the player with the most points overall (he remained the only undefeated player in Round robin & hence best win/loss ratio).

#4 John Kan, with his M1 & M3 rubber on new blade, could not repeat the Cinderella run last week

#5 Wilfred (who beat George Cheng 3-0 in 5 -6th spot game playoff on battle of cl. 69 honours)

#6 George Cheng

#7 & 8 TBA between Jeff Mah and Andrew Tang (game not played yet)

#9 Chris Tam (who beat Victor Tong and Kathy Kan) in 9 – 11th spot playoff.

#10 Victor Tong (he came in again from NJ!) who beat Kathy Kan.

#11 our honourable lady member Kathy Kan who had a spirited run and managed to win 2 sets against the guys without handicap.

Let’s have some fun and get creative:

Handicap system proposal #1

A. Points for each player after this play off:

Each player (after completing all games in the Inaugural Ladder) will get points as follows
a) number of matches won minus number of matches lost, then divided by number of matches (players) = points won   (+ve  or -ve)
b) ADD position points/2  i.e. Number 1 gets 5.5 points (11/2)  this time, number 2 get 5 points and so on and so forth

This forms the total points going into future series of handicapped ladder for each player and accumulative in carrying forward.

B. Grouping for next series

Next series, Odd placed players in 1 group (no longer by age) ie #1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 in Group #Y, 2,4,6,8,10 and 12 (if Bill comes back)  into Group S.
This works like a seeding system for round robin.

C. Handicap points for each new series:

(This is where we need to plan well because of all the controversies)

Based on last earned position (in this case our inaugural) higher ranked player give 1 points for each position difference to a maximum of 5.
ie # 1 plays #3 and gives 2 points handicap or we decide it should be just 1 points.
#1 plays #5 and gives 4 or 2 points, # 1 plays #7 and gives 3 or 5 points, #1 plays #9 and gives 4 or 5 points.

We dispense  ex school team handicap except for new ex school team playing for 1st time (e.g. Bill) since from this point onwards it is by performance (net games won + position handicap). You need to fight for every game.

Then we re-calculate the point accumulated after each series re A, B and C and build the chart/ladder.

This is just an initial thought and could be very complicated. No golf/bowling handicap system has come up with this type of innovative handicaps so far and controversies still exist.

Let’s have a preliminary chat this or next week.

We have a lot of makeup games yesterday and more close fights.

Group Y finished all their games. David Ho and Chris Tam came back. Results and positions are shown in here.

Of note, Chris bought a new paddle while in HK, still jet lag but had a spirited run. He now uses a DHS Hurricane 3 (no. 19?) _George has 1 rubber like that  and an Donic Acuda S2

http://oneofakindtrading.com.au/dhs-hurricane3-no19.htm

http://www.tabletennisdb.com/rubber/donic-acuda-s2.html

Group S still has the following unfinished matches because Victor could not make it back from New Jersey:. Victor against John, Kathy, Sonny John against Cathy.

In Group S, 2 players finished all their rounds (Andrew with 8 points and George with 10 point). George ranked third behind Sonny who has 12 points and 1 game to play and John with 8 points with 2 games to play)

Of note: John arrived without his paddle, “complained” like crazy, rent a paddle and finally bought a completely new paddle from MTTC (Donic Blue fire M-1 rubber?) and was the biggest winner and hardest fighter in this group. He has 8 points in 3 games (two 5 setters with Andrew which he won and then with Sonny which he was leading 2-0, according to Sonny and blew out in the 5th)

http://www.tabletennis11.com/other_eng/tt-rubber-donic-bluefire-m1

Likely scenario in playoffs:

Group Y #1 Michael Luk plays Group S  #2 John Kan (likely outcome based on points and games to play) in SF Group Y #2 David Ho plays Group S #1 Sonny Sie (ditto, he already has the most points in all group at 12) in SF

Position 5-6 is between #3 in each group (Wilfred and likely George in a battle of Cl 69 honours)

Position 7-8 is between #4 in each group (Jeff and likely Andrew who picked up 5 precious points yesterday, 2 from John and 3 from Kathy in Group S)

The rest are too early to tell and Andrew will have to decide whether #5 in Group Y plays Number 5 & 6 in Group S to decide ranking 9 – 11. Kathy is entitled to handicaps.

Questions from Sonny: How do you tell the characteristic and suitability of each type of rubber?

Depending on your style of play, you are either looking for control, spin or tackiness etc It’s an easy read:

http://www.tabletennis.gr/table-tennis-blade-and-rubbers-choise.html.

Happy swinging and see all next Saturday.

We have quite a few close games with winner winning in 3-2 today.

After a tough Day 1

The co- leaders in Group Y are Michael & Wilfred, each with 5 points (these two battled 5 close games with Michale winning first set 17-15 and most other 4 sets either in deuces or 11-9) after 2 games .
Jeff (our new Chair) took the first game against Michael (who gave a 3 point handicap) in 3-2 but lost 0-3 against Wilfred (throwing the games away?), is third. David & Chris will come next week.

The leader in Group S  is George with 7 point from 3 games, followed by Sonnie who left early with 6 points in 2 games.
Victor arrived late (no gas in NJ) and lost his opening 1-3 against Andrew and then lost  to George. What a guy to come in from NJ with limited gasoline supply!
Andrew is currently 3rd in Group S with John and Kathy coming up for make up games next week.

Score sheet can be viewed here.

Edmond Wong (Cl. 71) and wife Ann came by to watch and he played a few rallies with us.

See you all next week for all make up and upcoming games from 2 pm.

The round robin can be as follows (David & Michael, you are good active players. Are you interested to participate in our ladder and eventually help us in another tt tourney for WYKAAO).

1) we divide our participants in 2 groups ((age 60 + and Age 60- or age 55+ or age 55-) to form 2 “equal” group or a simple draw amongst all participants

2) we play round robin within the group, best of 5 sets on 11 points. 1 point for each match won, Ex school team members, the likes of David , Michael, Bill and myself provide 3 point handicap in each set.

3) Games every Saturday,to be completed in 2 weeks. Defaulter is responsible to get his opponents to agree to an alternative time to play and get his score OR opponent (s) will get 2 points (instead of 3 ) (similar to a bowling roll off)

4) Start of playoff in 3rd week. Top 2 from each pool play round robin for top 4 spots in entire pool. 3rd in each group play their counterpart in the other pool and likewise for remaining players. In the event of a tie of points to decide on position, we play a sudden death between the two players with identical scores within the first draw. OR by points won (more admin work)

5) score sheets to be maintained and published weekly.

6) we need to arrnage for non Saturday plays with MTTC/Rays Chiu  so that they can get their money (our store valued card deduction scanned after) and card holder (Andrew in this case ) does not have to show OR defaulter/ opponent play for single drop in fee of $6 extra (preferably not)

We can chat/discuss about the format this afternoon. Both Andrew & I are not available 10/27. We can start the tourney 11/3 or 11/10 and finish off 12/1.