Not My Best Tournament

I traveled to Highland, Indiana today for the annual Highland South Shore Table Tennis Tournament. I've had a very good experience with tournaments. I either bring home a trophy or at least add some points to my rating. Well, neither happened yesterday.

The first two events I was in was for those with a rating under 1500 and under 1625. In the Under 1500, I beat one old guy and lost to another. The one I lost too I remember him beating me a couple years ago. He's actually quite good and puts some real tough spins on the ball. In the under 1625, I barely beat one girl and then lost to another after being up 2 games to 0 (Steve, this was Cindy Trykall). Then I lost my final match, which would have advanced me had I won, but losing 3 games to 0 easily prevented that from happening.

For my third event, I did something more for just the fun of it. There was an event called the "hardbat open." This is essentially old school ping pong. You use a paddle with no sponge, just the rubber with pips facing out. Basically the kind of paddle you play with in your garage or church basement, which produces a real "thunk" when you hit it. In addition, the games are best of 3 to 21 instead of best of 5 to 11.

I lost both of my matches in this event, although one I was up 20-18 in the final game and then choked. But it was interesting playing this type of game. For one, it is more tiring. No spin on the ball, so rallies are much longer. Seeing as a regulation game can be 40 points instead of 20, it also takes longer to play a game and there's time to recover from a slow start. You don't need nothing fancy. I got a $5.00 racket from Dick's Sporting Goods and did just fine. I'm hoping that the annual tournament in South Bend next spring has this, because it was fun.

So overall, bad tournament for my rating, but I still had fun. Better luck next time.