Noteworthy
If you are a member of the GBTTC and have an USATT membership, please contact the current GBTT Club president to see about having a portion of your USATT membership fee go to the Greater Buffalo Table Tennis Club. That's right: when you apply for or renew your USATT membership, give your money along with your membership form or application to the GBTTC president. The club president will divert 15% of the membership to the GBTTC and then submit the remaining 85% along with your membership form to the USATT. This is a little known USATT club-affiliation benefit of which our club never has availed itself. It's time we start.
The first annual (2009) Bud Light HardBat Classic held in Las Vegas June 26 through June 28 will be broadcast as a two-hour special on ESPN October 4 beginning at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. The estimated 1024 tournament players all were U.S. residents and were divided among four brackets: the All Stars (Bracket One), which consisted of top-ranking players invited by the HardBat Classic management; the Professionals (Bracket Two), which consisted of players possessing an official rating assigned by the table tennis association of any country; the Bar players (Bracket Three), which consisted of qualifiers from the various Bud Light qualifying tournaments held throughout the country; and the Basement players (Bracket Four), which consisted of people who registered on line or at the door.
Two players from Buffalo—Yong Ren and Eugene Colucci—participated in the tourney after placement in the Professionals bracket. Matches in the Professionals and All Stars brackets were handicapped. Because of his high rating, the handicap worked against Yong, and he unfortunately was eliminated in the first round. The same handicap that was detrimental to Yong was instrumental in Eugene's advancement to the final four players of the Professionals bracket where he lost a semi-final encounter to Jeff Shaw in three games.
The bracket winners from Saturday were pitted against one another the following day. Wayne Obertone (Basement) and Jeffrey Shaw (Professionals) met in the first of the finals matches on Sunday with Wayne victorious. Jack Baker (Bar) next played Trevor Runyan (All Stars) with Jack vicorious. Jeff then played Trevor with Jeff winning and thereby placing third overall (no video clip available), and Jack defeated Wayne to win the inaugural event and $100,000.00 first-place prize money. Unsubstantiated rumors at the tournament indicated that Wayne—currently 73 years of age—did not play in a sanctioned tournament in well over 20 years but was once rated in the top 20 in the United States. Jack—an emigrant from London, England—was an unrated Bar player but clearly is capable of a rating in the 1600 to 1800 range. Second, third, and fourth-place prizes were $5,000.00, $3,000.00, and $2,000.00, respectively. No other prize money was awarded, but all participants received a free T-shirt and Killerspin hard bat.
As more information about the forthcoming ESPN broadcast becomes available, it will be posted here. Meanwhile, please check the HardBat Classic Web site for updates, YouTube for several clips such as this one, and view the matches between Elie Zainabudinova and Tahl Liebovitz (Part 1 and Part 2) and between Trevor Runyan and Eric Owens (Part 1 and Part 2). View more YouTube clips here and note that additional video clips showing the final point of the All-Stars final between Elie Zainabudinova and Trevor Runyan as well as Trevor and Freddie Gabriel in practice can be downloaded here. Press ("right click") once on the links and select Save Target As or Save Link As to download each non-YouTube video clip.
Some GBTTC members wondered about the weight of the more commonly used club balls. Mike Zhu volunteered to measure six new balls to end speculation: one white and one orange Nittaku 3-star Premium, one white and one orange DHS (Double Happiness) 3-star, and one white and one orange Butterfly 3-star brand. Mike used an A&G GF-200 balance with an 0.001 gram error variance in the measurements. The results rounded to the nearest 1/1000 gram follow.
| Brand | Color | Weight | ||
| Butterfly | orange | 2.742 | ||
| Butterfly | white | 2.766 | ||
| DHS (Double Happiness) | orange | 2.699 | ||
| DHS (Double Happiness) | white | 2.731 | ||
| Nittaku | orange | 2.731 | ||
| Nittaku | white | 2.745 |
On December 11, 2008, Will Shortz and Robert Roberts visited from New York City. Several games between Robert Roberts and Yong Ren were recorded. See Robert successfully hit a behind-the-back shot during one point in Games 3 below. Frames were extracted from the video (see the 55 individual still shots) for a different perspective. When the stills are played back quickly, it is a little easier to see the white ball, which appears like a small, dark blur.
Press ("right click") once on the links below to activate/download each video clip. If downloading (recommended), right click and select Save Target As or Save Link As.
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Points 1 Points 2 Points 3 Points 4 Points 5 Points 6 Points 7 |
Games 1 Games 2 Games 3 — Stills Games 4 Games 5 |
