A Question from a Mike, Strategy!

One of the Mikes wanted to discuss strategy a bit.  I suggested that it was basically king of the hill.  Get to the kitchen and wait for a mistake.

Mike seemed dubious about that take.  Shall we examine the issues?

I think it's important to start with a simple division.  Are we talking about tournament play or rec play?

Rec play is all about having a good time.  I think that means longer points, everyone gets to hit the ball and while hitting a put away is fun, it's not a great thing to do if you are beating up on a beginner.  I'd suggest trying to prolong points and win them by moving opponents around, being clever, keeping the ball in, etc.

What Mike might have in mind is how can a team play better together and I think that's an interesting topic.  Playing together basically means moving together and shot selection.  

The basic movement implies that you can move ahead of your partner's shot if it's going to be a soft one.  If partner likes to hit the ball hard, then you have to be back to return a hard shot.  

There are players who will hit the third, fifth and seventh shots all hard.  This is not my style and I prefer a soft third, or at least soft shots after a hard third.  I see situations that cry out for just dropping the ball over the net allowing my side to scamper to the kitchen and get in the dink battle, but partner winds up and misses or we get caught with a return too hot to handle.  I agree that hitting the ball hard is fun, but it's not the funnest way to play in my opinion.

You can also look at the post about Byran and Lori, who basically do not hit hard shots unless they can win the point outright.  If you get a chance to play with one of them, you'll see that knowing what is going to happen makes the points much easier to play.  You know where you want to be, where they will be, etc.  There is then a smooth bit of team work that I find quite rewarding.  Win or lose, I'll have enjoyed the "dance" of the play.

If you go back to some of the early posts you will find one about who covers the middle of the court.  This is vital and it requires anticipation and movement.  If your partner is pulled left, you have to shift left too.  Same thing when you are pulled away, partner covers/shifts.  Thinking about having one or more of you sitting on the center line at all times and switching roles, is simplistic, but pretty close to the truth.  This is more basic to advanced play than strategy, actually.  

One of the difficulties of rec play is that you will not have discussed any of this with your partner.  You're going to get at most a couple of games together.  How much does partner know and what will they do about shots and coverage, etc, are the questions.  Being on the same page is part of learning the game.  What an advanced player does automatically, a beginner is probably not aware of, or might even be hesitant to do.  Abandon a side of the court to handle the middle? Camp on a sideline because of whom you are playing? Hmm, scary at first, comfortable later, and soon a standard element of the game.

When all the finer points are integrated, then they can all get warped due to whom you are playing.  For example you are playing against a banger who likes, ok, loves the down the line shot.  Well to control the point you want to coax them to hit that shot because if you know where the ball will go, you have a large advantage.  

There are other examples of this, if the opponents bang all the balls, be ready to block and angle the returns off.  If the banger's partner is in the wrong place, then punish him.  

Mike and others are fervent about getting better and are interested in the learning the finer points of the game.  That's great, and there are a bunch of players who were beginners and are getting better quickly.  The beauty of the game is that a rapid skill acquisition is easy to do.  But what about partner?  You learn something new and want to try it, if partner has not heard of it, then you may be in trouble.  You don't want to do things that partner won't understand and react to properly.  

So once again I'm off topic.  Strategy is a bit nebulous, I guess, and I'm leaning at more altering play based on whom one plays rather than the basic movement and shots of a game played by the book.  

So maybe to answer Mike's question, the answer lies in getting real good at coordinated movement, better at controlling the ball you hit, and best, which shot to hit.

Tournaments are a different case and there is a very recent post about that.  Basically, beat up on the weaker player.  Dink if you are better dinkers, bang if you are better bangers.  Serves become a bit more important, but still vital to always get them in.