Category Archives: Table Tennis

LBTTC B vs. Loop Benders

04/23/2011 – 11:44 PM

This morning, my LATTF league team, LBTTC B, competed against a team from Pasadena, Loop Benders. This was a home game, played at Long Beach Table Tennis Club. The Loop Benders only had two members show up our of their three, but they still managed to give us a table tennis beat down!

(L to R) Dean Chi, Winly Vuong, Denise Ngai (Me!), Jorge Puchulutegui, Derek (Dai) Wu, Ting Pan, Stephen Wong

Please forgive the quality of the image above. I had someone take it for us, and I suppose he had an unsteady hand. That aside, my complete team was present for the match. You can tell which team is which based on the uniforms.

Regardless of the fact that we lost one matches to four, we still had a good time!

Ting managed a smile for the photo.

Winly is always in good spirits.

Winly and Derek; Derek was studying for one of his accounting tests!

Dean in action against Jorge in their singles match.

Winly serves as Derek prepares for his next move during the doubles match.

You can see the full results at http://www.lattf.org/2011/04/24/lbttc-b-vs-loop-benders-on-04232011/.

Tags LATTF, LBTTC, LBTTC B, Long Beach Table Tennis Club, Loop Benders, Table Tennis | Comment (0)

Table Tennis

The Westside International vs. LBTTC B

03/27/2011 – 1:23 AM

Ryousuke Adachi, Mark Hezinger, Peter Clarke, (Leo), Derek Wu, Me; Photo from LATTF website

A few friends from my table tennis club (Long Beach Table Tennis Club a.k.a. LBTTC) and I are participating in this spring season’s LATTF table tennis team league. Basically the LATTF table tennis team league consists of teams from various table tennis clubs in the Los Angeles area who compete against each other in their designated divisions, based on rating/skill level. We are in Division 4 this season; last season, we were the Division 6 champions!

On Friday evening, our team, LBTTC B, was scheduled to play The Westside International at the Westside Table Tennis Center. My team has a total of five members – Winly, Ting, Dean, Derek, and I. Unfortunately, Winly, Ting, and Dean couldn’t make it to the match that evening. A match can still be played as long as there are at least two members from a team present – a team has to have at least two members to be considered a team. Lacking one of their members due to an injury, we were only outnumbered by one player. Mark Hezinger (pictured above) is actually my co-worker at Internet Brands, thus making this match a bit more interesting.

A league match consists of two singles matches, followed by a doubles match and two more singles. Derek played against Ryousuke first, and I coincidentally played against my co-worker, Mark, afterward. Derek unfortunately lost to Ryousuke 0-3, but the scores of each game in the match weren’t too far apart. As a quick overview, an individual match is won when a player wins 3 out of 5 games. A game is won when a player reaches 11 points, winning by two points. For a more detailed description of the rules, please see the official USATT table tennis rules. My match with Mark wasn’t too bad, although I ended up losing in the end 1-3. It was a pretty exciting match; I suppose we both wanted to beat each other badly seeing as we’re co-workers competing against each other. Derek and I played doubles against Mark and Peter. This match was extremely close. We were so close to winning! Unfortunately, we ended up losing in the 5th game. Following doubles, I played against Ryousuke and Derek played against Peter. I lost, but Derek won – at least we didn’t get skunked!

If you’re curious, you can see the full match results here.

It’s always fun playing table tennis matches competitively. I guess lately it’s been the only time I take the sport seriously. I suppose I should practice more seriously when I go to the club though, otherwise I won’t improve at all. I find that when in competition, I tend to become inspired to strive to play better and do more drill work. I only wish I could strive to play better all the time, even when I’m not involved in any competitions.

A brief history of my table tennis involvement:

I began playing seriously and receiving coaching when I was 11 years old. I quit at the age of 13, thinking I’d need more time to spend on my high school studies. I regret quitting, actually, because high school was a breeze. Upon entering college, all throughout freshman and sophomore year, I had wanted to check out the UC Berkeley table tennis club, but I never bothered to during that time. I didn’t want to go alone, and no one I knew at school really played table tennis seriously. I finally decided to check out the club during my junior year at Berkeley, and that’s when I began playing the sport again. I’ve been playing consistently ever since. I must admit, though, that I have not been playing as seriously since I graduated Berkeley. My friends from the Berkeley table tennis club and I used to drill a lot, and I did improve a lot while I was there. However, now I just end up being too lazy to drill, and I end up just playing a bunch of games with people at the club for fun. I really wish I didn’t quit for 8 years. If I had continued receiving coaching, I’d be way better of a player than I am today.

Protip #1: Never quit something at which you have somewhat of a talent.

Protip #2: Never quit something at which you have somewhat of an interest.

Follow Protip #1 and #2 because you’ll regret not continuing that something in the future. Imagine how much you could learn/improve at that something if you never quit doing it.

Tags LATTF, LBTTC, LBTTC B, Long Beach Table Tennis Club, Table Tennis | Comments (2)

Family Las Vegas Table Tennis

2009 U.S. Table Tennis National Championships

12/20/2009 – 6:00 PM

I just got back from Las Vegas, Nevada, where I went to watch the 2009 U.S. Table Tennis National Championships. My aunt and uncle from Hong Kong are here visiting, so they joined my parents and me, along with my grandfather from Northern California, on our short Friday-Sunday Las Vegas trip. We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, which is right by the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the nationals took place!

My dad and I went to watch the matches while my relatives and my mom did other things (oh, you know, slots, gamble, shopping, etc.). We saw some awesome matches. Gao Jun took the gold for women’s singles (no surprise there). Ariel Hsing (only 14 years old!) took the silver. Michael Landers (only 15 years old!) took the gold for men’s singles, and Samson Dubina took silver. There was a huge fiasco with the men’s quarterfinalists boycotting due to their dissatisfaction with the amount of prize money being given, which was apparently significantly less than that given in previous years. Nevertheless, the show must go on, and the 2 of the 8 who didn’t boycott (Landers and Dubina) played their final match.

Here’s a shot of one of the women’s singles semi-final matches: Gao Jun vs. Anne Deng (who is only 15 years old!). The other semi-final match was with Jasna Rather (formerly Jasna Reed) vs. Ariel Hsing.

During the nationals and the open, multiple table tennis equipment companies have booths to sell merchandise. Here are some little kids playing with a tiny table at the Joola booth.

Every time I attend some sort of table tennis tournament, I always get inspired to play more table tennis and to improve. Watching such high-level players is especially inspirational and encouraging.

Anyway, thanks to my dad’s amazing hook-ups, I got these babies for only $29 (retail $47.99)!

I’ve been in need of new table tennis shoes, and I’ve had my eye on these 808s for a while now. To top it off, they’re Cal/UC Berkeley colors!

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Berkeley Table Tennis

Berkeley Open 2009

10/02/2009 – 1:53 AM

My, oh my, it has been a while since I’ve posted. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got tons of pictures, just have been rather lazy to put them up. Number one (blogging) fault of mine.

In any case, here are a couple photos from Labor Day weekend when I went up to Berkeley, the weekend during which the Berkeley Open table tennis tournament occurred (and yes, I played!). I pretty much lived at the RSF (gym) while I was up there. o_O

My table tennis homies.

Table tennis homies @ hot pot @ Coriya.

Table tennis homie, Brian, who likes to tease me. Haha.

Oh, by the way, I am still too lazy to upload my own photos – these are pictures I stole off of Facebook, courtesy of Brian Taylor.

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Movies Table Tennis

Reconnecting.

08/25/2009 – 3:51 AM

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but boy do I have a lot to post! My days have been filled with catching up with old friends that I don’t see very often. So, let’s begin.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Ryan Hsu & John Zhang were down in SoCal for John’s little sister’s birthday, so I went over the day of the little shindig. John’s house is in Diamond Bar, and I must say, it is huge! For dinner, we went to the Hong Kong Plaza in Rowland Heights. John’s cousin works at the Lollicup there so she knows a lot of the people who work at various restaurants and places at the plaza. I saw 臭豆腐 (stinky tofu), my favorite!, and I had to have it. Thanks to John’s cousin who has the hook-ups, I got some for free! Yum. I couldn’t resist taking a picture with the sign. Haha.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

BeiBei heard of this place called “Iron Grill” in Los Angeles that had a 1/2 off special on sushi, so we decided to check it out. It was great! We shared a “Love Boat.” and the total came out to only $28, split between the two of us! There was way too much sushi for both of us – we even had leftovers!

After sushi, we watched G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. It wasn’t too bad, actually. After the movie, we stopped by Phoenix Dessert to grab some quick desserts, headed back to BeiBei’s to down our desserts, then I went home. Tummy quite satisfied.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Paul and I watched The Time Traveler’s Wife. It was pretty good. I cried! T_T Haha. I had to ask Paul if he had a tissue. Afterwards, we ate at Del Taco. Mmm satisfying.

Paul’s in Boston now and heading to New York tomorrow for architecture school @ Columbia! How exciting! I hope he has a blast there. Can’t wait to hear all the crazy stories about his experiences.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Chinese school reunion! I had Korean BBQ with Pam, Christine, and Dorothy. We hadn’t all hung out in 4 years! (Ever since college). I’ve missed these girls. It was great hanging out with them. We had a lot of laughs, and as Pam said, my abs got a great workout! Hopefully I’ll be seeing more of them from now on since we’ve graduated and are all back in the area. Pam graduated from UCLA & Christine graduated from UCSD.

(Please ignore my fat arm :[)

Thursday was Christine’s 22nd birthday, so we got her a cake to celebrate! The restaurant also gave her that cute little green critter. We couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Haha. :p

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tiffiny was going back to Berkeley on Wednesday, so we had a little lunch date Monday prior to her departure. We ate at China Bistro near her area, El Monte. We also took Cue! pictures – those cutesy asian pictures that you take in a booth and draw on, but I haven’t been able to scan them. Once I get those scanned, I’ll post them up too!

Wedneday, August 19, 2009

Wong Fu Productions, David Choi, and Far*East Movement were having a meet and greet at the It’s A Grind in Cerritos, and my little cousin, Reycel, really wanted to go. So I took her! I really wish I smiled better in these pictures, though.

Reycel and I with Jsplif and Kevnish from Far*East Movement

Reycel and I with Phil, Wes, and Ted from Wong Fu Productions and David Choi

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Long Beach Table Tennis Club hosted their Summer 2009 Tournament. I helped out and participated in the under 1400 and under 1600 rated events, as well as the under 2800 doubles. My partner and I got 2nd in the doubles event! I almost advanced from my round robin group in the U1400; it came down to a tie-breaker for a 3-way tie! It was very tiring, but I had a lot of fun, and I think I played pretty well. Individually, I won three matches and lost three matches; two of the three games that I lost were played up to 5 games (so I lost 2-3), then the other one I lost 1-3.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

My dad, Reycel, and I went to the Beatles Festival, hosted by KEARTH 101 radio station, by the Queen Mary in Long Beach. It was pretty fun! Two groups of people brought their instruments and started jamming to Beatles songs. Crowds started forming around them, including us, and people were getting into the music. It was cool. Here’s a photo of my dad in front of the Beatles Rockband stage. Yes, that’s right; Rockband released a Beatles version of the game!

Isn’t he cute with his Beatles shirt? :p

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately, in addition to slowly putting away my clothes from my move from Berkeley, slowly cleaning my room, and watching and finishing the Taiwanese drama, Devil Beside You, starring Rainie Yang and Mike He.