How important is Deception ?

Discussion in 'Techniques / Training' started by dnewguy, Sep 21, 2018.

  1. dnewguy

    dnewguy Regular Member

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    Hello all,

    Last few days I didn't get to play badminton at all so I ended up doing the next best thing - - - "Thinking about it" ! ;)
    There are so many areas to be improved that one can get easily swayed by the '''Trickshots" (I'm one of them).
    When I picked up badminton few years back I was fascinated by videos like 'Top 20 trickshots' , 'Top 100 Deception' and so on.
    I'm still working on kicking those bad habits of trying to pull a lunging crosscourt drop when I can easily score by pushing it to the rear backhand corner.. eventually failing and losing the point.
    I was thinking of stopping it altogether and play very straightforward badminton. But I have played some people with strong deception which nullifies my footwork and speed.
    So my question is that at what point should we start practicing this skill ?
    And actually use it during a competition ?
    As far as I'm concerned my deception/trickshots success is about 50%.

    Watching the pros in MS I feel that they only use it against weaker opponents.

    I'm quite fast on my feet so with average opponents I can smash from back and can retrieve if blocked. And therefore I'm more vulnerable against good deception + Clearing type opponents.

    Cheers.
     
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  2. llrr

    llrr Regular Member

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    One thing to remember, and I wrote this in another thread, is that deception only works when a player has time. Of course you would struggle with deception, because it means your opponent has more time than you. This can be because your shot quality wasn't high enough, or they're faster at reaching the shuttle. You don't see much deception in professional MS because there isn't a big enough skill or speed gap, mostly consistency gap. Also, like you've found out, deception is not reliable enough. 50% success rate is definitely not reliable in competitive games.
     
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  3. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Deception looks good but playing winners are hard. What it does though is it makes the court feel bigger for the opponent and then makes them late for the shuttle. Use it once in every 10-15 shots.

    It's the cumulative effect over a game that kills the opponent.
     
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  4. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    Well it depends on what you consider as deception and how much you consider as being a lot. I personally think you do get a lot of deception in MS but as deception is only effective if you use it sparingly, you can't expect to see it in every rally.

    A lot of the time, small deceptions which are less noticeable such as holding shots tend to be most effective. Although strictly speaking these are not "deceiving" shots, they have the same effect and I would place them in the same category.
     
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  5. llrr

    llrr Regular Member

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    Deception to me is where the racquet movement seems like one shot but another shot comes out of it. Hold and flick is deception but it's much easier to play especially if you're early to the shuttle.
     
  6. Rob3rt

    Rob3rt Regular Member

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    Deception should be a key part of every players' game. It keeps your opponent guessing and prevents him from overcommitting. It might give you an advantage without having to work hard for it. It creates opportunities and helps your other shots as well. If your success rate is only 50 %, you gotta work on that. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about trickshots and fancy stuff. Just holds & flicks, slices, reverse slices, inside outs etc.
     
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  7. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    I think all of these shots essentially have the same effect but to a different extent. They all interrupt the opponent's rhythm and delays them. Some deceptive shots delays them so much, making them so late that there is no point attempting to reach it. Whereas other shots may just delay them slightly but enough to limit options or reduce the quality of the return. Holding shots can have the same effect.

    So in answer to the OP's question, I think deception is very important and tends to separate the best from the rest. I think some players like LCW, LHI, LYD etc would be even better if they could incorporate more and better quality deception into their game.
     
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  8. dnewguy

    dnewguy Regular Member

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    Very interesting explanation. Never thought about it this way. I usually try to play first few matches straight and only in the deciding set I experiment with deceptive flicks, holds, trickshots.
    Which then becomes a matter of luck.

    Thanks.
     
  9. dnewguy

    dnewguy Regular Member

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    That is the best kind of deception. But I believe to achieve that one needs methodical coaching from the beginning to develop precise techniques so they look the same while execution.
    Me and many others usually pick badminton pretty late and therefore it's almost impossible to forget and re-learn all the shots.

    Cheers.
     
  10. dnewguy

    dnewguy Regular Member

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    I agree Deception is an important tool. And I use it to my advantage very often(a bit too often --- to the point that the opponent stops falling for it and then to lure him in I push myself and start making unforced errors).
    The holding shot works best because it almost makes it certain to score or get back a weak return to kill.
    My question is "If it's worth training for this particular skill?" Or should I focus on a no frill game and leave it till I get more consistent game ?

    I was thinking of only using it only as a last resort and not at my leisure during a game(showing all my cards).
     
  11. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    As you already know, big deception only works best if you use it occasionally as you lose the element of surprise if used too often. It's a bit like the flick serve, flick too often, like G.Adcock and it becomes an expectation however well you trained for it. With smaller deceptions like holding shots, it can be used a lot more often, perhaps even at every opportunity.

    And about training, I would say yes do practice them. But I wouldn't devote a great deal of time to it. I used to use friendly club nights as opportunities to "practice" some deceptive shots when under no pressure and occasionally dedicate some training time with a friend to practice a few.

    P.Gade was one of the most deceptive players and he often trained to perfect his deceptive shots. Afterall, there's no point playing deceptive shots if you don't feel confident during a match to play it or can't be sure its going to be effective. Take LYD for example, his double-action lifts from the net are awful and not only has next to no effect on all his opponents, he has taken a gamble to play the shot - placing the quality of his lift at risk.
     
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  12. DarkHiatus

    DarkHiatus Regular Member

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    As mentioned before, you have to be clear that trickshots are in some ways over-complex deceptions that which they look cool, you'd likely get the same effect off a simpler action like a hold and flick.

    If an opponent can beat you with trickshots, then it's likely he would beat you with simpler deceptions like slices, holding shots, punch clears.

    So in that sense, trickshot deceptions are not that useful at all.

    The 'basic' deceptions mentioned above are incredibly useful for MS. It adds another tool to allow you to disrupt your opponents rhythm, making them mistime their splitstep or even mistime their shot completely.

    What is important is that your opponent must respect your ability to play without deception in order for it to be effective. Just like smashing - why would your opponents fear a deceptive sliced smash if he has never seen your full power steep smash first? All he sees is a half power smash that looks like a lot of effort for you :p

    So you need to have a strong basic game - take that shuttle early, show your variety of basic fundamental strokes before adding in deception to show that not only do you have the basic strokes, you can also control the rally by playing with tempo, and that is where Lin Dan really shone in his prime. The ability not only to play in 1st gear through to 5th gear, but the ability to switch from 5th to 1st and back to 4th again within the same rally.

    In terms of practice, learn to take it early as possible. You will eventually realise against weaker players that you suddenly have more time than you expected on some shots and that's when you can pause for a moment (hold) and play an unexpected shot (flick/net/drive).

    Remember as @Cheung and @R20190 say, use it sparingly. Just like the flick serve, the aim is to unsettle your opponent - you certainly do NOT want your opponent to adapt to your deceptive timing!
     
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  13. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    I trained on Wednesday a talented 11 years old male player one by one. Topic was shot security and helping him with consistency. He also asked me about deceptions, slicing etc.

    The conclusion was that a shot must have a high rate to go over the net and inside the court. Aim is 100% but shouldn't be lower than 90%. Otherwise I need to practice this shot and shouldn't use it frequent because it's risky.

    IMO deceptions make only sense if you can play the shot without deception at around 95 to 100% with high quality. 50% is too low and risky and I would choose anything else than this shot.

    Also as mentioned before you need time to add something to it to make it deceptive. It's also important to have a player who is useable to be fooled. If you play equal or better opponents, I would suggest to play a safe standard instead of risky action to maybe make a point.

    I also made the experience that opponents I played were not easy to fool, because they were not too early moving and waited for the shuttle and don't focused on anything else.

    IMO deceptions are great to make easy 1-3 points in a set, but before I would work on that I would try to make my rate for any shot, even under pressure to a 90% rate. Otherwise I loose the easy points with my error rate again. It's also important to play deceptive which means that your clear, smash and drop or net shot and lift look similar, because it makes it hard to anticipate.
     
  14. Nine Tailed Fox

    Nine Tailed Fox Regular Member

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    Very important for hopeless players with no BH, smash or footwork.
     
  15. dnewguy

    dnewguy Regular Member

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    Thank you so much for these valuable insights.
    I will surely work on it and give it enough attention.
    It was most helpful.

    While we are on the topic I want to raise this idea of deception with 'looking' elsewhere while playing a shot ?
    Is it worth it ?
     
  16. DarkHiatus

    DarkHiatus Regular Member

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    Depends on your opponent, doesn’t it?

    The art of deception generally requires you to ‘sell’ an idea to your opponent before doing something different.

    If your opponent reacts based on your body movements, then it is likely to be effective. If they look only at your racquet, it is not going to be effective, and you only suffer a loss in accuracy.

    And the big key training point - if they only ever look at the shuttle, they will never be deceived. But even the pros take their eyes off the shuttle on occasion. You just have to remember the shuttle never lies :)

    Interestingly, beginners often don’t get deceived, because they don’t actually know what to expect from body/arm/racquet movements, and they watch only the shuttle. Training the habit back in to only react once you’re seen the shuttle move is a hard habit to regain, but everyone starts with it!
     
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  17. llrr

    llrr Regular Member

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    I think it's necessary to watch your opponent in high level games because anticipation becomes important. Of course, this also means that deception becomes useful again.
     
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  18. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    Hi there

    As far as learning about deception is concerned, I've made two article years back about the hold and hit as well as double motion deception (but I just don't know how to search about this here ....but well I think it's here somewhere ) just in case if you want to understand more about this type of deceptions

    In regards about your thread question is concerned then my answer will be yes, deception is important. However, one must understand, despite how fluent and convincing you can execute your deception at any given time while you're playing, it still does not guarantee that you will, at the end of your matches end up as the winner. Then if this is the case then where does the importance of deceptions play it's part?

    You don't execute any of your deceptive moves while playing primarily as a winning hit to win all your rallies (bcoz executing a straight net kill or smash etc when there is an empty space or opportunity would be a more effective way) but you execute them as part of your strategy to create a scenario of unpredictable series of variable type of hits that hopefully could make your opponent unable to predict the correct direction of your next hit and hopefully it would open an opportunity to execute a winning shot afterwards or if executed well might be a winning hit by itself.

    While executing your deception, it is very important for you to execute convincingly your deceptive moves for it to easily able to deceive your opponent and therefore, it's very vital for you to understand and master first on how to execute all the correct techniques of all the hits there are in badminton. Since the preparation involved before executing a deception plays a major part to create the required room and timing factor in facilitating the fluency of your hitting actions while executing your deception, you won't understand the role of any this factor unless you understand first on how to correctly prepare yourself to execute a normal hit first.

    When you already tried to learn any of the deceptive hits while training and have fully understood and able to practically apply on how to correctly prepare yourself before executing a deception and that deception is executed well, then it's just a matter of adapting it into your gameplay and when you can convincingly execute it while playing as well then I would say that you're quite ready and keep on practicing until to the point where your deceptive moves has become just like a second nature to you in the list of all your hitting sequences.

    Good luck

    SS
     
  19. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    I love to use this deceptive stroke (may be more of a trickshot?) from time to time. Simple, pretty easy to use in match with a high rate of success (by far higher than 50%) and works every time, even against players who knows about it, as long as you just do it occasionally. Try it out if you do not already know it, it can save you a point or two.

    Trickshots and deceptives are two different things though I agree but as long as one can pull it with consistency and occasionally to surprise his opponent I’d say it’s worth practicing these and it helps to improve one’s abilities, control and feelings with the racket. Football players love to juggle and do some freestyle moves even if they never use it during an actual match. It still help with ball control. Besides it can be a fun way to end a practice session. :)

    EDIT: when I say it works everytime I don’t mean that it makes a straight point right away and all the time but it always disturbs the opponent enough to whether score a straight point or at least destabilize him/her enough to place him/her in a difficult situation for your next stroke.

     
    #19 LenaicM, Sep 23, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2018
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  20. Rob3rt

    Rob3rt Regular Member

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    I do a lot of deceptive shots, but I never tried that one. Don‘t think it‘s so easy...
     

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