Re: Can we keep experimenting with scoring changes please?

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John McCabe wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:21:25 -0600, Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> True of course, but what exactly *is* the serve that gives you the
> best chance to win a rally? You obviously have a better chance of
> winning a rally if you get the service in play rather than out of
> play, so ...
> 
> While jump serves are an exciting part of the modern game, to be
> honest too many of them go in the net and out of the back of the
> court, and teams are so used to them at the top level, that can they
> really be considered that effective any more? At a lower level, i.e.
> the level I play, they obviously are effective if you can reliably get
> them in court but at the top level you have to bring out a very
> impressive serve to make it count, and that generally means taking the
> risk of seriously screwing it up!

I mostly aggree with the above. I think it is likely that people make bad
decisions about how to serve on a regular basis.

I suspect that subtle serving strategies don't get taught a lot to players.
Having coaches make zone calls to servers doesn't help players learn
some nice tricks.

Over the years I have learned some tricks that were never formerly taught.
In addition to trying to serve near (but generally not diurectly at) poor or
slow passers, I have found that serving into players switching or short
serves at the middle hitter can be very effective at messing up a teams
offensive timing even though the serve usually gets passed OK. When playing
with fewer players you can influence what hitter gets set based on which
side of the court you serve to (some setters like to generally front or
back set without regard to disparities in their hitters' skills). Also
some hitters are lazy about getting to their approach spot after passing,
and serving them deep can often take them out of plays.

My original point was that you should be going through essentially the same
decision process under either scoring system.