Don't say old system, but the true system! Badminton is rally a game of combination of personality, strategy, speed, power and skills combined. We want to play and enjoy the game, win justly with skills and determination. Unfortunately the 21 point rally system not only takes part of the skills and determination away from the game but also added the luck factor to the result of the matches.
Frankly, I don't believe what you are claiming. Claiming to speak for someone who was supposedly? a well known Hong Kong player is not very credible. Let us hear from those who live and play in Hong Kong, from the schools to the oldies.
No, I disagree and I think you are turning things upside down. The OSS just doesn't have the skills, strategy, speed, power, mental toughness, determination, neutrality, competitiveness, and more of the NSS. The OSS was a system that had long outlived its usefulness in today's exceptionally high level of the modern game. Let us ask others to answer this simple question : has today's badminton reached a higher level of excitment, competitiveness and all-round skills than when it was under the OSS? Also are the matches we have seen on the NSS of a higher quality than those under the OSS? Is the game more entertaining and exciting now?
One thing you like always to forget is sports, such as volleyball, tennis, table tennis (not sure about squash). That way it may make sense to change the scoring system allowing the receiver side to score as well. Badminton on the other hand, the serve does NOT give advantage to the server. Please explain the logic that is always predominant in the speech, why the hell do I want to win the rally to get the serve back when it does not give me the advantage being the server? Does the 21-point system reduces the injury in the players? Really? Can you provide facts or any research to enlighten us. I believe the players get injured (and could be quite serious) during training, specially when executing high intensity drills. Did the professional players reduce the training hours and made the drills less intensive now with the 21-point system? Again, did the ruling/governing bodies' justified their statements with facts? What has the 21-point done to the game? I don't know other than the game pace overall is slower and the duration shorter. Other than that, it still not much changed. The mental factor is just another myth for the 21-point. Both formats requires total commitment and focus, without it a player cannot win. What changes is the luck factor, which is higher with the 21-point system. As for mental strength, the 21-point system also takes away the what is known as 14-point blues in the 15-point system. The merit and the beauty in the 15-point system, is that the player needs skills to win the game. The determination, skills set, strategy, endurance, speed and total commitment are pretty much the characteristics of the 15-point system and where the 'luck' factor is less. In the end, what is the 21-point format advantage over the 15-point format. In my opinion, NONE. But if this 21-point format brings more people into badminton, well, we may have to accept it. But does it? I would say, if the WBF was able to sponsor more qualified coaches and provide affordable classes in North America would helped a lot more to popularize badminton than changing the scoring format. The only 'good' thing about the imposition of the 21-point format is the making of people going into different directions to play the game.
Now picture this OSS game scenario. Two singles players playing a match, and the first game went to A who won 15-0. In this firts game there were a total of 101 rallies played, player A winning 58 rallies and losing 43 rallies and player B winning 43 rallies and losing 58 rallies. Is the score of 15-0 indicative of a game of skills, power, strategy, excitement, etc? How is 15-0 scoreline related to the 101 rallies of 58 for the winner A and 43 for the loser B? How can it be called a competitive sport at all? It is all muddled up. Thank goodness badminton has seen the good the new rally scoring system brings to the game, from the experiences of other equally important sports.
I think we have discussed to the point of saturation... Now, tell me one thing: how much training did you get as a player. Were you trained under the 15-point system and play competitively. Did you train under the 21-point system and tell the difference. Sorry, your games with your buddies experience do not count. As a player (amateur only under the best professional coach you can get ) I trained under the 15-point system. That was 30 years ago when I was an active player, and surprise - I had to play the rally scoring system as well. And not only, we did also mix and match the server scoring with the rally scoring for 'fun'. There are specific objectives using the rally scoring during our training, which I can see being in use during the tournaments. Can you tell? Watch the matches between Yang Yang vs Icuk Sugiarto; or against Morten Frost. Tell me if Tang Xianfu, Hao Jiachang, Zhao Jianhua were not an exciting players and their matches exciting. The 21-point system is giving us a different type of game. More exciting? Can you explain the factors that take the duration of the singles matches to over an hour?
For this I only have 1 reply to you: I appreciate badminton and its beauty. I do not care how may rallies that were played. I would not mind if there were again matches between Tang Xinfu and Hou Jiachang, or Yang Yang, zhao Jianhua, Morten Frost, Icuk, Liem Swie King, Misbun Sidek and company. I would sit there and watch and would even want to forget about the scoring. I love to watch the game in its beauty. The more the better, and for this I just love the 15-point server scoring format, which for the reasons I stated, is simply the best.
I have a feeling you are stuck in the past. I presume you still continue to play with the OSS. You must have a large community of OSS players to be able to do this. It is almost impossible for us to play the OSS again in Hong Kong as almost all players would not understand it and would be thoroughly confused by different scoring systems for singles and doubles/mixed doubles. Let us hear from what others have to say.
At present thw laws of badminton state that the NSS will be used or at least for the majority of sanctioned tournaments. Therefore all tournament players have no alternative but to play to the NSS or else they cannot compete in any reasonable level of events. That is the end of the debate. There is no doubt that you have to train differently to play to the new system and it would be nonsense for players of a decent standards to have to play to two different systems. What people play at club level or between friends is entrely up to them as it is their choice. BWF when they wrote the new rules gave the chance for alternative scoring systems to be used other than in sanctioned tournaments. Many clubs do continue to play the OSS but their members who play in sanctioned tournaments must find it difficult to adapt. It is completely pointless discussing this issue within any forums as we all have our own opinions. We have to play to the rules of the game. If however you as individuals wish to change the rules as written by BWF feel free to do so by lobbying your own National Association who in turn are represented at Confederation Level and then BWF level. The best of luck. Other sports have adapted so why shouldn't badminton!! As I said what do do amongst yourselves as individuals is entirely your choice.
What this got to do with the thread? State your prefered choice, give your reason why and rebut given reasons contrary to yours if necessary. All the rest is unnecessary .
I play with 3 different groups regularly;guys, girls and guys/girls.The guys group uses NSS. The girls group NSS except when we have guests who prefer OSS. The guys/girls group uses OSS. The guys group plays competitively and they can't imagine going back to OSS.Although the NSS matches are shorter, it's more tiring than the OSS matches they used to play. I believe this is because NSS matches are more mentally demanding. The girls group likes NSS because the matches finish faster.However,one special guest will always want to play using OSS because she said she does not have the stamina required for NSS.OSS matches are longer so probably more demanding physically but I believe she meant she's lacking in mental stamina. The guys/girls group is managed by the Japanese ladies and they have always played OSS, so it shall be.When there are too many players, the matches are shortened to 11 points from 15. Personally I prefer NSS because of duration.I rather wait 15-20min between matches than 20-30mins.
You ask why I posted what I did. My point is what is the point of the THREAD. I no longer play the game so it doesn't matter other than I am an Umpire, Referee, International Line Judge and tournament organiser. Discussions on this subject are entirely pointless as I have indicated.
BTW, why was the "only-server wins point" scoring system once used in volleyball, squash, and badminton? All these 3 types of games were 15 points system! Looks like they had one source, and it appears that such a scoring system was once called the "English Scoring System". I believe it started with the English 18th century game of rackets sport with only server winning point system; and it had 15 points, two types of setting or deuce at 13-all and at 14-all (shades of old badminton system). From rackets sport a new game called squash was born and of course it had to use the same old scoring system. How did volleyball get to use exactly the same system as squash or racket sport? There must be a meeting of these two types of game way back. But now all these 3 games have dumped this common old scoring system to a new one that is more easily understood.
I do agree with Woody that it is meaningless at this stage to bring back the OSS discussion as the BWF has used the NSS for what I consider to be a successful period, after a somewhat difficult start. This is to be expected as any change will need time to adapt before one becomes familiar with it and slowly gets to like the more interesting and demanding aspects. Whatever, when the NSS became official, there is no going back if professionals want to remain in international competition. There don't seem to be any major protest and/or unsatisfactory feedback from players, coaches, fans and spectators when the NSS was used during the Beijing Olympics despite the matches being broadcast all over the world. We have our own views of the two systems, good and bad and there was a great debate in this forum when the NSS was first introduced. But if one wishes to follow international badminton as a fan, it seems to me to be a natural reaction to stick to the NSS and try to enjoy it more. If one is a social player, of course he/she can choose whatever system he/she prefers. However, increasingly, I see the NSS being adopted as a natural consequence, especially with new players. A player used to the OSS may find difficulty adjusting to many tournaments which use the NSS.
The NSS prevents 'antisocial' players from 'match-fixing' at Social Clubs . pjswift ... You are lucky that your group of OSS players do not 'fix' their games. As I mentioned in some earlier posts, one of the best reasons for Social Clubs to change to the NSS is to prevent 'antisocial' players from 'game-fixing'. The OSS allows players to collude to play the "Try not to win a point when your are serving" games. And these games can last up to one hour. .
I am in favor of the 15-point system, that is my option and preference. Do you have anything against it? The 21 point system was imposed and the badminton executives bent and accepted it. No logic or benefits to the game, maybe just a business decision itself, so you can save your imagination for justifications for the change.
I do not have anything against anybody playing the format they like. One should play according to their own preferences. Do your 21-point games last 15-20 min or the wait is 15-20min? I also played the 21-point system here, but not suitable for my needs. I see you are from Singapore, maybe not have what I experience. Here in North America, in my group, we played with the the 21 point format, the games that I played last than 10 mins. In the interval between games, waiting for my turn again, I do get dry and cool down again. In winter, I start the night cold and finish frozen...
Agree, if you are a competitive player there is no choice but to play what is imposed by the rules. If there are any protest/issues we may not have heard about them in public. However, a few months back Li Yongbo gave a public interview and he expressed his views about the new format. From what I understood, it did not seem he was a supporter.
Now I wonder what LYB will say since LD has won the recent Olympics in great style using the NSS. I think the legendary Tang was with LYB on court side witnessing LD's victory in the final.
The score itself is not so important. What is important - who wins the game, and you must win more rallies than your opponent to win the game. It is very competitive, and there is no any muddle here at all. Then, the score 15-0 indicates a lot: one player has an ability to concentrate at the crucial moments, while the other has not, that's why he(she) lost. Two years ago I've posted my opinion here: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=429337#post429337 BTW, it was my very first post on BC... Two years have passed, but nothing changed in my mind (too conservative?). And I completely agree with what viver said.
