66: Stacking Revisited - Why You Should Stack More in Pickleball, at ALL levels.

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[00:00:34] Welcome to 4.0 To Pro, the pickleball podcast that focuses on a single shot, tip, or strategy to improve your pickleball game with every single pocket-sized episode. Our goal is to make you better on the court every time you hear our voices. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of 4.0 To Pro, your pocket-sized pickleball podcast where we teach you a single shot or strategy every single episode. I'm Michael O'Neal here in Long Beach, California. Joined by Mircea Morariu there in Boca Raton, Florida. What's up, dude? How you doing, my friend?

[00:01:04] Yeah, good. Had a really good sesh this morning, and ironically, when I got home, one of the things that you wanted to chat about, which is stacking on this show, has come up in the last two days that I've played. So it's a very timely, relevant conversation. Absolutely. And it's kind of funny you say that because I really think it comes up really almost on a daily basis if you're paying attention.

[00:01:29] If you're just going out there and playing to play, which what I see a lot of players doing in the open play that I've been going to, there's just not much communication and not much thought about stacking. Just everyone plays their own side. They feel like that middle line in the court is sort of a hard boundary, almost like an invisible wall, and they don't cross that line. It can make a big difference in terms of optimizing your skill set and your partner's skill set.

[00:01:57] If you want to get better, if you want to create better quality points, it will come up, and it should come up, at least as a conversation or a thought. Well, what's funny about it is that we've talked about this so many times. My first person that I was talking about this week, we kept getting into these situations where the third would come and he would have hit a really, really weak backhand third that was head high or above shoulder high or the net.

[00:02:22] Like there was no, and I said, well, why don't we do a little pre-serve alignment so we can get some forehands here? And we played like one point like that, and then he said to me, and I joked with you about this, and he said, what did he say? I'll tell you what he said, but I bet you can guess. I am perfectly fine on either side, or my forehand is just as good as my backhand.

[00:02:44] Yeah, my backhand's better than my forehand, or it's just as good. And after a couple points, and you and I joke about, it's not. It's definitely not. This is not a thing, which is funny. And he was very resistant to what we're about to talk about, but then contrast that with today. I played with a lovely group. There was a fellow there that had just the contrast was crazy.

[00:03:06] A diabolical flick, like an absolute game ender of a flick backhand, but 2.0 level forehand. And when we got on court, finally, we were the third, you know, we were four people, so we rotated three times. And I finally said, as we started playing, I said, what would you think about, at least on serve, why don't we stack and keep you on the right? And he didn't quite understand it. I said, let's protect your forehand, is what I was trying to say nicely.

[00:03:35] And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, your backhand is so good that I want to utilize. I want to use that as a weapon. And when you're on the right hand side and you can just sit in that backhand, well, then we've got a pretty formidable wall that they have to play against. And so he said, OK, he was totally open to it. And we crushed. It was like a strategic decision that won the games for us. We'll address this, but I think this is where we get into some of the ego play in pickleball. And I think that costs people games.

[00:04:02] Absolutely. And it's interesting to see just so much resistance about stacking. And this really came to mind because I recently watched a local lefty player that is plus minus three five and seen him play a bunch. And he just does not like to stack at all. It's interesting to hear, you know, the reasons. The reasons, it's too complicated. I don't want to remember where to stand and keep getting infused.

[00:04:28] I'm not fast enough to switch. Stacking messes up my return. I'm just fine playing either side. OK, let's just see what happens. So I'm watching them play a little bit and they're playing some mixed games. And then they played one game where the ladies played against the gentlemen. And everyone is roughly of similar level overall. So you would think that men would win it pretty easily. However, the men were guess what? They were down seven one.

[00:04:58] And what happened was is they were up one zero and they lost seven points in a row with the lefty on the incorrect side. So the lefty was stuck on the left, but not stuck on the left because he chose to stay on the left. And then upon like continued suggestion slash encouragement, they agreed to at least half stack. And guess what? They won 11-7. So, you know, we got off the court and we were talking about the different reasons. And he feels, you know, a little bit overwhelmed in terms of changing.

[00:05:28] And first of all, there's so many advantages to the lefty playing on the right side. You have the forehands in the middle. You have that natural potential poaching dynamic. You minimize the weaknesses. You can have better dinking patterns, more aggressive counters and attacks. There's just so many advantages. However, I don't even think the advantages really outweigh the disadvantage,

[00:05:54] meaning that the disadvantage is so massive when you have two backhands in the middle because no one ever knows who to take that ball that goes in the middle. And when you're playing against a lefty and a righty and they are on the incorrect side, so you have two backhands in the middle, you can dink in the middle, drive in the middle, speed up in the middle, lob in the middle, because it's really difficult unless someone has an incredible backhand overhead. Number one, they don't know who's going to take it.

[00:06:22] And then number two, even if they do take it, you have that backhand overhead. And so the disadvantages are just so huge that it just even outweighs the advantages. Yeah, I throw a Frisbee to my dog, Ben, every day. And I've got a local park that happens to have some line-drawn pickleball courts. They're always busy. They're always full. There's always people on them. And that is a group that I've taught a number of times.

[00:06:49] I go in on a Friday and do like a little women's clinic there. So I showed up and there's a bunch of the ladies that I knew that were playing. On the left-hand side, there was a lefty-righty combo. On the right-hand side, it was two righties. And something had happened where I want to say the lefty-righty combo was up like 5-1 or something, right? But they were off. So the righty was on the left and the lefty, excuse me, yeah. The righty was on the right, lefty was on the left.

[00:07:18] And the other team ran off like eight straight points. And I'm watching this going, this is really funny because this is like a 3-0 level type thing. I said the people on the right, I said they don't even know why they're winning these points. They just happened to have hit all these balls in the middle. They just got, truly, it was them getting lucky. And then I looked on the left and I was like, they have no idea why they're losing all these points. They're not paying attention to every single ball that's going through the middle.

[00:07:47] And finally, after they were done and they came over and I said, you know why you guys won? Because they ended up winning like 11-7 or something. And I said, you know, you won that game. And they said, well, no. I said, well, they were unstacked. So anytime you ever see a lefty on that side, you just go middle, middle, middle, especially at that level. They definitely don't have a backhand to counter anything that was coming up. So it's a cash register. And I've said to the person that wasn't stacking a number of times,

[00:08:13] you're too good to not, at the very least, do it on serve. There's no human reason in the world not to stack on serve because all you got to do is stand on one side. There's no unwinding. And I get it the other way around. It can be technical and you can lose points because you don't know where to return the ball very well. You don't know how to, you know, there's a mechanical thing you've got to work through. But on serve, are you kidding me? Come on now. Yeah, exactly. And I really want to simplify it down to this. Okay.

[00:08:42] For lefties, obviously you want to be on the right side. But let's just say you as a player want to be on the right side. That's your preferred side. How do you think about stacking? This is how I think about it. I want to be on the right. So if I start off on the right, great. I just stay there. If I start off on the left, I just go to the right on the next ball. Like it's literally that simple. Pick a side and wherever you're starting the point,

[00:09:10] you just scoot over to the other side. So not only do you get the benefit of the strategic advantage, you get more steps in. You get more exercise. You get the cardiovascular and cognitive benefits of stacking, which are highly, highly under-recognized and under-appreciated. Yeah. By the way, you guys, if you want the nuance of this, we're not going to get into all the nuances of stacking on this particular episode. It's episode 28. Go back and listen to episode 28 of the show.

[00:09:39] It says, should you stack more than you are in pickleball? And we go over the scenarios in which regular stacking, half stacking, three-quarter stacking, where to return, how to move on the court. We talk about Mirce's idea where you stand a few feet off the kitchen line to allow your partner to see the court a little bit better. There's a lot of detail and nuance, but here's what we'll say.

[00:10:02] If you find, like you're in a regular rec play type game and you lose four to six points in a row, consider switching just to give them a different look. And I don't want to say I'll guarantee you, but more often than not, just the switch and the different look, for some reason, Mircea, you tell me if I'm wrong, tends to win that next point. I don't know why, but there's something about the momentum shift that happens when you switch.

[00:10:26] A hundred percent. And I played in my regular men's doubles game on Tuesday yesterday, and I was playing with one of the guys, and we got stuck. I was on the right, he was on the left. We got stuck at five. We had three side outs where we didn't score. I said, hey, when I got the serve back, so obviously I'm on the right, so I'm serving first. So I said, hey, scoot over to my right, let me take the left side. Next point, we won't.

[00:10:53] And, you know, I'm not saying it was strictly because of that. It may have been a random association, but at least it makes your opponent think. And if you're already losing one way, hey, let's just try losing differently. Let's try losing another way. Let's just try something different. I mean, the really good reasons to stack are obviously lefty-righty. I mean, that's the biggest thing. And if you pay attention out there, when you're playing a rec game and you have a lefty on the other side,

[00:11:23] just recognize, number one, that they're lefty. And number two, just pay attention to where they are on the court at the beginning of the point. If they're not stacking, you will have an advantage when the lefty is on the left side, so you have backhands in the middle. So hit every ball in the middle. It's amazing to me. Every single ball, by the way, you guys. Every single ball. And I communicate to my partner. I say, backhands in the middle, middle, middle, middle. Let's do that. Middle, middle, middle. So in the lefty-righty, that's a good reason to stack.

[00:11:53] If one player has an elite forehand or is very mobile and they can take up more of the court, you generally want that player on the left side so they can cover that middle ball. It's really helpful often in mixed for the guy to be on that side so he can create more. And again, we can debate about how much he should take, etc. That's a different topic. If you have one backhand that is very attackable, that's maybe an idea that you want to stack.

[00:12:22] If someone has a weaker backhand, you put them on the right side because that way the left side player can take a lot of those balls. And vice versa. We talked about the player that you mentioned earlier where the backhand might be better than the forehand. You want that player on the left side because you want to kind of hide their forehand. Because if a player with a weaker forehand is on the right side, if you recognize that,

[00:12:49] then as the opponent, you want to dink everything to that player's forehand. You can isolate that forehand. So basically, if you're on the right side and your opponent on the right side is a weak forehand, you just dink cross court. And if you're on the left side, you can just dink straight ahead to that player's forehand. We were counter to that. What I wanted to do is get his... I was playing like he was a lefty because his backhand was so good that I wanted that in the middle. I wanted them to have to go outside to his forehand.

[00:13:18] You know what I mean? Like I wanted my forehand in the middle because it's been insane with this new carbon barrage one that I'm playing with. And I wanted his... I wanted him to sit in backhand. So if they tried to go to his forehand, they had to go really wide on the court because I was playing big middle. And otherwise he was in backhand. But I don't know. Tomato, tomato, I suppose. But that's a reason to do it if it's working for you. Where it might not work, an example on the pro level, I'll give you one example off the bat, is Conor Garnett.

[00:13:47] No mean does he have a major weakness in his forehand. No, his backhand is just so elite that you usually want to stay away from that unless you can hit a good aggressive dink where he doesn't have full control of it. So you're saying to put that on the outside, his backhand? I would think it would want to be in the middle. Nope. You put his backhand... Watch where he plays. Where does Conor Garnett play when he plays doubles? I'll answer the question for you. I don't know. Does he play left? Plays on the left 100% of the time. Hmm.

[00:14:17] That's surprising. I don't know why. I'm surprised by that. You shouldn't be surprised because if he plays on... At the pro level, the dinks can be so precise that you can completely avoid his backhand by dinking outside. Hmm. I see. That being said, if you have a partner that can squeeze the middle, that limits that weakness. For example, he just recently played with Roscoe Bellamy. And they got to the semis or finals. I forgot of that. I was there. Yeah. Saw it.

[00:14:46] I watched it in person. Okay. So they had a great run. And part of the reason that partnership works really well is Roscoe can... As for those that don't know, Roscoe is a tall, athletic tennis convert. And he has a huge reach. And he can really clog up that middle with his backhand. So people want to kind of avoid that. So they tend to dink a little bit more outside if they can or if they can kind of get it to Connor's forehand.

[00:15:14] And that's a little bit protected with Roscoe being in the middle. Well, why don't we frame it like this so we don't confuse people? Because I said one thing and you said the opposite of what I just said. So let's try the different configurations to optimize the talent you have on the court. And if I end up on... Put it this way. I'm 54 now. If I end up on the court with a super dynamic, younger, 30-year-old 5-0 player, I'm going to want them on the left as much as possible.

[00:15:42] I'm like, no, no, you do your thing. Let me kind of be here and let you do your thing. It also works when you have a more experienced person. Like if you and I play Mircea Morariu, I want you on the left. Because you can dictate the strategy of the point at a higher level than I can. And that matters. And I think what people don't realize when you have that third... That left side player typically is dictating the angles and the point in and of itself.

[00:16:12] You're going to want that strategy to be the most apparent. You're going to want them to be driving the ship on that one. So just hang your ego up at the door and just think about, all right, how can we optimize our strengths? Maybe this particular thing isn't working really well for me, but theirs is diabolical. Mike's got a killer drive right now in the middle. Let's use that as much as we can. So I'm going to stay on the right-hand side. That's the basic premise. Yeah.

[00:16:38] And just to clarify, you and I, we didn't say opposite things. We talked about different skill sets. And with your way of stacking in that particular scenario, it worked. So you were doing the same thing. You were maximizing your strengths and basically using stacking to do so. Right. Even though backhand, forehand, whatever, you know, it doesn't really matter. If the other team can't figure out how to counter that, you keep doing the same thing.

[00:17:07] So I was saying something in a little bit different way, but the general premise of what we're talking about is still the same and is still applicable. Maximize your skills. And one simple, this way, when we've talked about this a million times, what do we talk about mostly? We talk about core positioning and footwork, right? Being balanced and core positioning. Well, guess what stacking is? It's core positioning. So you're opt so important.

[00:17:34] You know, if you're not in the right position, you're not going to get the right balls. It doesn't matter. Like if you're not in the right position, you're not going to be able to get the balls you want. Just simple as that. At what point, Mircha, do you think, I'm just trying to think of it like in, uh, you know, the duper tree. Cause when you look at pro tournaments. Exactly. And what does that tell you? Players are stacking almost a hundred percent of the time, whether it's gender doubles, mixed doubles, whatever. Yeah. It really matters.

[00:18:03] I'm wondering at what point that starts integrating into a lot of people's games. Is it, you know, four or five, or is it, I'm almost feel like it becomes almost a five Oh thing where not everybody is as well-rounded as someone like bell Ben Johns. You know, he's got a pretty well-rounded game. Most of them have particular assets like the Ferrari forehand or Connor Garnett's backhand or something that you're going to want to maximize and or hide.

[00:18:32] Maybe not at the pro level. Most of them are really good, but at our level, let's say a five Oh level, not everyone's shots are going to be as great on either side. So you might want to mask one and highlight the other. And that's when I think it really matters the most. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with you. Um, you know, there is obviously, you know, some sort of ego component that we all have like, Oh, you know, people look at it. Oh, Oh, you want to stack. And they think that's pejorative.

[00:19:00] You want to stack because I'm not good on doing X, Y, Z. And that's not really what it is. It's just, again, maximizing your court positioning. So both people really have to buy into it. And my suggestion is that if you have a new partner, first thing I do when I step on a court with someone, which side do you like? Which side do you prefer? Most often the answer, Oh, it doesn't matter.

[00:19:25] When you start playing, usually you can tell that, you know, ideally they should be. You go, Oh, it mattered. One side or the other. Yeah. And you start to notice that, you know, when you're on one side, you tend to lose more points than if you're on the other. Example for me in split age, when I play with a younger pro in men's, I play the right side. So it's, you know, yeah, they're faster. They can put more pressure. They can attack more easily, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:19:53] So it's important, but you do have to communicate. And it's important to communicate that from the beginning. If you do feel that stacking is beneficial, particularly if you're lefty, I would just say, Hey, I'm a lefty. I'm most comfortable on this side. I think in order to win, we can generate the best patterns on this side. And if you're not comfortable, let's at least try doing it on the surf. If you're not comfortable doing it on switching. Yeah. And I go back to which side do you want to end up on?

[00:20:20] If you want to end up on the right, if you start on the left, just scoot a couple feet over and you get a little more exercise. There you go. Let me ask you this. When you are playing with, you play with Jose DeRisi at most of the tournaments, you play all the APPs with him. You've been playing with him for a couple of years now. What are the scenarios in which, and I don't know, I'm pretty sure you play left and he plays right, but I could be backwards. I don't know, but it's the other way around.

[00:20:44] So in what cases, so you play right again, ego, hang it up in the door. Why is it that you play right side with him? And what would the scenarios be where you'd say, hey, let's flip it? Well, we started off with me on the left and we actually won our first tournament that we played together. And then we started doing it sort of on a case by case basis. We'd play straight up at the beginning of the tournament and then we would play it matchup based.

[00:21:13] And then as we got to be more familiar, he has certain skills that are a little bit better on the left side. And I have certain skills that are a little more, you know, apropos for the right side. What happens is a lot of times the right side player gets attacked more frequently. And I feel my defense is one of my strengths. I also have a better forehand than I do a backhand so I can create a lot more. So when people dink to my forehand, I have a lot more options in terms of speeding up.

[00:21:43] We sometimes half stack where we don't switch on the return if someone has a really big serve. So we do have some flexibility. You know, those are some of the reasons. But he's more comfortable on that side. I'm comfortable on both sides. But our best scenario when we are playing at our peak is when he's on the left and I'm on the right. And for me, I could care less which side I play on.

[00:22:07] I just want to maximize our opportunities for developing consistent winning patterns. That's what I want to do. And that's what we do. Have you had a scenario in recent memory where you've said, why don't we try stacking on this to reverse it and put you on the left? Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to talk? Do you want to tell the podcast audience about that story? We're recording a show.

[00:22:35] For example, when we've had a few side outs where we're not getting up to the kitchen line consistently, I'll say, let's switch. Let's try me on the left a little bit. So, you know, our number one job when we're serving is to get up to the kitchen line. Remember that. When you're serving, your biggest goal, you have to have your first goal. Your first goal is to get up to the kitchen line. At the higher levels, you know, you can't win from the backcourt.

[00:23:04] And even at the lower levels, it's really tough to win from the backcourt. So if you're not getting up, that's an issue. So that's another primary reason why you can change positions or stack while you're serving. That if one player is getting returned to frequently and they're just having some difficulty, which we all do. And we discussed about we discussed this during the last podcast when you're just struggling for whatever reason on your third shots, switch it up.

[00:23:31] So that way the person on the left can take up more court and that way they can try to get you up to the kitchen a little bit more consistently. So that's a simple example of when you can change your positions by half stacking. And the half stacking means that you are only stacking while you serve. My suggestion is just at least be open to it because when you go into something thinking, I don't like this. This is silly. This is not going to work. This doesn't make a difference.

[00:23:59] You are predisposing yourself to being grumpy out there and it's probably not going to work. If you have to drag someone kicking and screaming into stacking, well, that's probably not going to work. And you don't have to go crazy doing full stacking the first time you do it. You can stack only on serves. Maybe you stack on only some returns. Maybe you stack only on a few games. Maybe you stack just to keep the four hands in the middle when you're lefty.

[00:24:28] You don't need pro-level movement. You don't need to be perfectly athletic. You don't need fancy signals. But you do need commitment to do it, communication to do it, and repetition. And real quick about the returner. If you are committed to stacking and if someone hits a really wide serve and you feel that you can't get over to the side that you're supposed to be on, let's say you're a righty and you're playing on the left side. You're returning.

[00:24:55] And someone kicks a serve or slices a serve very far out wide to your backhand and you feel that you can't get over, that's when you have to stay. Stay. So the person that's returning should change the stacking or the switch, not the player that's not returning. So if you're up at the kitchen line and your partner is returning, don't call them off because they may already be moving.

[00:25:23] So just to be clear, it should be the returner that calls off the switch, not the person up at the kitchen. And by the way, don't feel bad if you forget to switch because people do it all the time, by the way. Once you've had the signal and you both end up on the same side and there's a football field of wide open, you go, oh yeah, I was supposed to be there. And don't go into a tournament never stacking and start stacking. I mean, you have to do it in rec play. And it's like everything else. You know, if you're not comfortable speeding up off the bounce, guess what?

[00:25:51] If you keep not doing it, you're not going to get better at it. Yeah. So just give it a try in small, short increments and go back to listen to the other show in terms of the mechanics of it. And at some point we should do a follow-up mechanical, the nuts and bolts of this again. But anyway, that's for another episode. For sure. It's another, it's for future us. Well guys, definitely go experiment with that. Do it at the very least on serve and just see how the points go.

[00:26:21] That'll be your experiment if you haven't stacked and you're very new to it. Good idea, Mircea. I'm glad we followed up with this because it does come up way more than you think in rec play at that 3-5 to 4-5 level where you go, whoa, why are we not doing this? We are really putting ourselves in a bad position by not doing it. Absolutely. So just go out there and start stacking away. Just at least give it a little bit of a try. We'd really appreciate it.

[00:26:49] I mean, when I'm watching and the lefty's on the incorrect side, like I think my brain hurts. I get like little, little migraines. It's a slow motion. What are you doing? Folks, go enjoy some pickleball. Try some stacking. We love you. Thanks for being here. We always enjoy being in your air balls. We'll talk to you very soon. Enjoy pickleball. Thank you for listening to 4.0 to Pro. For more tips, find us on Instagram at 4.0 to Pro.

[00:27:16] If you have a pickleball question, submit it at picklehelp.com. Now, get out there and dominate. But don't forget to have fun.