Well the bloom is officially off the penhold rose.  After playing a few weeks the initial novelty phase is over and now the real dirty work begins.  What I like about it so far: the forehand somehow feels more natural, for me it's a smoother and easier stroke than the shakehand forehand.  And even though I'm no good at it yet, I can see how the short stuff, dropping and flipping, and general over the table play might end up being better (that is, better than my shakehand version which is to say better than really crappy).  What I don't like about it so far: the whole backhand side.  My rpb is there but it's not a real stroke by any means and the traditional penhold block is nonexistent.   Even when it's developed you can feel that the rpb won't have the power and versatility that the shakehand backhand does.  There's a permanent asymmetry there which is not necessarily a bad thing.  If nothing else I may actually learn to use my feet correctly because of it.

In any case, today at Alameda I lost all 6 matches in my group and honestly I wasn't in any of them.  My combined record after five Alameda and Berkeley RRs is 5-21.  That normally would be pretty grim but hey, I won five matches playing penhold!