Your DUPR Reset moved — what to actually do with it
Your DUPR Reset moved — what to actually do with it
By Sam Morris · 2026-06-23 · 3-min read
The story
After two-plus months and more than 400,000 recorded matches, the DUPR Reset is live. If you're anywhere in the 3.0–4.5 range, your number almost certainly moved this past week — and you're either quietly thrilled or quietly annoyed about it. The Dink wrote up where to find your new rating and what the Reset did under the hood. It's a clear explainer, and worth two minutes.
Read what the Reset actually did at The Dink →
The coach's-eye view
Here's the part nobody trying to sell you a paddle will say: the Reset recalibrated a scale. It did not change the shot that's actually leaking your points. Your hands are exactly as good today as they were last Tuesday. A recalibrated number is new information about where you sit on a curve — it is not a verdict on your game.
I teach in Olney every week, and I can already tell you how this plays out. The players who have a great summer are the ones who glance at the new number, shrug, and go get better reps. The players who stall are the ones who let the number move into their head — protecting a rating in rec games, playing scared, refusing to try the shot they actually need to drill because a miss might "cost" them. That's how you stop improving while convincing yourself you're competing.
(And to be clear: we never touch or display anyone's DUPR data here. This is the public news, explained by a coach — nothing more.)
What 3.5s get wrong
A new rating tempts you to play to the number instead of to the gap. The mistakes I see the week after any rating change are always the same:
- Chasing it up: forcing speed-ups and bangs to "prove" the number, abandoning the patient game that was actually winning you points.
- Protecting it: avoiding stronger players and harder shots so the number can't drop — which guarantees you never get the reps that raise it.
- Reading it as identity: treating "I'm a 3.7 now" as a fixed fact instead of a snapshot of last season's reps.
None of that is a hands problem. It's a focus problem.
The fix
Do almost nothing about the number, and everything about your reps.
- Look once, then close the app. Note the new number. That's the entire amount of attention it deserves this week.
- Pick your least-trusted shot. Be honest — the one you hope doesn't come to you in a tight game. Third-shot drop, backhand reset, return depth, whatever it is.
- Drill only that, for two weeks. Fifteen focused minutes before you let yourself play. Let the number catch up to the player instead of chasing it the other way around.
Run that and your rating takes care of itself. It always does. Almost nobody actually does it.
Drill this with us
→ The One-Skill Warm-Up — the 15-minute drill that turns "pick one shot" into a repeatable pre-game habit. Pairs exactly with this take. → Next Pot Night: check the schedule — level-honest brackets with a winner-take-all pot funded entirely by player entry fees (we take 0%), where you can test the shot you've been drilling against real pressure.
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Tags: dupr, rating, 3-5, mindset, coachs-take, the-dink-reaction