Thursday, January 29, 2015

Battle in Seattle 2015, Senior Men's Epee

The 2015 Battle in Seattle Division I-A ROC, Senior Men's Epee, Jan 24, 2015

http://www.fencingtime.com/LiveResults/Battle2015/FTEvent81788931.htm

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=26994&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=106908#106908

This one was, of course, tougher than the vet event the night before. There were 89 fencers, about three times as many as the vet event (30 fencers), but still smaller than last year's Battle's senior men's epee, which had over 100. With "only" 89 of us they didn't have to do two flights of pools, which was nice. And like last year it was an A4 event (I'm not sure there are larger event types), which meant E ratings given or renewed down to 48th place, and Ds for 25th to 32nd place.

I didn't expect to earn or renew with this tough crowd, but looking at the results I might have at least renewed my E if I had won a few of the very close pool bouts I had—Joël Fafard, for example, came in 39th place and renewed his E without even winning a DE. He got a round of 128 bye for doing well in his pool, going 4 and 2 with an indicator of +2. If I had won my three 4-4 pool bouts I would have been in the same place. Woulda coulda shoulda, but I didn't.

Last year I had a few very close pool bouts that I won by a hair. This time I had close bouts lost by a hair. When I mentioned that to Marshall he suggested I ponder what goes through my head when I'm in a 4-4 situation. I *thought* I had done fairly well staying focused on "one touch at a time" instead of the score, but perhaps I am more likely to make an impulsive attack when it is 4-4, and/or fall to an opponent using a dependable signature action.

So anyway, I started good, winning my first pool, and went downhill, losing everything after that. That was frustrating and I was annoyed at myself. If there's a bright side it might be those three 4-4 bouts. Also getting to fence people I never had before, or rarely get to. Of the seven people I fenced the only one I'd fenced a bit recently was Bela Suveg. Scott Phillips is familiar, but I don't think I'd fenced him since last year's Battle. I had Heino Hulsey-Vincent in my DE, who I'd fenced before but not for a very long time now.

I warmed up with Andrew Lee, which was fun—we rarely get to fence outside of tournament bouts. We were both fencing in a warm up way, not full out, and enjoying it. I was pleased to get him with a toe touch, even if it would be harder in a real bout. Alas it was my only toe touch of the day. After getting three the day before I was hoping to get some today. I tried but the only toe touches made were Heino's three on my foot, ack.

POOL



I wasn't feeling great, getting over a cold, and didn't take the time to try much pre-analysis of my pool fencers. Not even just checking their ratings. All I knew was that Bela is an A and Scott Phillips was, well I thought he was an A by now but he is still a B. Looking now I see my pool was, in rating terms: Bela Suveg and Brentwood Reid (As), Scott Phillips (B), Caleb Alger (C), Austin Lynch (D), me (E), and Dillon Grewell (U). A well rounded pool, and thanks to the size of the event, no one from my own club.

I also enjoyed having Justin Meehan reffing. He's fun. He called me "Mr. Fly" in a friendly way that made me feel welcomed (and also made me think again about getting FLY printed on my jacket).

My first bout, the first bout of the pool, was with Dillon Grewell. He's from Spokane, I see now, and ended up doing slightly better than me, winning two pool bouts (beating Austin Lynch and Caleb Alger (both 5-4). I can't recall seeing him before so I went in with no idea what to expect. I didn't even notice he was a leftie at first. I don't remember the details of the bout very well except that I did well, getting up 4-2 and winning 5-3. And that the fencing was a bit awkward on both sides, and that I was lucky in a couple spots.

Marshall was there as I unplugged and gave me a fist bump. Off to a good start! I didn't know at the time that Dillon was probably my easiest bout of the day and the only bout I won.

Next up, Brentwood Reid, who I think I had at least seen in other tournaments and suspected was quite good. I did alright. Somehow I got a single light (hand pick?). After a couple doubles and a single each I found myself up 4-3. I noted that I had "some luck". I think in one case he should have scored but missed. Being up 4-3 seemed sweet, but perhaps here is where Marshall's question comes into play. I tried a beat-fleche, but "stupidly long", as I wrote after. I was out of distance and knew it even as I was fleching. I couldn't stop fast enough and so reached for his shoulder, but he picked me off. So, 4-4. I was ready to be more patient and wait for a better chance, but he quickly launched a simple, straight attack with nice acceleration. I was caught off-guard, doh. So, a loss, 5-4. Okay, I thought, I'm one and one, and got four points in the lost bout. Still doing fine.

Next up was Austin Lynch. I don't think I've fenced him before, or seen him fence, although his name is slightly familiar. I see now that he's a D from "Cal Poly Fencing Club". He took the lead quickly. I got in a nice beat-fleche (this time from the right distance), but I made some mistakes and misses, and soon the score was 2-3. I remembered doing well in Portland with my 4-6 attack and decided to try it. It failed badly—I didn't do it very well and he easily picked off my arm. So I was down 2-4, not good. I kept fighting though. I tried a toe touch. It was close but missed. His counterattack was a little slow, probably from pulling his foot back. I remised higher and hit, making it 3-4. Somehow I managed to score again, getting to 4-4. I forget how I did it—possibly with my other Portland fall-back, that Dragonetti high-low flank fleche. So, another 4-4 bout, and again I lost the final point. I think I didn't make a badly stupid mistake this time. I felt like I kept good distance. We doubled. Then I think I made a beat-attack and coulda, shoulda scored, but missed, and he scored. Argh. Well, I figured, another 4-5 loss, could be worse.

Next, Scott Phillips. I was worried about him. The last time we fenced a pool bout he won easily, with his long reach and fast, beautiful fleches.

Just before the bout I checked my epee screws, which I hadn't been doing, and saw that one was missing. It must have fallen out in my last bout because I had been using that epee all the evening before and this day up until then. It was my "1" LP FIE epee. My "2" LP epee had been flakey since I rewired it, and had failed the weight test the night before. I knew it needed another rewire—apparently I had screwed up the last one, probably something in the tip, like twisted wires or badly seated contacts. Anyway, seeing the missing screw I went to get my Vniti. But then I reconsidered, thinking Scott Phillips was not a good time to use the flicky, heavy Vniti. I pulled out my crappy-but-stiff cheapo Abolute instead. I had also rewired that one recently, but was pretty sure it was working well. It was, testing fine. It got bent several times during the bout, with a large bent at the end. That blade is going to break sooner or later and I almost wish it would so I'd have an excuse to replace it with something better—perhaps something with a french grip.

Anyway, I did better with Scott than expected. I didn't write down details. It was fairly normal stuff—keeping good distance, in and out, feints, parries, ripostes, etc. We got to 3-3. Then I got into my head the notion of trying to draw his fleche and using a prime parry. Well, I was able to draw his fleche easily enough, but by letting the distance narrow too much. His fleche hit my shoulder before my prime could sweep it aside. At 4-3 he went for a double and got it, winning 5-4. My scribbled notes say I tried for toe touches too much. I think I tried once or twice and felt like it almost worked, which made me want to "try harder" to get his foot. But of course after a couple tries he was ready and the surprise value was gone. Soon when I tried once or twice more he countered, once pegging me nice and hard on the shoulder. Oof.

At this point I started to get annoyed at myself. Down 3 and 1. A couple close bouts and one close-ish, but too many mistakes. And I knew I still had Bela Suveg coming.

Next up was Caleb Alger. I think I've seen him at other tournaments, but don't think we've fenced. He was using extended french and I had had the chance to watch him in other pools a bit, so I had a bit of a clue. His style seemed to be a fairly typical french-grip counterattack and pick thing. So I went in planning to be very careful of picks, to be patient, trying to use feints to draw counters out of distance, waiting for mistakes and opportunities. And perhaps trying to see if hard beats might work against his french grip.

I think this was a decent plan, and I did okay. Hard beats did create openings and broke up his approach, but I wasn't always able to follow up after a strong beat—or I'd follow up awkwardly and miss, leading to infighting. Still, I got up a point early on.

We had a couple of semi-awkward infighting exchanges and somehow I got confused about the lights. Once, unsure who hit I looked and saw a green light and for some reason thought it was his. Then he had another infighting mess. I thought I had managed a hit just before we got close and he landed a prime-ish flick. Seeing the green light I paused, then asked Justin Meehan for a weapon check. Justin looked at me funny, then raised his hand to indicate, again, that I had scored (with the obvious subtext, "you don't want me to check your epee after you've scored, silly"). I realized I had scored the last two, not Caleb, and felt a weird mix of pleasure and self-annoyance. I've forgotten exactly how the scoring went. But eventually we were at 3-3.

I don't remember exactly the next point, but I think it was a double to 4-4. And again I'm thinking of Marshall asking about my headspace when it is 4-4. In this case I was planning to wait for a mistake on his part and/or use a strong beat-fleche. He didn't make an obvious mistake and eventually I launched a beat-fleche, but screwed it up, making a poor beat and getting out of line, letting him score and win. I think I made the beat too early. Instead of one smooth action with the beat coming within the fleche at the last moment, on his forte, I made the beat before the fleche, or just as the fleche began. So I beat his foible, which put my own point too far out of line, and gave him extra time to react. Yesterday at practice Travis was pointing out the ways my beat-fleches were out of sync like this—either beating too early then fleching, or fleching then beating too late. And I thought I had this action down pretty well a month ago. Fencing is hard.

So by this point, when I wasn't feeling very happy with things, of course my final pool bout was with Bela Suveg. I've fenced him a number of times and never won. But George seemed to have figured him out over the last couple of weeks, and I got some advice and ideas from him. I couldn't make it work as well as George and lost 3-5, but I did get one nice remise into a small opening. That one felt good. We doubled a couple of times. So, not so bad except that he also got two single lights on me.

I got a little confused by the way Bela was using the strip. He's a leftie and usually sticks to the left side of the strip (my right side), like most lefties. Or is a bit more in the strip center. This time he kept moving to his right edge. I was naturally going to my right strip side, like I tend to do with lefties. When he moved to the other side we would be diagonal. I felt like this ought to be good for me, but at the same time I was a little confused by it, and uncertain what to do. I don't know if that was his plan, but he was able to take advantage of my uncertainty in ways I don't quite understand or remember. I think by moving to my left he was able to get me to want to attack his left outside, but was somehow able to parry or counter to my inside. I don't know. It worked though.

So I lost to Bela 3-5, which, given it being Bela, isn't too shabby for me. Still, it wasn't the happiest end to a frustrating pool.

DIRECT ELIMINATION

My initial pre-pool seed was down in the E14s, 71 out of 89. Probably more or less random within the 13 of us E14 fencers. After the pools my seed was, oddly enough, 71 out of 89. Huh. I won one and lost five. Thanks to my three 4-5 and two 3-5 loses my indicator was not so bad, -6. Of the 14 fencers who were 1 and 5 in the pools I did best, which is some small consolation I guess. One other fencer had won only one pool bout, Benjamin Yeh, with an indicator of -10, but his pool was smaller so his victory ratio was higher, so he seeded just above me.

With 89 of us there were a lot of byes. I knew I wouldn't get one and hoped for a winnable first round DE. I was paired with Heino Hulsey-Vincent, seed 58. We hadn't fenced in a long time, but from what I knew about him it seemed a possibly winnable bout. Russ said just that—"it's winnable". He knew more about Heino that I could recall and gave me good advice—mainly that Heino has good parries, especially his 6, so best to avoid deep attacks. Keep things shallow, keep the point aimed at his hand, moving around his bell guard when he parries, use a lot of quick in and out, etc.

When the DE table was displayed on the big screen and a clot of fencers were looking I found myself next to Steven Benack, who had done awesome in the pools and was 1st seed. I congratulated him and we talked a little. At one point I said "so, Heino, ideas?" Steven paused for a moment then smiled and said "I'm not going to tell you." Heh. Then we talked about how Heino and Steven fence all the time, both being RCFC guys. I'm sure Steven had all kinds of inside information about Heino but ah well, club and friend loyalty. I don't think I got the chance to talk to Steven after I lost, but I did talk a bit with his brother Mark Benack, who confirmed what I had just experienced, especially Heino's good, annoying toe touch flicks.

Anyway, I didn't write a detaied report of my DE with Heino. I did poorly, losing 15-8. As Russ pointed out I could have, should have been faster with the in-and-out footwork. He always says that and is always right. I thought I was being pretty quick, but I could have done better. Plus it isn't just about being quick but also using the opening and compressing of distance along with timing and rhythm. I'm sure I was too regular and predictable in my in and out footwork patterns. Probably that was part of the reason he was able to land those three toe touches on me. I guess he is good at them anyway, but my being a bit predictable about stepping in must have made it all the easier for him.

OTHER STUFF

So Steven Benack was the top seed, got a bye and won his first two DEs. Then he lost to Matthew Comes. Apparently he got hurt before or early in the bout with Matthew. His hand/arm I think. I didn't see it, but Matthew Comes beat Bela Suveg 15-6, then had a very close bout with Luke LaRocque. I think they went 14-14. So close, Luke! Luke had a bye and beaten Audun Holland-Goon before facing Matthew. So he came in 19th overall, earning his C. I guess he did quite well in the pools too, being 16th seed (to Matthew's 17th).

Dmitriy got a bye (25th seed), but then had to face Daniel Small, who for some reason was 40th seed. I guess Daniel didn't do as well as I'd expect in the pools. He's very good. He just barely didn't get a first round bye and faced Mark Benack first, winning 9-3. Afterward Mark told me about how Daniel played a very passive game with him, and they had non-combativity called, leading to the low score. I tried to console Mark a little by talking about how good Daniel is—I watched him win the Leon Auriol Open a couple years ago and do quite well in the recent Portland ROC, beating Tobias Lee along the way. Anyway, Daniel went on to beat Dmitriy 15-10, then lost to Kyle Yamasaki. Kyle then beat John McDonald before Matthew Comes took him out.

A fencer from Nevada, Zachary Zeller, did well. I don't know anything about him and barely got to see him fence. He got 5th seed and won several DEs, including Tobias Lee.

John Varney won his first two before losing a very close bout, 14-14, to Jason Lipton. Jason went on to take out Brentwood Reid. Jason Lipton didn't get a bye but won his first DE easily, then fenced Kyle Margolies, who had gotten a bye. Kyle lost, but due to his doing well in the pools he came in 35th overall, renewing his E.

George Raush did pretty well. He lost just two pool bouts and placed 2nd in his pool (Michael Mehall was 1st). George was 19th seed. So he got a bye, then fenced Caleb Alger. Caleb beat Barry Leonardini in his first DE, then lost to George 15-10. Then George faced Michael Mehall. It was a tough bout and George worked very hard to pull off a 13-11 win. If I remember right George was behind a point but came back to tie 11-11. Michael got a little sloppy at the end. Perhaps time was running out. After that George faced Josh Conner, a good young fencer from Oregon neither of us knew anything about. George did okay at first, but Conner adjusted and George was running out of gas, especially after the Mehall bout. Conner won 15-10.

Andrew Lee did good in the pools, seeding 11th. He beat Arthur Befumo before losing in a close bout to Yuly Suvorov. If I remember right they were tied 13-13, but Yuly got the last two points. Yuly didn't get a bye but won his first two DEs, including Scott Phillips (15-13), before facing Andrew Lee. After Andrew he had to face Sam Larsen, who was 6th seed (what, not 1st??). Watching Sam is always amazing and interesting. He beat Yuly 15-7. Several times they had an exchange with no score and Yuly retreated quickly, seemingly to reset. Whenever that happened Sam literally ran to close the distance as fast as possible. At least once immediately launching a low line attack and scoring. Other times simply closing the distance aggressively fast, not giving Yuly any time to reset. It was an interesting tactic I hadn't seen before, at least not quite the way Sam was doing it.

Ryan Arieta was another good fencer who was interesting to watch. He seeded 7th and handily beat Heino, who had beaten me. Ryan then beat Mike Perka before winning a very close bout with Henry Lange, 15-14.

Jay Slater also did well, not too surprisingly. He was 15th seed, beat David Jensen, then Sadler McIntosh, then had a tough, exciting win with Cole Mallette, coming back from behind if I remember right. Cole was 2nd seed.

That all gets to the final 8. I didn't see most of the end, having to get home. But Matthew Comes beat Kyle Yamasaki, Zachary Zeller beat Jason Lipton, Sam Larsen beat Josh Conner (with the fairly low score 11-7), and Ryan Arieta beat Jay Slater (15-6, yikes, maybe Jay had used all his energy with Cole). Then Comes beat Zeller and Larsen beat Arieta. So the final was Matthew Comes and Sam Larsen. Well, Matthew is good, no doubt, but Sam is amazing. He won 15-8. I keep wondering if, or when I'll be seeing Sam in the World Cup. He seemed to blow through the Battle in Seattle with ease. I'm happy to have had him in my club for a while, before he moved to Portland. I've gotten a good deal useful advice and ideas from him.

All the final eight fencers got their A2015. All had been A2014, except Josh Conner and Jay Slater, who were A2013, and Jason Lipton who was a B. Steven Benack, coming in 9th, renewed his B.  Andrew Lee renewed his C. Luke turned his D into a C. Kyle renewed his E. Several people I don't know renewed or upped their rating. And of course, this being a ROC, all of us vets auto-qualified for national vet events. Woo. Maybe I'll go to one someday...

Okay, that's all. Sorry, no videos this time.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Battle in Seattle 2015, Vet Epee

The 2015 Battle in Seattle Division I-A ROC, Vet Men's Epee, Jan 23, 2015

http://www.fencingtime.com/LiveResults/Battle2015/FTEvent81788937.htm

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=26994&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=106912#106912

Not great, but it was a tough group and I wasn't feeling very good, getting over a cold and etc. On the plus side I scored three toe touches, which made me happy. Also it is always a good thing to fence people I don't usually get to fence. I don't think I had ever fenced Eli Delgado or Doug Robinson before. I'd fenced William Walker just once in a pool. And if I'd fenced Mike Perka before that pool in last year's Battle in Seattle it was a long time ago.

Pool



Started with Eli Delgado, who is strong and fast. I was too impatient and attacked too much too fast, and quickly lost 5-1. Bleah.

Carlo Malaguzzi. Started out well enough, 1-1, then down 2-1. Then I landed a toe touch, making it 2-2. That one felt quite nice. The timing and distance was good and I think I surprised him pretty well. Things went less well after that. Twice I had a decent chance to score but plain missed. Once I was trying to bait him and let things get just too close. He made a straight fleche and scored. Anyway, my notes say I lost 5-3 but the score sheet said 5-2. I thought about saying something, but maybe my notes were wrong. Also, I had done that in another tournament not long ago with him—saying the score sheet was wrong and I had scored one point more. I didn't want to do that again, not being completely sure. So I let it be. As it turned out that one point might have mattered. After the pools I was in a three way tie for the 25th seed. On the other hand, none of us got easy DEs, and mine might have been the easiest of the three. Possibly I could have gotten Jeff Johnson for my DE, which would have been better, maybe. Anyway, even if I lost 5-2 it still felt like I did better than my other recent bouts with Carlo.

Third bout was with Doug Robinson, a Canadian who I don't think I've fenced before. His style seemed to be slightly foil-like, maybe. I felt decently able to draw attacks and score with parries or counters. I also felt like I was able to use beats. Eli and Carlo are too strong for my beats to be reliable, it seems. So I was pleased that they worked better with Doug. I got up 3-2, then made a hard up-beat followed by a toe touch, which worked, to my delight. Other than some toe touches against Us in a recent tournament this was the first tournament in which I've scored toe touches, I think. After that I was up 4-2 and felt pretty good. Our fencing from there was mostly "tangled", with ugly unintended infighting. Some of the tangles had no result. He got a point in one, making it 4-3. Then I got a point in another tangle, winning 5-3.

Then I had John Comes. After seeing his fencing at BladeFest (and getting beaten by it myself) and watching him here (eg, beating Mike Perka) I was concerned. He's gotten a lot better recently, it seems. The tactics I used to be able to use a year or two ago are no longer dependable. The first point was an exchange and a fleche on his part. I managed to catch him up in a parry 6, but too wide and I missed my riposte, while he escaped and scored. Doh. His son, watching, said something like "that was lucky", which seemed right—I felt like I had it, but missed. Things continued with both of us making mistakes here and there. I don't remember the exact details except I think most of the points were made due to mistakes by the other. I remember trying for a toe touch and falling short, then coming up to a higher line. But I can't remember if either of us scored there. Anyway, we went 4-4. In the final action I got overeager and made a poor attack, which he easily scored against to win. Another example of the main lesson I got from the weekend: I've got to stop being stupid! Feels like I'm at a point where most of what holds me back is tactical blunders like that. Things I know not to do, yet do anyway, from time to time. Mostly they are bad attacks, I think—impulsive attacks at the wrong time, from too far, going too deep, etc. Need more patience! ...or maybe I should do more foil, heh.

Final pool bout was with Mike Perka. In last year's vet Battle in Seattle I beat him in the pools. I remembered how and tried to do the same this time. It didn't work quite as well. He got the first point with a simple, straight-in, accelerating lunge. I felt like I was spaced out, not focused enough right then, argh. Then I was able to use my plan to score doubles—the plan mainly being counterattacks or attacks into prep, "straight up his arm". But he was a point up thanks to that first one. Doubles got me to 3-4. I needed a single light. While trying to find an opportunity for a single—I think I was trying to set up a 4-6 thing—he got me and won 5-3.

So, with one win and four losses, and an indicator of -8, I ended up in a three way tie for the 25th seed, with Russ Redding and Bill Swann. In the other pools George Raush was impressive, winning all his bouts (including Bela Suveg, George having learned from his DE with Bela a couple weeks before). George got 2nd seed. Michael Mehall won all his bouts and got 1st seed. John Varney won all his bouts and got 3rd.

Direct Elimination

I was paired with William Walker. He's left-handed, older and seemingly slower than me, but also bigger and taller. We had fenced in a pool in Portland and I had lost. I remembered that part of how I lost was due to making too many attacks. So I went in planning to be more defensive, "jabby", shallow, and faster on my feet, in and out kind of thing.

Well, my "jabby" approach quickly resulted in his getting some nice hand and arm picks on me. I soon realized I needed to be much more careful about sticking my arm out, as his style involves accurate picks from his leftie far outside. By the time I figured out what not to do and had begun to work out what might work he was up quite a few points. And being a vet DE we were only going to ten points. Things looked grim. By this point in the day I was feeling rather annoyed and even angry, mostly at myself. I used this anger as fuel, and did better in the rest of this DE (maybe I should get angry more often...). I became much more focused and bouncy, yet was able to be more patient, feeling kinda snake-in-the-grass. I made a bit of a comeback, including another enjoyable toe touch. But I could not make up the ground lost at the start, and in the end lost 10-8. Maybe if it had been to 15 points...

So I was left with a mixed feeling. On one hand annoyance at all my mistakes and my slow start. Although I had warmed up I didn't feel like I was even starting to get into the groove of things until my third pool bout. And I didn't feel like I was really fencing well until my DE was half over. This isn't uncommon with me, and I've got to get better at getting into the zone during the early pool bouts. I was also annoyed with my various tactical mistakes and episodes of bad technique, awkward actions, bad balance, etc. On the plus side I was quite pleased with those three toe touches. Maybe all that toe touch practice is starting to pay off?

Other stuff

Carlo took out John Comes by quite a bit, afterward saying "sorry" a few times. I remember Carlo saying sorry to me after taking me out by many points in a DE. He's a nice guy, but sure isn't going to not fence his best. Then Carlo fenced Michael Mehall, who was 1st seed (and came in 1st place in the end). Carlo took Michael to 9-9 in an exciting bout, but lost that last point. Michael Mehall had a series of close bouts. After Carlo he fenced Eli Delgado to an 8-8 tie. In overtime Michael managed to score and win. Then Michael beat David Jensen 10-8. The final bout, with John Varney, wasn't as close, 10-5. I fenced Michael Mehall in a DE in Portland, and lost. He's fun to fence, gets excited and shouts a lot, but in a friendly, smiling way.

In other DE bouts...in the Round of 32 Bill Swann went 9-9 with Eli Delgado but lost. Impressive, Bill. That Delgado guy is good! After beating me William Walker fenced Bela Suveg. Leftie vs. leftie, always fun to watch. Bela won 10-8, fairly close. Then Bela fenced George Raush. George was 2nd seed. He beat Michael Moore 10-6 before facing Bela. After fencing Bela two weeks before and in this event's pool, George seemed to have figured him out. He won handily, 10-4. Then George had John Varney in the semifinals. He did okay, but lost 10-7. Had I beat William Walker...well, I can imagine beating Bela and George. It's a stretch, but not unthinkable.

Anyway, George got 3rd place, Varney 2nd, and Michael Mehall 1st. Me, well, since I was in a three-way tie after the pools and all three of us lost our first DE, we came in a three-way tie for 25th place. Sigh.

Salle Auriol Seattle Veteran Epee


Salle Auriol Seattle Veteran Epee, Jan 11, 2015

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=28370&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=112380

Only ten people showed up for this one, unfortunately. Fourteen had preregistered so there was hope that there might be at least 15, making it an A1 or B1 event. But with only ten it was an E1 and so "just for fun". Even so it was a tough group: three As (John Varney, Bela Suveg, and George Raush), three Cs (Mark Blom, Johannes Klein, and Russ Redding), one D (Jeff Johnson), two Es (Joel Howard and me), and one U (Chuck Nguyen).

Before beginning Russ gathered us and asked if we ought to do something extra, to get more fencing out of just us ten. We could have done one big pool of ten but decided instead to do two rounds of pools, each with two pools of five. The results of the first round would be used to seed the second round. Then the second round would seed the DEs. In hindsight I'm not sure this was the best possible way to go—I had Varney in both my pools, for example, and didn't get to fence a couple people at all. But it was fine and better than just one round of pools.

My result was meh, ending up 8th place out of 10. But things felt better than the final result might suggest. I started out poorly but improved. I lost all my first pool bouts, then won one in the second round. I won my first DE against Joel, then, although I lost, did much better than I expected in my DE against Varney. So I left feeling pretty good.

Round #1 Pool



Started with Chuck Nguyen. I thought I had a good chance to win, but I made too many mistakes, was overeager in my attacks, missed too much, got counterattacked, and lost 5-3.

Another 5-3 loss with Johannes Klein. I tried to stay shallow and use jabs to draw attacks and counterings. I got two points that way. My third point was lucky, I attacked deeper and his counterattack missed.

And another 5-3 loss to Bela Suveg. This time I started well, getting up 2-1 before making mistakes. As with Johannes I used shallow attacks and jabs, getting a nice hit or two on his hand. He quickly wised up and protected his hand better and made some nice binding actions. I made a couple of mistakes—once exposing my hand to an easy hit, another time launching a fleche from too far and getting nailed with a prime parry-riposte.

John Varney was my last bout. I tried to keep things very slow, much more patient than when the pool began. Well I got two points.

Round #2 Pool



Started with Joel Howard. We went 4-4 and somehow I got the final point, but it was not a pretty action. A win, yay.

Against Mark Blom I tried using a lot of beats, like I did with him in Portland in October. It worked alright. But I got too close too much and he got up 4-3. Then I managed a fleche that felt good in terms of timing and distance, making it 4-4. In the final action I got confused and made a bad parry. He scored and won. Still, better than the previous pool...

My bout with Johannes was similar to the previous pool. I lost 5-3.

Then I had Varney again. This time I threw caution to the wind and tried a more pressing and attacking approach. It failed badly and I lost 5-1.

Direct Elimination



With ten fencers there were only two DE bouts in the round of 16, and of course I had one of them. It was with Joel Howard. Usually we are fairly evenly matched, but he didn't fence his best. He attacked a lot, too much, too quickly. I was able to parry and counter his attacks. Quickly I was up 4-0. At 7-2 he changed to his French grip epee, but it didn't help. I won 10-3. It seemed weirdly easy.

Since I was the 9th seed my second DE was against John Varney. I lost, unsurprisingly, but did much better than I thought I would. I went with the very patient approach, waiting for him to attack and not letting him pull me back to his end of the strip. A low score would be fine, I figured. Non-combativity would be fine. I got the first two points. He caught up and tied it at 4-4, then took the lead at 6-5. Still, that felt like a decent place to be with Mr. Varney. Maybe he began to take things more seriously, maybe my focus flagged, but he got the next two points, making my possible win remote. Then we doubled, 9-6. Then he went for a quick double to win, 10-7.

So I came in 8th out of 10. But I felt good about those DE bouts.

In other DE bouts George fenced Bela and, although George lost 9-8 he learned a good deal about how to fence Bela, such that he was able to beat him twice in the Battle in Seattle a couple of weeks later.