2018 Summer Nationals, Div 1-A

So, I've been meaning to write about the 2018 Summer Nationals in St. Louis, and was reminded about it by my one reader (hi!) last weekend. Unfortunately I can't find my notes about it and so much time has passed I've forgotten a lot of the details—apart from a few particularly memorable things.

I fenced in three events at Nationals, three days in a row: Div 1-A, Vet-50, and Div 2 (all men's epee of course). Of the three, I have the least to say about Div 1-A because I got trounced in the pools and cut before the DEs. I have more to say about Vet-50 and Div 2 and will post about those separately (hopefully before another four months have passed).

Even if I had my notes they would not be much help, since I only jotted down a few general things in the evening after the event. For a while, some time ago now, I had made a habit out of writing some notes after each pool bout and DE. I tried to remember every point and write a quick note about who scored and how, plus any other relevant information. But I fell out of the habit a while ago. Part of my reason for stopping was the feeling that writing stuff down between pool bouts was taking away from watching the other fencers in my pool. I began to think that watching and trying to make plans was more important than writing stuff down.

Which to some degree it is. On the other hand, lately I've been noticing how I often can't clearly remember most touches in a bout even right after it has ended. Part of my goal in trying to write down something about every touch was to get better at understanding each touch: What the action was, how and why the person who scored did so. Was a mistake made? If I got hit, was it because I made a mistake? If so, what was it? Or did my opponent set something up that worked? If so, what was it? What can I do to make sure he can't do it again? And so on. I wanted to get better at analyzing  and understanding touches, so that I could adjust to opponent's tactics and capitalize on openings.

But it is a tricky thing. Especially in a pool bout I don't want to spend too much mental energy and focus on what has already happened. I want a good portion of my focus to be on "one touch at a time": To stay in the present moment as much as possible. Still, there is a balance to be found, and lately I have perhaps swung too far back into *not* analyzing. So I think I might try to start taking notes just after bouts again.

All that is to say: I didn't write anything down at Nationals until many hours after each event. And I didn't write much even then, except for a few notable bouts.

In Div 1-A I didn't have any super-notable bouts. I was quite outclassed and mostly overwhelmed, which was honestly about what I expected. I was surprised to have even qualified for Div 1-A. I think the only Div 1-A ROC I competed at during the 2017-18 season was the Battle in Seattle. Apparently I did well enough there to qualify for Nationals.

Anyway, here is the fencingtimelive link for that event:
https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/0C9BCE4978084E508F04B7F15C6E281E

I was in Pool #4 on Strip K4 (which oddly enough was the same pool number and strip I had the next day in Vet50). Since I don't remember most of the details I've just compiled a list of the people I fenced, in the order I fenced, with some information about each of them. As usual I did not look up any info about the fencers until afterwards, since I find it doesn't help me to know ratings and such beforehand. I didn't know anyone in my pool at all.

Later I did check each person's rating, post-pool seed, final result, etc, as well as info from the Point Control website (http://www.pointcontrol.info). Point Control takes fencing tournament stats and computes an ELO-like rating, similar to the way chess ratings work. It also tells you the birthdate of each fencer. I think it gets all its info from AskFred. The Point Control ratings I cite below are as of October, so they are probably slightly different from what they were in July. But they should be close. Also, the system isn't perfect by any means. Still, it is pretty good, at least for fencers who compete in tournaments in the AskFred database.

My own Point Control rating, as of October 2018, is 31.71. For comparison, below are the ratings (for epee) for some fencers I know. In short, I can imagine reaching a rating of about 35 in a few years. The upper 30s are harder to imagine. Above 40 gets into an elite realm I can only dream about.

Mehmet Tepedelenlioglu: 45.51
Travis Exum: 44.81
Walter Dragonetti: 44.80
Samuel Larsen; 43.29
Matthew Comes: 43.25
Henry Lange: 42.93
Daniel Volkmann: 42.89
Jay Slater: 41.97
Andrew O. Lee: 40.27
Yuly Suvorov: 39.30
Erich Cranor: 39.30
Monica Exum: 39.10
Tobias Lee: 38.27
Bela Suveg: 37.78
Sean Ameli: 37.09
John Varney: 36.29
Aaron Page: 36.07
Mike Perka: 36.04
Fred Frank: 35.96
Caleb Alger: 35.75
Jeff Johnson: 35.65
Shawn Dodge: 35.31
Mark Benack: 34.40
Andrew Kiluk: 34.16
Alex Rwamashongye: 33.57
Paul Fly: 31.71
Joel Howard: 31.41
Johannes Klein: 31.03
John Comes: 28.92

So anyway, here's my pool results and some info on my opponents (and myself).

Paul Fly. C18. Born 1968. Point Control rating: 31.7. Pool victories: 1 (seven person pool, so I was 1-and-5). Indicator: -11. Post-pool seed: 176 (cut). Final result: 176 (out of 197 total).

And my pool bouts in the order I fenced them:

Robert C. Piraino. Lost 4-5. A17. Born 1984. Point Control rating: 37.01. Victories: 3 of 6. Indicator: 0. Post-pool seed: 97. Final result: 104.

Ziheng Wang. Lost 3-5. C18. Born 2001. Point Control rating: 32.9. Victories: 1 of 6. Indicator: -7. Seed: 168 (cut). Final: 168.

Liam K. McKinley. Won 5-2. A17. Born 2001. Point Control rating: 34.76. Victories: 3 of 6. Indicator: -4. Seed: 111T. Final: 31.

Devin D. Tafoya. Lost 2-5. A18. Born 2000. Point Control rating: 41.51. Victories: 5 of 6. Indicator: +10. Seed: 23T. Final: 38T.

Nowell L. Gibson. Lost 1-5. B18. Born 2004. Point Control rating: 30.89. Victories: 3 of 6. Indicator: +2. Seed: 92. Final: 99.

Alexander J. Javorski. Lost 1-5. B18. Born 2000. Point Control rating: 36.81. Victories: 5 of 6. Indicator: +10. Seed: 20T. Final: 12.

Some observations on all this. All my opponents but one were 18 years old or younger. All had a rating equal to or higher than mine. All but one had a higher Point Control rating. Two fencers won all but one bout, one of whom reached the round of 64, the other the round of 32. Curiously, Liam McKinley, who went 3-3 and was the one person I beat, reached the round of 16, finishing 12th. So the one person I beat had the best final result!

One thing I remember about the pool was how my first two bouts felt decent, although I lost. The first one was close, 5-4. The second was not too bad, 5-3. Then in the third bout I felt particularly focused and determined, and won handily, 5-2. But then my focus flagged for some reason and I lost the next three, 5-2, 5-1, 5-1. I remember watching Nowell Gibson and coming up with a plan. I thought I had a decent chance. But the plan failed badly and the bout was over quickly.

A few other tidbits about this event. Matthew Comes took gold, beating Mehmet Tepedelenlioglu without too much trouble (Matthew also came in 8th in Div 1, which might be even more impressive). Henry Lange came in 5th, and Daniel Volkmann 6th. Andy Faubert came in 23rd, Yuly Suvorov 45th.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that. In summary, I was surprised to have even qualified for Div 1-A and went in expecting to not do very well, but determined to give it my best. And I did feel like I gave it my best, even if as always my best could have been better, heh.

Catching up, local tournaments, end of 2017-2018 season

I've fallen out of the habit of writing here, but here's some quick catching up for the rest of the 2017-2018 season. After the Battle in Seattle I competed in local five tournaments and Summer Nationals. I will try to write a separate post, or posts, about Summer Nationals. I'll also try to write a separate post for the "Western Washington Foil & Epee Challenge Series #4" event, at which I came in 3rd out of 25 and renewed my rating from a C2015 to C2018, yay.

For now I'm just going to write a quick summary of the four other local tournaments, since my results were all average to meh, and I mostly did not take notes:

Seattle International Veteran's Cup ROC: Came in 21st out of 31. My pool opponents and results were Sean Ameli (lost 2-5), Dvorak Franco (lost 4-5, argh), John Varney (won 5-3, woo!), Jeff Lucas (won 5-3), and James Simoni (lost 2-5). My indicator was -3, making my seed 18 out of 31 (my pre-pool seed was 15 thanks for having a C2018 rating; had I still been C2015 my seed would have been about 20).

Being seed 18 I was paired with seed 14, which turned out to be John Varney, argh! I've won pool bouts against him two or three times, including this day, but I've never won a DE, even a vet DE to ten points. I did better this time than usual, being mostly tied to about 5-5, then losing 7-10. Not too bad, but I lost just the same.

A cool thing about this tournament was Tobias Lee coming in 1st and getting his A rating, yay! On the way he beat Jeff Johnson, Travis Exum, and Sean Ameli. All very impressive!

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=39077&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=155784

Western Washington Foil & Epee Challenge Series #5: Having done well in the 4th of these local "challenge" events I had high hopes. Ended up 10th out of 18. Pool was 2-and-3: Joel Howard (won 5-3), Mallika Ketkar (lost 4-5), Garrett Armstrong (lost 2-5, oof), Chung Lu (lost 4-5), and Jeff Lucas (won 5-2).

I was seeded 10th and paired with seed 7, Mark Benack. I thought I had learned enough after the last few times we had fenced to be able to beat him, or at least have a good plan. The plan was pretty good, but I could not completely control impulsive "bad idea" attacks, and I made some other mistakes. I lost 10-15. Ah well. One more step toward controlling "bad idea" impulsivity.

I did write a few notes about this tournament, mostly about mindset and fencing Mallika:

...I enjoyed everything and had fun, but couldn't get into a good competitive headspace—and didn't really try to hard either [to get into that headspace]. I mean, I fenced as well as I could, but I didn't seem to care that I wasn't in the ideal "competitive" headspace. It was fun, and that was enough. Prime example: In my pool bout against Mallika Ketkar I got up 4-1 but managed to lose 4-5. She scored four singles in a row while I only need a double to win. I felt kinda dumb about it, but not too bad—mostly I felt somewhat happy for her—it must have felt great for her! And it wasn't that I wasn't trying my best—more that I was okay with whatever happened. A fine mindset: I had fun after all, which it really my biggest fencing goal—but perhaps this was not the ideal competitive mindset.

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=38372&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=152323

Rain City Open: Came in 18th out of 30. Pool was 3-and-2: Joel Howard (won 5-4, phew), Matthew Comes (lost 1-5), Jeff Lucas (won 5-2), Benjamin Duchow (lost 2-3 (didn't know time was running out, sigh)), Evan Bentley-Inouye (won 5-2). Indicator +2. Seeded 15, which paired me with seed 18, Thea Bridger Denz. We had a good bout—basically tied off and on. I don't think either of us ever got more than 2 points up. She was very defensive and most of the action took place at her end of the strip. Her defense was great, very good parries. Near the end she got a slight lead, then I caught up and we reached 14-14. She got the final point and won. I felt bad having lost, but also impressed with her fencing. And even more impressed watching her win her next DE against Mark Benack. Mark was seed 2 and expected, I think, to win without much trouble. Thea fought hard and well, winning 15-13. It was impressive. Mark was quite pissed afterwards, and loudly petulant. I heard someone saying to her afterward something like "wow you really made him upset", to which she said, with cool confidence, "I've been making boys cry since I was ten years old". Love it.

Her next DE was against Andrew Kiluk. Despite Andrew being a clubmate friend I couldn't help but root, at least in part, for Thea, but she lost 15-11. Andrew then lost to Matthew Comes. On the other half of the tableau Steven Benack beat Tobias Lee, so the final was Steven Benack and Matthew Comes. Although they are both in college now and not around for most of the local season, seeing them in the final was awfully familiar. I must have seen them in tournament finals ten times or more. Usually Matthew won, if I remember right. But this time Steven won, 15-10.

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=38358&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=152243

Western Washington Division Senior Championships: Came in 17th out of 25 (well at least that's "best" for those who didn't make the 16...um, right?). My pool: Jeff Lucas (won 5-2), Andrew Lee (lost 5-2), Eric Zobel (won 5-4, to my surprise), Eli Weise (lost 4-5, argh), and Jeff Johnson (lost 2-5). Indicator -3. I came out 14th seed and was paired with 19th seed, my clubmate and sometimes drill partner Joel Howard. I think I win more often than not against him in tournaments, but sometimes he just has my number. He certainly did this time, beating me 15-7, yikes. The final was a familiar sight, like at the last tournament, but this time Matthew Come and Andrew Lee. It was a very close bout, but Matthew won, 15-14.

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=39449&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=157052

Battle in Seattle 2018, Vet Men's Epee

Good old Battle in Seattle, vet epee. My fourth time? Fifth? Something like that. Obligatory result links:

https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=38616&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=153367#153367

https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/9595CF4923B349D4BFB989DB810112E8

I did a bit better than I feared, in both the vet and the senior events. In both I felt I could have done slightly better, but was fine, even happy with the results. Winning a DE in both was key to being satisfied. Curiously, perhaps, the vet event felt somewhat harder—there are some tough vets! Plus, the vet field seemed rather top heavy. There were an awful lot of A-rated fencers.

As usual, the vet event felt more socially relaxed and enjoyable the way vet events so often are. Not that people don't fence hard and intensely, but outside of the actual fencing there is a sort of calmness about everything. It's nice.

POOL

I had a seven person pool, so six bouts. Nice. I often have trouble in my first pool bout (or first several bouts), but this time things began very well with a 5-0 win against Denis Bridger, a leftie I hadn't fenced before (or even met, I think). Later he asked if I fence lefties at my club a lot, because "you took me apart", as he put it. I said there were a couple in my club I fence semi-regularly (thinking about Chris, Anna, and Shyamala) but not many these days. Still, I said, I was pretty comfortable fencing lefties. I didn't write down anything about the bout. The best I can say now, weeks later, is that it felt relatively straightforward—although I don't remember exactly how so. I think I did a lot of feints and disengages, and was careful about distance. More than that I'm not sure.

I lost my second bout, 3-5, against another Dennis, this one with two Ns: Dennis Clinefelter. Again I don't remember the details. My scribbled notes just say: "Did dumb things. Was unsure, hesitant. Awkward attacks and bad timing." Okay...

Won my third bout, 5-3, against Francis Irwin, another fencer I didn't know. And again I can't remember the details except that he was a leftie and I felt my focus and determination was much improved from the previous bout. As the pool bouts continued I found it easier to get into that mental place of determined focus and semi-anger. Knowing there might not be much fencing left, especially if I did poorly, makes it easier for me to get into that higher energy, somewhat angry headspace. In fact, I deliberately kick it up by thinking about how it might be over all too soon. This, it turns out, seems a decent way to get myself riled up and "angry", making it easier to find that higher energy, focused, determined, competitive groove that sometimes eludes me.

I didn't realize it at the time, because I make a point of not checking peoples' ratings and such beforehand, but apparently my first three bouts were against the lower rated fencers, and the remaining three were higher-rated, very good fencers. I had some suspicion about this, since I had seen the next three before, in other tournaments, and knew they were good, and would be challenging. Still, I don't think I had fenced any of them before—maybe Loeffler and/or Wallace—but long ago if so...I think. In any case, I knew it would be hard, but felt prepared to give it my best. At least I had found something of the right competitive groove.

So, next up with Carl Loeffler. I went in with a vague plan and a notion of what to expect. He seemed fast and strong. Worried about strong blade actions I used some absence of blade, hoping to at least somewhat nullify being taken with binds and beats. What I wasn't expecting was 1) His excellent flicks, and 2) His ability to draw me out with footwork, distance, and general invitation/baiting stuff. In short, he won quite easily, 2-5. My notes say: "Damn flicks! Many times I thought I saw openings and attacked, yet flicks counters and other counterattacks got me." It was a frustrating bout, but impressive too. I mean I was impressed, and think/hope I learned some things.

Then I had the fencer I thought would be the hardest: Mehmet Tepedelenlioglu. Before the December NAC in Portland I had only vaguely heard of him (that last name is memorably long if nothing else). At the NAC I watched him in the vet combined semis and then his victory over Walter Dragonetti in the final. It was quite impressive, watching him and Dragonetti. So I was simultaneously worried and eager to fence him. Worried he might destroy me. Eager to experience and maybe learn something.

I didn't expect to win, although I certainly tried. And I didn't. He beat me 3-5, which was not as bad as I had feared. I had been vaguely planning to try to be very careful and defensive, and okay if the score didn't get to five (losing 0-3 is better than losing 0-5!). But he got me a few times with very good fleches that came out of the blue and hit before it seemed they should—even knowing he's a French grip pommeler and that he is known for his fleches. After getting hit by a couple of those I tried to be ready and better prepared for more—giving myself extra distance, thinking I might be able to duck one, etc. Yet he got another one or two. I realized after that those fleches came immediately after exchanges, when I was least prepared, having been distracted by the exchange, and perhaps a bit off-balance, or leaning, or not at an ideal distance, etc. Still, I did get 3 points and felt okay about that (3-5 is better than 0-5!).

My final pool bout was with Patric Wallace. I'd watched him in the past and knew he was strong and fast. Despite feeling prepared and working hard in the bout, he decimated me, 1-5.

So I finished the pool 2-and-4. Fourth place out of seven, with a -4 indicator. ...well, could be worse.

DIRECT ELIMINATION

My little section of the DE tableau:

When the DE tableau was posted I saw I'd have James Neale. I think I've fenced him before and lost (though I now realize I had partially confused him with David Jensen—at least misremembered some past bouts). I knew he was a very good fencer and I was worried. Later I checked and he's an A2017 from Fencers' Club). But, thinking this DE could well be the end of the day's fencing for me helped me get more fully into that "angry" headspace I "discovered" at the Portland NAC ("damnit I'm not ready to be done!"). I think that headspace helped me quite a lot in this DE. I was energized and on. And I won!

John Comes had been in the same pool as Neale and very helpfully gave me some intel and advice. He said Neale was good at hand hits and binds, so I had to be very careful about sticking my blade and arm out. This info, along with my misremembering past bouts with Jensen and Neale (one of whom beat me using lots of binding fleches), made me decide to try using a strong absence-of-blade approach.

It seemed to work pretty well. I might be wrong, but I got the feeling that my absence-of-blade effectively denied him his strongest tactics and attacks, and, maybe?, frustrated him somewhat. It felt a little like putting some of the ideas from Epee 2.0 into practice and having it actually work: "Identify your opponent's strengths and don't give them the opportunity to use them". The other main concept being "draw your opponent into your own strengths." This, I felt, I did not do as well, but perhaps to some degree I was able to.

In any case, as we fenced and it seemed that this absence tactic was working pretty well, I continued and made it an even stronger absence—that is, holding my blade down and back far enough that he couldn't reach it (or my hand) at all, at normal distance. I remembered Marshall taking about absence of blade a month or so ago, and demonstrating just how far back it "should be". Farther back than my instincts tend to want. Tip quite near the floor.

The absence tactic made things into a game of distance, feinting, and drawing out. I made a couple of foolish attacks early on, but wised up and got better at drawing him out while not getting drawn out or overextended myself. We went back and forth, more or less tied to about 6-6 (with vet DEs only to 10). As we fenced I felt like I got better at this absence-and-drawing-out distance-game approach. I got some singles, making up for my early foolish mistakes. Then a lead of a point or two, giving me confidence and helping with the drawing-out.

The first period ended 9-6. This felt quite nice. I tried to not get complacent during the break. The second period began and I kept "doing what worked". Too often after a break I think "oh they will change tactics so I should too, as a preemptive measure". No no! Especially with a lead, stick with what was working. Maaybe have something to change to if what was working no longer works, but only then.

Anyway, after a short bit he attacked and I counterattacked to the leg. We doubled. So I won, 10-7. Woohoo!

So I made the 16. My second DE was against Mark Segal, a leftie fencer I had seen in various tournaments over the years, and enjoyed watching, but had never fenced myself. We had a great bout, mostly tied off-and-on to about 6-6. I even got up a point or two a couple times. I got some nice-feeling prime ripostes—reminding me of fencing leftie Chris at SAS. I also got some results from broken time stuff. However, he got me too many times with a relatively simple advance-lunge to my thigh/knee. I should have wised up after two of these, but he probably got me four times that way, including the final touch.

The first period ended 6-9—he having gotten a nice lead after the 6-6 tie (and a curious inversion of my previous DE). I think I got a single early in the second period. Then he got me with his leg shot. Just after he said "that's all I got!", with the implied suggestion that I had done quite well otherwise. Still, that leg shot was enough. I wonder if I fell for it so many times because, in part, I was misjudging the distance I needed due to his left-handedness. I needed just a bit more distance than I thought, and I find I sometimes misjudge how much I need with lefties: Sometimes they are closer than it feels.

Still, it was a good, enjoyable bout. I felt like I could have won—he didn't destroy me. I held my own pretty well. Perhaps if I had made a better distance adjustment...? Not only was the fencing fun, but I liked him. He seems like a fun guy. Hopefully I'll get to fence him more in the future.

In summary, I was okay, even happy with my fencing overall. My pool was a bit frustrating, but the DEs felt quite good. And I made the 16. But because my pool wasn't great I ended up finishing at the lower end of the 16: 14th out of 34. Not bad, given my pre-pool seed of 21 (and post-pool seed of 20). Mark Segal went on to finish 3rd, beating Erich Cranor 10-3 (!), then losing to Mehmet Tepedelenlioglu 10-6. The final was Tepedelenlioglu and Dragonetti—a rematch of the vet combined final at the Portland NAC. I didn't stay to watch, but saw later than Metmet won, 10-8. I wonder if it was as odd a bout as the Portland final.

Here's the upper part of the final results. I feel like I'm in pretty good company.