I never wrote up a report from this tournament? Hmm. Today I was reminded of it because Johannes Klein stopped by SAS to fence and he, by chance, had been my main opponent in the "Subway" tournament back at the end of July.
Subway, the fast food place, hosts a bunch of summer games in the Seattle area, to my surprise. The fencing part of it was at Rain City Fencing Center in Bellevue, and I wouldn't have known it had any connection to the fast food place except for the name and the t-shirts being handed out.
Anyway, several of my fellow SAS fencers were there. It seemed like one of us might end up doing pretty well, but we all ended up losing our first DEs—except John Varney, of course. He came in 5th. But among us lower ranked fencers—me, Jeramy, Charlie, Joel, Jim—it was a little bitter how we all got knocked out so quickly. Maybe that's why I didn't write up a report.
Still. My results: http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=91687&highlight_competitor_id=91067
My pool started off not good, but improved nicely. Clubmates within a pool always fence each other first, so I had to start off fencing John Varney. Yikes. I lost 5-0. Then, well I forget the exact order, but I think I fenced Jim Henderson next. I've beaten him before, and he's beaten me. This time he whooped me, 5-2. Next up was John Comes, who I've also beaten before, and who has beaten me too. Things turned around at this point, and I beat him 5-2. I was able to catch a few of his fleches with good parries and landed ripostes. Felt good, and helped dispelled the doom that had begun to set in. Next, I think, was Dylan Meehan, someone I didn't know and who came in last place in our pool. I don't remember it well, but we got to 4-4 and he scored the final, winning 5-4.
Then I was up against Johannes Klein. I had heard a lot about him—he's been fencing around the Seattle area for a long time. He's older, left-handed, and smart. I had watched him beat George once before, and George almost always beats me. So I went in using a mantra I've been using in recent tournaments: "This guy is better than me and will win, but I will make it as hard for him as I can". People had warned me about his fleches, but he wasn't fleching that day. I played a patient game, focusing on distance, trying to gain just that few extra inches, and made several hits to his hand and forearm. To my surprise I won 5-1. Afterward as I walked off the strip to my SAS mates, who were congratulating me, I said, "well, that went better than expected!"
My final pool bout was against Virgillo Cuenca, another fencer I didn't know. Like with Dylan we got to 4-4, but I scored the final touch, winning 5-4. Or perhaps we got to 4-3 and ended with a double, I can't quite recall. Anyway, after the rough start I was pleased with my pool results. I had won three and lost three, and came in 3rd out of 7. Jeramy and Charlie, in different pools, had also won three and lost three. Jim was 2 and 4. Joel 2 and 3 (smaller pool). John Varney, being in a different league than the rest of us, was 5 and 0, taking 1st place in our pool and getting the 1st seed in the DE round.
I got 16th seed. Almost everyone got a bye in the first DE round. In turned out my first DE would be against, yes, Johannes Klein, who was 17th seed. Well! Given how well I did in the pools it seemed I had a decent chance. Then again, I had seen Johannes fence in other DE rounds and adjust his fencing along the way to 15 points. I figured I probably couldn't depend on doing the same thing the whole time. At first we fenced off and on more or less tied. After the first period I was down a couple points. Varney came over and suggested I try using counter-6-prime—a tactic good against lefties I had recently learned. John said he had used it against Johannes with good effect before. But when I tried it not only did I kind of flub it, but it clearly wouldn't have worked even if I had done it better, and he scored. I tried some fleches—trying to let distance close just enough for a rapid fleche to perhaps score. But they didn't work, and he got another 2 or 3 points. Then I reverted to what I had started with—a cautious game and attempts to score hand hits. I managed to come back pretty well, but in the end still lost, 15-13. Had I played the cautious, hand picking game all along, perhaps I would have won. Or perhaps not. I didn't feel too bad. 15-13 against Johannes seemed a fine thing. And in any case, if I had won I would have had to fence John Varney next, so. On the other hand, if I had beaten Johannes and lost to Varney, I might have ended up earning that elusive E rating.
Other SAS folks: Jim (24th seed) fenced Sam Kaardal (9th), from Nevada I think. He did okay but couldn't quite pull it off, losing 15-11. Jeramy (13th seed) fenced Nate Balazs (20th), and it seemed like Jeramy had an excellence chance, but things just didn't work out and he lost 15-6, which left him rather bummed. Joel went up against Jim Henderson, who was having a good day. Joel lost 15-9. And Charlie (15th seed) fenced John Comes (18th). A fairly evenly match pair. I tried to give Charlie some advice, as I've fenced John quite a few times and I don't think Charlie had before. But Charlie's style is quite different from mine, so I'm not sure if my advice helped much. In the end Charlie lost 15-12. So all of us lesser SAS fencers were knocked out, even though we all had had decent chances to win. Alas!
John Varney (1st seed) handily beat Emma Shafer 15-4, then beat Johannes Klein 15-7. Then, however, he went up against this "dark horse" kid from Texas, Jacob (Jake) Sloan. I had warmed up with Jake (a leftie only just old enough to fence "senior" epee—so like 14 or 15?), and chatted with his mom. They were very nice people. I had done fine against Jake when just warming up, but once he was competing he became quite excellent. I hadn't watched him fence much before he fenced John Varney, and was rather amazed to see him beat John 15-9. Like John, Jake had a fairly calm, defensive style. His distance and parry-ripostes were excellent. John's fleches, which usually devastate me, mostly failed against Jake.
In the final 8 the only fencers I knew of were John Varney and Bela Suveg, and they were both knocked out. In the final 4 is was Jake Sloan vs. Justin Meehan—Justin being a very very large man who had been winning his DEs with large margins: 15-6, 15-7. He was friendly and calm, but clearly very good, and so big. Jake wasn't small, but he wasn't big either. He looked dwarfed fencing Justin. And having just seen Justin defeat Paul Englund, an obviously very good fencer, 15-6, I watched this bout closely. And was amazed to see Jake beat Justin 15-8, with an ease similar to how he had beaten Varney. Wow.
The other final 4 bout was a minor upset. Paul Duchow (3rd seed) lost to Dylan French (7th) 14-13. It was very close. So the final bout was Jake Sloan vs. Dylan French. In most tournaments I've seen the final bout involves the top seeded fencer, or at least fencers who seeded in the top 4 or 5. This time it was unusually in that Dylan was 7th seed and Jake was 8th. I was kind of rooting for this Jake kid. It turned out to be a bit of an anti-climatic bout. Both of them fenced very defensively, to the point of having non-combativity called. Near the end Jake was down on points and time was running out. He clearly was not wanting to attack, but had to. He got a few points with time running down. With 4 seconds left the score was 7-8. Jake needed to attack, but he didn't, and lost 7-8. Ah well.
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