A small tournament I almost didn't go to. A day before only five people were preregistered. A few more were today, but I was feeling like I had a cold more strongly, and I was generally tired. It occurred to me later that this was the fifth day I've gone fencing in the last six, and all pretty intense: A somewhat lighter day on Saturday, then a tournament on Sunday, then a long evening working hard on Monday, then a shorter but more hard working evening on Wednesday. Then this tournament on Thursday. No wonder I was feeling tired! On the other hand, it's interesting to realize I can fence that much without even quite realizing it. I've definitely gotten way more fit since I began fencing again a year and a half ago.
Anyway, I almost didn't go today, and spent the day wavering between deciding I would or wouldn't. In the end Tara basically said I should—that it would be better than staying home with the kids between-dinner-and-bedtime-meltdown. And that I would probably be happier if I went, but was just having some lack of motivation. Well, I went. In the preliminary seeding I was 6 out of 10, which is fitting since I ended up 6th out of 10 in the final results.
Even after I got to RCFC I wasn't sure how many people would participate. But as I stood in line to pay and chatted with Luke's dad it seemed that there would be at least eight—small but not pathetically small. I was pleased to see John Comes. We two were the only non-RCFC people, and almost the only vet fencers. That helped me feel not quite as out of place as I might have. Not that it should matter, but I guess I worry about that kind of stuff sometimes.
I warmed up a little with John Comes, then it was time to start. There were ten of us, but unlike the last D and under SAS tournament where we put all ten fencers in one big pool they made two pools of five. That was a little disappointing, but then again we didn't start until nearly 8:00 PM so there wasn't really time to do a giant pool.
My first pool bout was with Dan Berke. Before we started he said, "we haven't fenced before, have we?" I thought we had, maybe, but not recently...and maybe I was wrong. We've certainly seen each other around a lot. I think he is mainly a foil fencer. Our bout set the evening's vibe for me—a bit out of it and slow, relying more on instinct and simple tactics, and making too many mistakes. Even so I managed to get to 4-4. The final touch involved a bit of a clash and I wasn't sure who scored or if it was a double. I looked at the box hoping my light was on, but his was. Alas.
Second bout was with Luke LaRocque. Well. I'd done pretty well against him in the last few months but not tonight. He shut me out 5-0! Perhaps part of it was my slowness and spaciness, and his fencing rather well tonight. Another part is that he's made an effort to figure me out. The last couple of times we've fenced he's mentioned wanting to figure me out. The last time was the night of open epee at RCFC I went to, where he explicitly said he was going to figure out my low line stuff, and we even chatted about it a bit. Well, he figured it out, 5-0! He was nice enough to chat afterward and tell me what he was looking for and how he was responding. Basically he was watching for my low lines and then popping me straight in to the shoulder, to put it simply. Admittedly I was doing a poor job this evening with timing, and hiding my intentions, and some of my attacks were far too obvious. Still, I suppose I'll have to evolve my tactics the next time we face each other.
My last two pool bouts were with people I didn't know, both RCFC people who are more foilists, I think. The first was Warren Chen (unless I've confused their names). He tended to hold his blade out and waver it around a lot but seemed a bit reluctant to commit to full attacks. I mainly used absence of blade and scored by getting him into the "dead zone" (he was smaller than me) and attack straight in, or with thigh hits. I won, 5-3, which felt nice after two losses.
My last pool bout was with Ben An, a young, smallish RCFC kid who apparently fences foil but was persuaded to join this epee tournament. He was fast on his feet and had decent actions, but as others kept pointing out, "fenced like a foilist". He was smart enough to protect his arm pretty well, but I did get one or two thigh hits in (despite Luke's dad warning him I would try to!). Also I had noticed his parries were "foil like"—he'd parry but then release to make the riposte, leaving himself open to remises. All that said I still had some trouble—I certainly made some mistakes, like I had been all evening. Like poor point control and plain missing, like overly obvious attacks, like spacing out on defense and missing parries, and so on. Still, I think I got to 4-2, which seemed pretty safe. Then he scored, making it 4-3, less safe. Finally we doubled touched, so I won 5-4. Whew.
So in my pool Luke was far and away the winner. In his four bouts he had only received four touches. He had shut out me and Ben An, and kept Warren Chen to 1 point. Dan Berke managed 3 points. Still, Luke got an indicator of +20 and top seed. Glancing at the results I saw that both myself and Warren Chen were 2 and 2, while Dan and Ben were 1 and 3. I looked more closely to see whether Warren or I had the better indicator and thus 2nd place. Turned out our indicators were tied at -3, so we tied for 2nd place in the pool. I'm still not quite clear on how pool ties are resolved when constructing DE tableaus. I should find out.
In the other pool the results were: Zach Shaw 1st, then Steven Benack, Alexandre Boss (another foilist?), John Comes, and Audun Holland-Goon. In the post-pool seeding I was 5th, along with Warren Chen. Lucky for us—since there were ten of us the 7th through 10th seeds had to fence in the table of 16, while the rest got a bye.
In those first two DEs John Comes fenced Ben An—they were tied for 8th seed. John won, 15-11. And Dan Berke fenced Audun Holland-Goon. I forget the exact details, but toward the end Dan was up several points and looking like he would win. Then Audun staged an impressive comeback and won 15-13.
In the table of 8 I faced Steven Benack. I had fenced him in a DE in the last D and under tournament we were in, at SAS. I had won, and I thought I had a pretty good idea about how to beat him again. Basically, he's a french-grip, "blade hiding" counterattacker who tends to retreat a lot, then fleche straight in when your attack falls short or you are otherwise open. So my basic tactic is to be very patient and use footwork, distance, and various feints to draw his fleche, then parry or bind it up. However, tonight my focus was poor and I was not patient enough. I felt slow, and as a result my attempts to draw his fleche kept failing because, I figured, I was being a little slow and obvious and he could tell I was feinting and trying to draw him out. Rather than counterattack he kept retreating. I think I began to get annoyed at myself for being slow and unconvincing, so I increased the pressure. But in general the effect of this wasn't to make my feints more believable so much as turn them into actual attacks, which he was usually able to avoid and counterattack into, just like he likes to do. Our score was fairly close for a while, but he pulled ahead, perhaps as I got more frustrated and desperate, and he ended up winning 15-10.
Afterward he said I was being impatient and kept initiating attacks, like he likes. Yep. Later Matthew Comes, who was there, asked me who took me out. When I said Steven he responded with some thoughts on how he deals with Steven—that basically Steven does one thing: he holds back and holds back and holds back, then fleches straight in, or perhaps with a sweeping circle-6 like motion. Matthew said that because Steven tends to only do that one thing he, Matthew, can usually hit him by fleching straight in. That may be, for Matthew, whose fleche is so much better than mine. But then I mentioned how I felt I knew how to beat Steven but was feeling tired and slow tonight. Matthew's response to that was interesting. He said when you feel slow you can slow down your fencing. Fencing slow then gives you more "space" to accelerate, and he talked a bit about how important acceleration is, which I know all about but had not been thinking of this evening. He also pointed out how pretty much all the fencers tonight were keeping more or less to the same tempos—they weren't using much acceleration—and more so, they were tending to match the tempo of their opponent. In such a situation if I was feeling slow I could have used that tactically, but slowing the tempo and making accelerated attacks more deadly. I thought that was spot on. A couple months ago I had been practicing acceleration a lot, but lately have not been thinking about it as much, instead focusing on absence of blade and distance stuff. I ought to try and combine the two more fully.
At one point John Comes, Matthew's dad, heard us talking and jokingly said "hey, you're giving advice to the enemy!" I know he was joking, but still, thanks Matthew. That kind of chatting makes me want to visit WFA someday. I have no idea if they welcome folks for open fencing, or even what their club is like. Something to look into perhaps.
The rest of the tournament went more or less as expected. After Audun's nice comeback against Dan Berke he lost to Zach Shaw 15-3. Luke beat John Comes 15-8. Warren Chen took the other spot in the final 4. In the semis Luke handily beat Warren, 15-9, and Zach beat Steven, 15-8. So the top two seeds fenced for first place. Luke was the top seed and had been fencing great all night, but he floundered against Zach. They are clubmates and probably fence a lot. They joked around a little. Luke took an early lead but Zach seemed to adjust and soon took a large lead. The first period wasn't even halfway over before the score was something like 13-8, Zach. Soon it was 14-9, I think. Looked almost over for Luke, yet he managed to score at least three single lights, with Zach at 14 the whole time. Finally the comeback ended with a double touch. So Zach won, 15-13.
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