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.
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