Open Mixed Epee at SAS, March 16, 2014

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24375&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=97555

Well, I didn't do too well, 19th out of 20, but that was one of the more interesting, unusual, and exciting tournaments I've been to. It "should" have been an A1 but became a B1. Many of the Ds and Es fencing were probably better than their ratings, and some of the higher rated fencers were not fencing their best, so it was almost like all 20 of us were relatively well matched—or at least more well matched than the raw ratings might suggest, so things could have turned out any number of ways. Also, there were a number of 15-14 bouts, including the final, and a bunch of other close bouts. There were a few upsets, in both the pools and the DEs. The best rated fencers didn't do as well in the pools as they were "supposed to".

My pool was #3, the smaller one, unfortunately, and I ended up one and four, so meh.

I started with Jay Slater (my pool's A fencer, who went on to win the tournament), first bout of the entire pool, and I got a good start, bouncing in with energy. I think I was even up a point, 2-1 or so. But Jay, well...I lost 5-3. Still I considered it a decent start. Jay was using his french grip, which he's getting very good at, but I think I prefer his using french grip over pistol.

After a one bout break I fenced my other clubmate in my pool, Jim Arrigoni. It was an ugly bout, with lots of  reckless charging and desperate off balance jabbing. Almost by chance, it seemed, we ended up at 4-4, followed by another "ugly" exchange that I happened to score on. So I won, 5-4. Then I had several bouts to wait before going up against Jim Henderson. The last few times I've faced him I've lost and I still can't quite figure out what to do. I tried my recent thing with absence of blade and working on distance, trying to use good, active footwork, and tried to get him in the "dead" zone, as I think my reach is slightly longer than his. But he is quick on his feet and quite fast with the blade, and kept beating me to the punch when we got into exchanges. I lost 5-3. He seems to have a well-rounded game. If only I could find a weakness... Then I fenced Carlo Malaguzzi. I figured I had a chance with him, but I had to fight for it. Again I worked with absence of blade, distance, and watching for his fleches. I think I caught one of his fleches. I also kept my eye on possible thigh hits, as he seemed possible open to low line attacks. And I think I scored once or twice that way. We went to 4-4. It felt like it could have gone either way, but he got the final point, so I lost 5-4. My last bout was against Matthew Comes, who I have had great trouble with. Earlier in the pool I watched Carlo beat him 5-1, and talked to Carlo a little about it. So I went in planning to do what Carlo had done—which seemed to be drawing Matthew's fleche then parrying/sweeping very hard in 8 or 2. Matthew was using a french grip and Carlo's parries were strong enough to knock Matthew's epee right out of his hand more than once. Well, when I tried that I kept finding Matthew hitting me before I even knew it was coming. I was ready to try strong 8 or 2 type parries, and/or 7 or primes to mix it up. But as with other times I've fenced Matthew lately I could barely manage anything, and lost, 5-1. I try to keep my awareness hyper-focused for the slightly sign of his fleche or his toe-touches, yet they still catch me by surprise. Perhaps a new tactic next time. Sometime different from baiting him. Perhaps much more distance. Hell, I score so badly in pools with him perhaps I should try for low scores and running time out, trying for doubles when I must...

So I came in last place in my pool, though only by one point compared to Jim Arrigoni. We both won just one bout, and we both received 24 touches, but he scored 17 to my 16 touches. Ah well.

The other pools had interesting results. In pool #1 George Raush cleaned up, winning all bouts but one. He lost to Zach DeWitt, which seemed odd since Zach did rather poorly. Mark Blom and Luke LaRocque both went four and two, while Yuly Suvorov, the pool's A fencer, was only three and three, losing to George, Mark, and Luke. In pool #1 Andrew Lee cleaned up and took 1st place, winning all but one, losing only to Cameron Brown; and Cameron won all but two. John Varney, the A of the pool, also won all but two but ended up with an indicator one point less than Cameron's, so came in third in the pool. Meanwhile David Robert, the line U in the tournament (though he's overdue for an E or D rating), went three and three while Russ Redding, one of the two Bs, went two and four.

In short, the pool results did not jive very well with fencers' ratings. The top seeds were George Raush, a C, Andrew Lee (D), Carlo Malaguzzi (D), Matthew Comes (B), Mark Blom (D), and Cameron Brown (D). The three A fencers, John Varney, Jay Slater, and Yuly Suvorov, seeded 7th, 9th, and 10th. Rather mixed up! It was mixed up enough, in fact, that it looked likely that the tournament might end up a B1 instead of an A1, which is in fact what eventually happened.

I seeded 18th, which paired me with Russ Redding, my own coach!, who seeded 15th. People pointed out that if I won the tournament would be a B1. In order to be an A1 it needed at least two As and two Bs or higher in the final eight. We had three As and two Bs total, and two of the As were going to fence in the table of 16, so only two A could possibly make the final eight. Therefore both Bs had to also make the table of eight for the tournament to remain an A1. Russ was one of those Bs. And we fenced in the table of 32.

Of course I didn't let any of that stop me from fencing my best. I thought it was possible to beat Russ. I had been doing pretty well against him in practice lately—getting a fair number of arm hits and escaping his fleches with quicker footwork. And he was using a french grip, which gave me a little extra confidence. I mainly fenced absence of blade with quick footwork, although I knew it was very hard to trick Russ on distance. He tends to hold his blade out, trying to get you to beat or bind it. Sometimes I'm able to, but mainly he's able to disengage out, especially when he's fencing french grip. So I tried to mainly use beats and binds as feints, setting up second intention type stuff. Or feinting attacks but then holding back looking for an arm hit from below or a low line. We went back and forth, mostly tied or nearly so. At one point he got up three points, 5-8 I think, but I caught up and we tied off and on to 12-12. We started the 3rd period tied 12-12, but alas, he got the last 3 points and won, 15-12. The first point was my fault—I basically stuck my hand onto his point, argh. The second point I thought I had—we had closed to near-infighting and I had my point right on his stomach, while his blade was far out of line. I thought I had hit, but he had bent over enough to just escape my point while at the same time doing a rather desperate flick and hit and scored. Argh! The final point was relatively unremarkable. So close! On the other hand, I fenced with my relatively new tactic of being confident. I also summoned with some success the feeling of fencing Russ and doing well. I didn't win, but I think these mental things helped me fence better.

The rest of the DEs were quite exciting with many very close bouts. In the table of 16 George Raush and Jim Arrigoni fought to 14-14, with George getting the final point. Jay Slater and Luke LaRocque also went to 14-14. Luke was doing really well against Jay, trying to draw him out and counterattack, I think. Jay managed the last point and won 15-14. Mark Blom and David Robert also went to 14-14, with Mark getting the final point.

And perhaps most exciting, in the table of 16, was Andrew Lee and Russ Redding. They also went to 14-14, then time ran out. Russ won priority and they went into sudden death. Both started carefully. Andrew fleched, Russ blocked him out with his excellent prime parry, but neither scored. I think that happened a number of times during the full bout. Russ has such a good prime parry, and he used it to stop Andrew's fleches a bunch of times. But Russ was having trouble landing the riposte from prime, so usually he'd manage to block Andrew but neither would score. Afterward Russ was talking to someone about his prime parry and said the french grip makes the prime and its riposte a little harder. He's usually pretty good with the prime ripostes, at least with me (!), but perhaps better with his pistol grip, now that I think about it. Anyway, continuing sudden death, there was a double touch, thrown out. Spectators were making comments about it being a "nail biter" bout. Finally there was an exchange and Andrew went for the foot and hit. There was a moment of uncertainty—had he hit, was it the floor? They were on a grounded strip, but still. Marshall was reffing and paused for a second. Andrew looked uncertain for a moment, then Russ said "oh that was good". And Marshall, who perhaps wasn't pausing out of doubt, called bout. So Andrew won in sudden death, 15-14.



Andrew beating Russ turned the tournament into a B1. Well, the relatively poor performance of the three As in the pools had at least as much to do with the event turning into a B1, but we didn't definitely become a B1 until Andrew beat Russ. John Varney and Yuly Suvorov were the two As who fenced in the table of 16. Yuly won, 15-11. Marshall was the ref and before they began he jokingly scolding them: "You guys are not supposed to be fencing each other yet!"

There was a moment after Andrew Lee beat Russ that Robert Lampson, who was watching next to me, thought that Andrew had earned his C as a result, but no, he had to come in 4th or higher for that. There was another moment when I thought perhaps Andrew would have earned a C for beating Russ if the tournament was rated A1, but by beating Russ the tournament became a B1 and thus Andrew did not earn a C. That would be sucky, I thought—to win and earn a C, but by winning not earn a C! But looking into it I realized the difference between an A1 and a B1 is minimal. In fact, the only difference seems to be that in an A1 tournament the first place fencer earns an A and the second place a B, while in a B1 only the first place earns a B. Everything else is the same: C down to 4th place, D for 5-6 and E for 7-8. Perhaps this system is designed in part so that situations like what I imagined—earning a rating by beating someone better, but then not earning it because you beat someone better—don't happen or are highly unlikely.

The final 8 bouts were not as close—Jay beat George, 15-8. Matthew Comes beat Mark Blom, 15-10. Cameron Brown beat Carlo, 15-12, and Yuly beat Andrew Lee, 15-10. The semifinals were even less close: Jay beat Matthew Comes, 15-9, and Yuly beat Cameron Brown, 15-8:




 The final bout, however, was very close. Jay vs. Yuly. I had watched them practice just the day before, both working hard for quite a while, and looking pretty evenly matched. Yuly mostly held the lead in the final bout, but Jay caught up in the end, getting to 14-14 and winning the final touch, 15-14. I made a full video of this bout:



So, despite the rather wacky pools and DE seeding, two of the three As did manage to get to the final bout, and one of the two Bs tied for third. But the third A, Varney, came in 9th, below three Ds and two Cs. David Robert, the one U, came in 12th out of 20, above one B and two Cs. No one earned new ratings, although Cameron Brown renewed his C and Andrew Lee his D. Me, well, the only thing that stopped me from coming in absolute last was John Comes, who lost all his pool bouts. Apparently he hasn't been fencing very much recently, trying to recuperate from back troubles. Still, despite doing poorly I had a good time watching everyone else. It was nice to realize out of the 20 fencers I knew them all—mostly pretty well and friendly.

The next local epee tournament is a Thursday evening RCFC event, but so far only six people have signed up. About a week after that is the WWD Div II/III qualifier event. That should be interesting.

Open fencing at RCFC

Thanks to Jeff's prodding and my long interest in trying it, I finally got around to an evening of open epee at Rain City Fencing Center. It was great—getting to fence, in a non-tournament setting, people I've only fenced in tournaments, if at all. Jeff had given me the idea there might be quite a bit fewer fencers than at an SAS open fencing evening, but there was a good bunch. I was at least familiar with most of them, and most seemed eager to fence me—probably for the same reason I was eager: fresh blood! So I ended up working hard with just a few short breaks. It was all very enjoyable. I liked getting to know some of these people a bit better—tournaments are not as social as open fencing. I learned some things and did pretty well too, I think.

I thought I'd mention here who I fenced, because I'm sure I'll forget in time. Wulf Carson and I fenced first, and for quite a while. We hadn't fenced before but I had watched him come in second place in a vet tournament at RCFC a while back. After that I was a bit tired, but Hans Engel asked to fence and how could I turn that down? Then Luke LaRocque asked. I needed a couple minutes, but then we were up and fenced about 30 or so touches. We've fenced in tournaments a few times recently and have each won some and lost some. He said he wanted to figure out my...I forget exactly how he phrased it, but something like "fluid low line attacks". And I wanted to figure him out more. We had a fun bout, and pretty evenly matched, I think.

Then there was a bit of chatting with Jeff, Carlo, and Wulf—with me, the old guys. Although they kept saying I was the youngster—which...I guess, I'm about ten years younger, but still a lot older than most of the RCFC kids, like Hans and Luke (I only just realized how well their names go together). Then I fenced Carlo Malaguzzi. I think I'd only fenced him once before, in 2014 Leon Open DE, I think. He destroyed me then. I did somewhat better tonight. After that the place was starting to empty out, but Andrea Matessi was still there, so we fenced a while. We never had before, and had never properly met, although we both recognized each other from tournaments. He's quite good, so that was a nice learning bout. Finally Jeff Lucas and I fenced and the evening was over. Good fun. Will have to do it again sometime.

D & Under Mixed Epee at SAS

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24378&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=97560

Tied for third out of ten. With just ten fencers we decided to go with one big pool, which took most of the time of the tournament but was fun. There were four Ds (Charlie, Craig, Luke, and Steven), one E (me), and five Us (Jeff, Dell, Art, Isaac, and David). I was mainly worried about the Ds, although I knew I could in theory beat any of them. The question was whether I would. I wasn't as worried about the Us, except Isaac, who I didn't really know. I figured, even assumed I could and would beat them, but I was proved wrong twice.

I can't remember the exact order I fenced in, but it was something like:

Art Deal (U): I won 5-2. He got the two points fairly early, which worried me, but I adjusted and was able to basically use distance and absence of blade to coax him in.

Dell Wolfensparger (U): I lost 5-4, which surprised me a little. Perhaps I was foolish to go in assuming I would win. Dell was fencing with as much energy as he could muster, and I was being a little too relaxed. I also forgot that my absence of blade distance game doesn't seem to work quite as well with Dell. He managed to hit with several fleches, or fleche-like things. I think he got to 4-2. I concentrated on single lights and patience. I got one single light, 4-3, then my next attempt ended in a double, so he won 5-4. Way to go, Dell!

Jeff Wilkson (U): I think I mainly stuck with the absence of blade distance game and it worked well, 5-2. I said to him after it felt like my fencing brain finally turned on. It can take a couple bouts to get into the headspace.

Luke LaRocque (D): We've fenced a few times before and he's mostly beaten me. But the last time we fenced in a pool I beat him. If nothing else I have a decent idea about his style and able to go in with something of a plan. Still, I thought he would be tough. As it turned out I won 5-2. We both played an absence of blade game, more or less. He's taller than me so I had to be extra careful of distance. When he did fleche I was mostly able to parry, and sometimes score. I fleched him a couple times, at least one of which ended in misses, jabbing, and corp-a-corps. Another time I had pushed him down the strip a bit, we had some blade exchanges and a score beep sounded. Not sure I retreated and glanced at the box—no lights. The beep was from another strip. Luke took my glancing up as an opportunity and advanced quickly. I reatreated a bit more and prepared. He apparently still thought he had me off guard and fleched. I ducked and countered to his body. We crashed into each other rather spectacularly, but harmlessly. I can't recall now if neither scored or if it was a double touch. Either way it seemed kind of funny. Don was the ref and I guess the corp-a-corps looked worse than it was. He advised us (me really) to not look at the box. In hindsight it was almost to my advantage—I had retreated before glancing at the box, so I had plenty of time to prepare for Luke's attack. And apparently by glancing at the box I gave Luke the impression I was off guard and he ought to attack aggressively, but by the time he reached me I was more than ready. Perhaps this kind of thing could be a tactic against some fencers. Shortly after that I managed a nice lunge to Luke's forearm. That one felt good. Also, I seemed to have decent success with second intentions, feints and the like. Luke likes to attack and it didn't seem that hard to draw attacks, which then could be countered. His height and reach give him an advantage, but if he falls for feints and makes deep lunges or fleches he gets into trouble.

Isaac Dugaw (U): A fairly small kid from WFA. His stance is odd—he puts his weight on his front foot a lot, which can't be good. It seemed like I should have been able to beat him, but he won 5-3. In fact, looking at his pool results is interesting. He beat me, Charlie, and Steven, some of the toughest fencers today, but lost to Jeff, Dell, and David. Weird.

Charlie Muñoz (D): Charlie was fencing very well, as he has been recently. I did okay and it was fairly close. It got to 4-3 and Charlie went for and got a double, winning 5-4.

David Robert (U): I was able to do most of my usual tricks I've learned work with David, mostly beats and binds combined with fleches. I won 5-3.

Craig Haworth (D): I was ready for his constant circle sixes, and was able to make some doubles by circle-attacking the opposite way. But the fast, accurate flick he does at the end of a circle-six action I had trouble with. I tried coaxing him in with absence of blade, but his attack is a bit longer and faster than I expected. I needed to have kept a bit more distance. I did managed a nice thigh hit. In the end I lost 5-3.

Steven Benack (D): I was worried about Steven. He's fairly tall and fences extended French. He tends to use absence of blade (arm back) and counterattacks, with an occasional fleche if the distance is right. Having watched other people try to beat or take his blade despite being mostly out of reach I decided not to go that way and use absence of blade myself. Since he tends to hold his arm back in a kind of cocked, outside position, his counterattacks and fleches tend to come from an outside angulated direction. I had some success in drawing these attacks and either attacking into them or parrying into 8 or 6. Still, I misjudged distance and his speed and a couple times he nailed me with a direct fleche. He won, 5-4.

Craig was the top seed by quite a bit. He lost only one pool bout, and that 5-4, to Steven. Charlie was the second seed, having lost two, one to Craig and one to Isaac. Luke and Steven were 3rd and 4th seeds, very close. I was 5th.

So there were two DEs in the table of 16 (everyone else got byes). I was paired with Steven Benack in the Final 8. He had gotten a hard hit in the forearm during the pools and was off and on in pain, but seemed to still be fencing well. Twice during our DE he paused and held his arm, wincing in pain. I don't think I hit him in the forearm. Once it was after I bound up his blade rather strongly, which I guess his arm wasn't happy about. The other time I hit his upper arm, so I'm not sure what happened there. I felt bad for him though. Our bout was fairly even at first, mostly tied or within a point or two. In the second period I pulled ahead a couple points and managed to maintain the lead. I won 15-12. If I learned anything I suppose it might be—he likes to retreat and wait for a good time to counterattack. Often when someone does attack he'll simply pull his arm way back and retreat quickly out of range. A few times I kept the pressure on after that kind of thing, forcing him back and/or trying to draw his counterattack. Maybe, it seemed, he has some trouble when the pressure is on like that.

My second DE, in the Final 4 (small tournament!) was with Craig Haworth. The bout had some ugly moments where we both missed and jabbed. I mostly kept to my absence of blade patience game. But his rather relentless advancing kept pushing me back quickly. And I'm still not comfortable at my end of the strip, so I would stand my ground sooner than perhaps was wise. I knew his circle six was fast and strong enough to prevent me from simple hits straight in, even if I could get the distance a little in my favor. Instead I tried various second intention things, but too often he's launch a fast lunge and my arm would be bent and quickly hit. I did manage one lovely hit to his hand from below, which felt nice. On the other hand, I had been thinking a prime parry might work well against his circle-six-flick, but when I pulled out a real prime he was faster and stronger than the parry and powered through. Eventually he was up quite a bit. I think it was 12-8, which was looking pretty bad. Seeking a change of tactic I tried my 4-6 thing and it worked beautifully, making the score 12-9. So I tried it again and it worked very well again; 12-10, looking better. I figured he was probably getting wise to that so I tried to distract him with other things for a little bit before pulling it out again. I think I didn't execute it quite as well that time, and/or he was more ready for it, so we doubled; 13-10. If I remember right I tried the 4-6 thing again and we doubled again, 14-11, then we ended with a double, 15-12. I might be misremembering those final touches. Anyway, afterward he said my comeback near the end had him worried. It made me feel okay about the bout—to be down by four and find a tactic that makes a decent rally. But four points near the end is a lot. Russ said after that I should have been moving more. As usual he's probably right.

In the other Final 4 Luke beat Charlie. It was close until about halfway through when Luke realized he could score well with fleches, and that he ought to be holding his arm higher—he had been holding it pretty low, which Charlie was able to take advantage of.

So the final bout was Craig and Luke. Apparently they hadn't fenced in quite a while but had been "bad talking" each other in friendly rivalry about who would win when they did face each other again. So it was a fun final. Not just because these two finally got to test their trash talking, but also because everything was friendly and stress-free. Since it was an E1 tournament and both these guys had Ds there was no rating at stake. The whole thing was over within a single period. At first it was fairly even, but Luke pulled ahead and soon took a larger and larger lead. He won 15-10. I took video of most of it, below.

For coming in third, tied with Charlie, I got an Amazon gift certificate for $10. Luke got one for $25 for being first. The tournament itself cost $20 to fence in, so Luke made that up and then some. Part of me would prefer a medal, even if your average local tournament medal probably costs far less than $10. Craig joked he would use his gift certificate to *buy a gold medal*—more trash talk with Luke. Fun people though. I had a great time.

MTFC 'E' and Under Mixed Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24027&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=96392

Well I did great in the pools, coming out 1st seed. But then I managed to lose my first DE to Eli Gandour-Rood, 15-13, whoops.

Doh!

I lost my first pool bout to Tom Martin. At first I was up a couple points. He got a few and we were at 4-3. Maybe I got overconfident; he scored, making it 4-4, then scored a single light again to win. I did very well in the rest of my pool bouts, winning two 5-0, one 5-1, one 5-2, and one 5-3. I was mostly worried about Jay Stainbrook and Sean Holland. Jay was doing very well too, but I had a fair amount of time to watch him before we fenced and I was able to devise a strategy that worked well (I won 5-2).

So I was the top seed and got a bye. Eli fenced Roger Brees and won 15-11, so I was matched with Eli. He used to go to SAS fairly often and we had fenced quite a bit. I couldn't quite remember what it was like but I think I usually did well against him. Maybe I was a little overconfident.

He scored the first two points as I probed and he did parry-ripostes. Then I shifted to a distance game tactic, using quick bouncy footwork to find those moments of closer distance, then attack straight in. That worked for several points. Then he adjusted to that and began using strong quick parries against my straight in attacks. So I began disengaging his parries, which worked but resulted in a string of double touches. I think I was up a couple points at the end of the first period. I went into the second period planning to shift between several tactics, such as setting up fleches, going for the thigh, and trying active disruptive blade work. These mostly didn't work so well, or I screwed them up. It wasn't a good fleching day for me. My disruptive bladework allowed him to score on my hand. I think I did manage a hit to his thigh though. Even so at one point I was up a couple of points, so I decided to ease off and play a patience game. Maybe I eased off too much because he got a couple points before I gave up that tactic. I think we reached 13-13. I tried my 4-6 trick but it failed, so he got to 14-13. I don't even remember the final point but it was his.

Well in any case whichever of us won had to face Charlie, which I hadn't been looking forward to—not just because he's my clubmate but because if we fenced one of us would have to lose and I didn't want either of us to lose. So I didn't have to fence him after all. Charlie took out Eli handily, 15-9, putting him in the final four. He fenced Alexander Nelson, a tall, counterattacking French-grip kind of guy. At first Charlie had some trouble. After the first period I was able to give some advice and he had some insights of his own. In the second period Charlie took to fleching a lot. It was working pretty well but even so they got to 14-14. Charlie made the final touch. That was a close one.

On the other side of the tableau Zach beat Donald Lake then fought a tough battle against Jay, the 2nd seed. Zach was down a bit but caught up, then they traded points for a while. In the end Zach won 15-13, putting him in the final four (and earning him his E). His semifinal bout was against Henry Duchow, who won 15-8. So the final bout was Henry and Charlie. Henry, like Alexander Nelson, is a tall, French-grip counterattacker. Charlie had just won against Alexander after figuring out a fleching tactic. In the final bout Charlie mostly fleched straight off the line, scoring over and over very quickly. It was almost saber-like, the speed of the attacks off the line. Henry apparently couldn't figure out a good defense and Charlie just kept doing the same basic thing, winning 15-11 and earning his long-sought D.

Afterward Jeff Lucas and I went for a late lunch and talked about octopusses.

Physical poker

Interesting thoughts from Darius Wei:

Fencing is often referred to as a game of “physical chess.” I personally prefer “physical poker.” In chess, every player has access to the same information on the board. In poker the amount of information is limited and asymmetric; each player knows their own hand and the cards on the table, but does not have access to their opponents’ hands. Information is revealed over time with the turn of each card, and a seemingly-strong position can become weak very quickly.

Top poker players win far more consistently than luck would allow. They do so by clearly understanding their odds of success in any situation, controlling both strong and weak positions in a manner that allows them to minimize the former and profit from the latter. They fold a large number of hands so nobody can see what cards they would prefer to play. Occasionally they will bluff, betting aggressively on a weak hand to scare opponents into folding. Or they will slow-play, betting weakly on a strong hand to raise their opponents’ confidence and trap them into betting heavily.

Your goal as a fencer should be to control as many elements of the game as you can. You have some degree of influence over aspects of the game other than yourself: opponents, referees, and even the clock can be manipulated to one degree or another.

(from a foil training clinic handout: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/61027fc0feb381fe80b88101e/files/CFTC_Handout.pdf)

Final bout SAS Open Mixed Epee

George took these videos of the final bout of the SAS epee tournament, between John Varney and Hans Engel. I edited them with slow-motion replays and score annotation.

Finally earned that E

Yay!

Open Mixed Epee at SAS, Feb 8, 2014
http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24374&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=97554

Pools were a little weird. I beat Joel Howard, barely, 5-4, and I beat the A fencer in the pool, Hans Engel. Didn't expect to win but got up a few points quickly. I think it was 3-1 at one point and I began to think I had it in the bag. Then Hans came back a bit. I think we went to 4-3 then ended with a double, 5-4. One touch I remember involved an exchange that seemed like someone should have scored but no one did. I retreated and glanced at the scoring box, which apparently caused Hans to launch a long attack ending in a fleche. I saw it coming, stood my ground then ducked under his fleche and hit him. That one felt nice. Hans went on to win first place in the tournament and was rather amazing to watch in the final DEs, which made it even stranger and cool that I beat him in the pools.

I lost my other three pool bouts. Matthew Comes left me flummoxed, as usual. I knew he would try at least one toe touch, yet he scored one anyway. He also got me once or twice with his amazing infighting. I lost 2-5. I did better against Johannes Klein, but lost 4-5. I've beaten him in pools before, mostly with hand hits, but couldn't pull it off this time. I made a couple bad attacks. In one case I was eager to try the against-lefties-attack Russ taught me, of fleching with a feint in 8 and a "rotation" into 6. It didn't work against Johannes, at least this time.

My last pool bout was against Andrew Lee. We hadn't fenced in a long time but I had seen him a lot. I knew he was technically good, but I thought I could outsmart him with second intentions, broken time, confusing patterns, etc, coupled with hard beats and binds. And I made some points that way, but he scored some nice ones too. If I remember right I kept pushing distance on him, which he took advantage of with a fast fleche or two. One of my points involved repeatedly pushing his blade into 8, as if I wanted to do a parry 8 or bind him in 8—not only was I trying to set up a ruse but I noticed how quickly he disengaged back to 6. Finally I attacked with a hint of the same feint toward 8 then instead binding in 7 and sweeping up to 6. I love it when parries/binds in 7 work. Later in the bout I tried to set it up again with an 8 invitation and close distance. But he simply picked my hand. My invitation was rather too inviting. Anyway, in the end he won, 5-3. So, weird pool—we had one each of U, E, D, C, B, and A, and I beat the E and the A but lost to the D, C, and B.

Beating Hans though was the key to the DEs, not that I knew it at the time. But thanks to that I seeded higher than I would have, although still below average—12th out of 18. So like most of us I got a bye in the table of 16 and was paired with the 5th seed in the table of 8, which turned out to be my clubmate Jim Arrigoni, who had done quite well in the pools. Had I done any worse my DE would have been against Yuly or Matthew Comes, or Varney or George Raush. Oddly, if I had done a little better in the pools I might have been paired with someone seeded a little below Jim—like Johannes, Andrea Matessi, Russ, or Hans Engel. I'm not sure I could have beaten any of those guys either. Jim I had a decent chance against, I thought. We fence all the time in practice and are about evenly matched. He did well in a tournament a while ago and earned a D, while I've been puttering around with my U. I was more than ready to get out of the U zone and fenced Jim as well as I could.

It was a fairly close bout. Mostly we were tied or I was a point or two up, but toward the end he pulled ahead a couple points. I was quite concerned when he was up 12-10, but I managed to pull back into things, tying at 13-13 and then pulling ahead 14-13. Then I was willing to try for a double but got a single instead, winning 15-13. That put me into the table of 8 and at least 8th place, which in this A1 tournament meant earning an E. *Finally*.

My tactics with Jim changed during the bout and were a little unusual compared to how we tend to fence in practice. At first I worked on a patient game, trying to get him to fleche because in practice I can often catch his fleches. But this time I wasn't catching them, rather I kept parrying them onto my own legs. In one case he fleched and our blades ended up down around my legs, he missed my legs but by chance his tip ended up slipping into my back foot shoe. Since my more passive game wasn't working I switched to a more aggressive style, pushing, changing blade positions and distances, tapping and beating his blade a lot, and so on. That approach seemed to work a bit better, but not without mistakes. By closing distance I risked getting hit on the hand, or worse, pushing my own hand onto his tip like I did one time. I kept trying an attack I've used in practice—using footwork and blade positions to gain just an inch or two of distance, then feinting or half lunging straight, with a last second beat and finish. If I'm just close enough and time the beat just right I can often land the hit. About halfway through the bout I was having trouble making that work and was getting hit myself instead, so I abandoned that for other tactics. I got a point or two up, perhaps 9-7, then returned to the more passive approach, retreating a lot and trying to catch his fleches. Again that did not work and he came back and took a lead. So again I switched to the more aggressive style. In the last few points I was able to get my feint-beat-lunge to work, finally. Maybe by then he was getting tired or not quite as tuned into distance. Or maybe I was trying extra hard. Whatever it was I landed a couple nice feint-beat-lunges, tying it up and then getting to 14-13. And now I realize I can't quite remember what the last point was. I think it was another feint-beat-lunge, or some variation.

Anyway, it was a close bout, and a friendly one—Jim and I always enjoy fencing each other.

So I got into the final 8. I had been approaching this tournament differently than most before. Previously I tended to keep my expectations low and focus on enjoying things, even if I did poorly. Before bouts I would say to myself "this person is better than me and will win but I will make it as hard as I can for them, and I will relax and enjoy, and learn". That was probably a reasonable mental approach for most of my tournaments—I had trouble balancing the drive to fence well with anxiety about losing. I was able to minimize anxiety by using this low expectation approach. It certainly helped in earlier tournaments when the whole tournament structure and format was not fully familiar and comfortable. It definitely helped during last year's SAS International Veterans Tournament, which I did mediocre in but enjoyed immensely. But in my last few tournaments I've feel quite at home, comfortable with the ways tournaments work, and even not getting stressed out when I have major equipment problems, like at the Battle in Seattle Senior Epee. In fact it was at the Battle in Seattle events where I felt I was finally comfortable with the whole tournament thing.

Now add to this the ideas I keep hearing about how importance confidence is. I've been reading the fencing subreddit on Reddit and people there talk about how confidence is totally key. So I'd been thinking maybe it was time to change my mental game from "this person is better than me" to "I can take this person". And now add to that the way this particular tournament worked out. There were 18 fencers, four A, two B, two C, four D, three E, and two U. This was just enough to make it an A1 tournament, meaning 8th place was enough to earn an E and getting to 8th place would probably involve winning only one DE. It was a nearly perfect opportunity for me. So I went in not thinking "I won't do well but will enjoy and learn", rather "now is the time I will get an E at least, if not something more. I was mentally prepared to win the whole thing if it came down to it, although I would have been amazed if I had.

I don't know if this confident mental approach made any difference today—certainly part of it was the "luck" of fencing Jim in my DE—but I'm eager to try being more confident in future tournaments. I think I may have finally figured out how to balance expectation with anxiety, confidence with calmness and focus. Ready for a new level.

Anyway, so in the table of 8 I fenced Yuly Suvorov. Yuly is in my club and we fence fairly often. He earned his A in the Battle in Seattle and is without question a better fencer than me. However, I'm familiar with his style and sometimes in practice do pretty well against him. Just yesterday we fenced for a while and I think I scored more than he did. So I approached this DE with confidence—I can win, at the very least. I know, sort of, how to fence Yuly (avoid his parry 4, my god!) But, well, not this time. I made some dumb mistakes and he made some great hits, and it was over by the end of the second period, 15-5. But hey, I was fine with that.

In the other final 8 bouts Hans took out George, 15-9, Matthew Comes took out Andrew Lee, 15-7, and Varney took out Matessi, 15-9. While I was fencing Jim, earlier, I saw part of the end of a dramatic bout between Charlie Muñoz and Matthew Comes. It was 14-13 (I forget who had 14...Charlie I think), then 14-14. I was hoping Charlie would win, but alas, Matthew got the final point.

The first semifinal bout was Hans and Yuly. This was very interesting. They are both very good, A fencers, but Hans tends to be a fairly aggressive attacker while Yuly is a calmer counterattacker. It was quite close. Yuly made quite a few great hits and Hans got quite frustrated. But he seemed to be able to turn his frustration into energy, power, and focus. As the bout progressed Hans seemed stronger and stronger and Yuly seemed to be having more trouble dealing with him. In the end Hans won 15-12.

The second semifinal bout was Matthew Comes and John Varney. Again I was eager to watch. Matthew's style is one I have great trouble with, and I'm certainly not the only one. But Varney is, well, awesome. The bout began with Varney taking his usual very patient approach, keeping the distance wide and slowly retreating to his end of the strip, only to burst out with rapid actions and fleches. Matthew, who usually fences fairly aggressively, was being very careful. A few points were scored and they got to something lke 3-3. Then both fencers became even more careful, neither willing to commit to an attack. After a minute of that Russ called non-combativity and on to the next round it went. Then there was more action. Matthew got up a couple points, which forced Varney to be more aggressive. Things went back and forth, slowly and cautiously. Finally, near the end of the final period Varney was up two points and time was very short. It got to the point where Matthew had to score two points just to tie with only three seconds left. Usually when bouts get to that point it's essentially over. The person who is behind will launch fast attacks that usually fail or at least end up using up the remaining time.But Matthew was going to try. He got on guard in a position clearly meant to turn into a running charge. Russ said "fence" and Matthew charged while Varney retreated. I'm not even sure what happened, I think one of them jumped into the air, but somehow Matthew scored a single light. Everyone watching was amazed. But he was still a point down and when he asked for time remaining Russ said "one second". From the on guard lines with one second it's almost impossible to score against someone who will be retreating fast. Matthew got into "launch position" (Russ said he had to be "on guard" and not quite in such a sprinter's stance). Russ called "fence", Matthew ran forward, Varney back, and Matthew made one of his long toe touches. The light went off just as Russ called "time". It was literally just in the nick of time. He got the point. (In hindsight I might have the two final touches backwards, the toe touch might have been first) So they went into sudden death overtime. Matthew got priority, although Russ's hand gesture made it look like Varney had priority. Apparently Matthew thought Varney had priority, but Russ did say Matthew did. Craig told me the hand gesture was correct, even if it looked (and apparently was) a little confusing. In any case, they fenced a bit and Varney made the final touch, winning, 12-11. Still, those two final second touches by Matthew were probably the high point of amazing/ridiculous fencing in the whole tournament. Also, even if Matthew had won he still would have had to win the final to earn an A. Currently he's a B2014, so even coming in 2nd place in an A1 tournament would not change his rating.

The final bout was between Varney and Hans Engel—again interesting for being a more defensive fencer against a more offensive one. It was a great bout, very close all the way. As Hans had done with Yuly he seemed to gain energy as the bout progressed, while John seemed to be getting tired toward the end. Hans won, 15-12.

I wanted to take a bunch of video after I was out, but my camera battery was low and ran out after a bit. But I got a few bits and pieces (some of the sound is screwy for some reason):