BladeFest 2014, C & Under Senior Men's Epee

BladeFest Div 2 ROC
C & Under Senior Men's Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=27065&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=107153#107165

POOLS

Tobias Lee. Lost 5-4.
I started out well but got over-eager to attack and he came back to win. I got the first point using a few half-advance-retreats followed by a half-advance, front foot back into a fleche. I kept trying to set that up again after it worked the first time, but the best I could do was to chase him down the strip. The second point was a double. I set up a circle-6 pattern then attacked with a bind in 8. I hit, but he disengaged and hit too. Then he scored a single light, making it 2-2. I don't remember quite what happened. I think I spaced out for a moment, unsure or perhaps trying to think of something to do. Then I tried to set up a fleche attack. When I fleched he retreated quickly but not so much that I stopped. It seemed like my tip was only inches away so I reached more and ended up chasing him down most of the strip. He continued to retreat out of range and eventually picked off my arm. I knew I shouldn't chase him like that. It was the way he retreated only just enough that lured me into the chase. After that we doubled, somehow, making it 4-3. In the end I tried my 4-6 move, thinking it might work given the angle he was holding his blade. It did work, but he managed to hit too, thus winning 5-4.

Charles Bentone. Won 5-4.
I don't remember exactly how the first few touches went, except that I got the first one and was up a point until we tied at 3-3. My points were mainly counterattacks into his mistakes. His points were mainly fast fleches with binds or disengages. At 3-3 we both attacked. I thought I had hit but the box showed a single light for him, putting me in a bad place, down 3-4. I kept up my game of making a lot of feints, hoping he'd make an overly large parry or start an attack out of distance. Luckily for me he did, advancing with a parry to my feint. This let me attack into the opening, scoring and making it 4-4. At the end I scored with a fast beat-fleche. Whew, too close.

Audun Holland-Goon. Lost 5-2.
I went into this one knowing Audun doesn't attack much, tending toward parry-ripostes and counterattacks. I knew I needed to be very patient and try to create openings or get him to attack. But, as often happens, I found myself attacking anyway, with feints turning into actual attacks now and then. He kept scoring with nice parries and ripostes. At 2-0 I tried a hard beat. I knocked his blade away nicely but then missed, while he recovered and hit. Down 3-0, not good. Taking my time and trying to be very patient, I managed to get a point with my 4-6 move. Almost by chance I glanced at the clock and saw there was only about 13 seconds left. No more time for patience. I tried another hard beat and we doubled, making it 4-2. Eight seconds left and I needed two points to even tie. I attacked quickly, but he parried and scored, winning 5-2.

Mark Blom. Lost 5-1.
The last time we fenced, at the Battle in Seattle, I won. It was close but I felt fairly well in control. Remembering that gave me confidence. Plus we had warmed up together and I had done fairly well, despite taking it fairly easy. But he beat me badly. It started with a toe touch, which I knew to expect yet still was surprised by. Then he ran up a series of touches, mostly to my outside (he's left-handed). I got my one point with a fleche that resulted in a double touch. In another case I fleched and he calmly picked my arm. In hindsight I should have been more patient and less attacking—the main theme of this whole tournament for me.

Steven Bennack. Won 5-1.
This made up for my 5-1 loss to Mark. In the past and in open fencing at RCFC Steven and I have been fairly evenly matched. Over time I've become quite familiar with his style, which helped a lot. I didn't fall into his traps (or not much anyway), and I got him to fall for mine sometimes. I got the first two points by pushing him and faking attacks until he counterattacked into a feint, allowing me to counterattack (or perhaps the term is "counter time", when you counterattack into a counterattack). Eventually I got to 4-1, then won 5-1. Mixed in there I tried using some advice Toby gave me—of trying to get him used to a distance with my arm extended, then slowly changing to a more withdrawn arm distance, hoping to draw him in a few inches too close. I think it worked, although there were certainly other factors too. Afterwards he said part of it was his fencing with a pistol grip because all his french grips were broken. That probably screwed with his sense of distance too.

DE
Audun Holland-Goon. Lost 15-10. He had a good lead for most of it. Got to 13-8 before I finally figured out some 2nd/3rd intention stuff, which worked for doubles, 14-9, then 15-10. In short I attacked too much. Talking to Toby later I realized I kept pushing Audun to his end of the strip only to get anxious about being there and attacking instead of waiting and pushing him until he attacked. I wonder whether practicing with John Varney so much has made me more likely to get anxious when I've pushed someone to their end of the strip. I did get at least two nice touches I felt good about. Once I set up an advancing circle-6 pattern, then made a stronger advance with a circle-6 take, but with a second intention—hoping he'd disengage and attack to my inside and I'd prime. It worked perfectly, he fleched to my inside and I did a prime riposte to score. That felt good. Another time I kept threatening high, then lunged to his leg. That one was good too. But overall I attacked too much—and too often direct attacks right into his strong 4-parry.

Overall I think I had some trouble with focus. From time to time I spaced out a little, or felt at a loss and become less active. I also fell into a bit of the tournament anxiety thing. But at least I was aware of these things and made an active effort to avoid such things. I felt I did alright with breaking off engagements from time to time, retreating a bit and resetting myself.

Although I tried to be patient I ended up making too many attacks—certainly too many long fleches from out of distance, which sometimes turned into chases. I feel like I ought to have worked on shallow targets more than I did. A few times I attacked simply because I got impatient and made a poorly planned attack into a strong defense.

I think my footwork got better toward the end of the tournament. Toward the end of the pools I began to realize I would probably not be fencing much longer, which made me put more effort into fast, bouncing, in-and-out footwork despite feeling tired.

A few videos:

Andrew Lee vs. Henry Duchow

Andrew Lee vs. Mark Blom

Final bout: Andrew Lee vs. George Raush

Next tournament coming up is the Leon Auriol Open. Looks like it will be at least an A1, probably an A2. As usual for me, this means I'll probably have to win two or three DEs to get a D rating. So far the fencers registered are tending toward the higher end, so this may be tough. In addition to the SAS A fencers (Varney, Yuly, Jay), Dragonetti is signed up, as well as Sam Larsen, Cole Mallette, Matthew Comes, and Kaiden Crochett. Well. I think perhaps my goal should just be to not do as badly as I did the last two Leon Auriol Opens—which shouldn't be too hard; last year I didn't win a single bout

Oh, and George just uploaded a short video of me fencing Audun. It's one of the only videos of my own fencing ever, and certainly the only one from a tournament. Maybe I should bribe someone to do more for me.

.

BladeFest 2014, Vet Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=27065&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=107153#107153

POOLS

John Comes. Lost 5-2.
I was probably over-confident at first, having won against him the last several times we fenced. Not this time. I attacked too much and too quickly, for one. He parry-riposted or counterattacked well, getting to 4-0 rather quickly. Yikes. Then I managed a point, mostly by luck. We doubled for the final point.

Niul Manske. Won 5-4.
A B fencer I had never heard of or fenced. Apparently he was only just returning to fencing after a long break. I was more patient with him, after my impatience with John failed. Niuls used a french grip and seemed to be a counterattacker who liked picking. He obviously knew his stuff, but was rusty from his long break, as I later learned. The rustiness meant I was able to score when he missed several picks. Even so it was close. We tied at 2-2, then I got a single light and kept a one point lead through a couple of fleching doubles.

Aaron Page. Lost 5-3.
The last time we fenced in a tournament pool, at the Seattle International Veteran's Cup, I beat him 5-1. That time I felt like I could feint and disengage him pretty well. This time he got the first point with a powerful binding attack that surprised me for being so strong. So I began fencing absence of blade and got the next point. I think he made a distance/blade mistake and I was able to hit with a direct lunge. Then I think we had a double touch and he scored again, I forget exactly what happened. Somewhere in there I decided I wasn't happy about fencing absence of blade, but I didn't want to give him my blade either, so I started using a lowish guard positioned for a possible septime beat or lift, like I had been practicing recently. That wasn't the best idea, especially against his style. I kept trying to gain a distance advantage and fleche. Eventually I did fleche, trying for a fast direct hit. He attacked into my fleche, or counter-fleched. We ran into each other a little. I thought it was a double touch but when I looked he had scored a single light. At the end I had my blade up again and he fleched with another very strong bind. I think he missed, or perhaps pulled his arm far back, then hit with a remise just in time as he ran by.

Jeff Johnson. Won 5-4.
Jeff is a relatively new fencer, but pretty good. We fenced a few times at RCFC open fencing in August, so I knew what to expect and what might work, more or less. He's left-handed, tall, and uses a French grip, which can be trouble. At first I tried some things that had worked back in August. My first attack might have worked except I went wide to my left and missed. I think I turned my hand over too much, making the tip go too far left. He scored. Then I tried an 8-6 fleche, feinting 8 and raising to 6. But he parried and hit. I might have been too obvious about starting to fleche. I was down 2-0, so I quickly changed tactics. Instead of attacking again I would wait for him. Before long he obliged me with an attack, and this time he was a little too obvious and I scored with a parry-riposte. Again I waited and again he attacked, and again I scored with a parry-riposte, or perhaps a counterattack. Being tied 2-2 felt better than being down 2-0. I forget exactly what happened next, whether I attacked and remised or he attacked and I countered, but whatever it was it ended with my getting a lovely touch on his forearm. That one felt good. Then we had a double touch, somehow, making it 4-3. The final point was also a double. He made an advance that was too inviting not to fleche into, so I did. My fleche was not great though, and he was able to get a double touch out of it. My aim was off and instead of hitting his arm I ended up hitting his neck somewhat under the bib. I was worried I had hurt him, but he was okay.

My DE bout turned out to be with Niul Manske. I had beaten him in the pools, but only by a point. Having just fenced him in the pools I felt I knew more or less what to do, and what not to do. As it turned out we had a lot of double touches. He was mainly counterattacking, and too many times I was drawn into an overly long attack as he retreated, resulting in a double touch or him simply picking my arm. He was up a point or two most of the bout, but I managed to tie it up at 8-8. With vet DEs only going to ten being tied 8-8 was exciting. But he got the last two points, winning 10-8. One of them was a nice fleche as I was stepping in a little too much.

A couple videos (not sure why sound cuts out, was fine in iMovie, hmm):

Videos from 2014 Subway Washington Games, Rain City Fencing Center

I started videoing Joshua Meehan and Paul Duchow in part because Joshua had beaten me so badly I wanted to see how Paul Duchow might deal with him. Part way through I switched to watching Kim Ji Sun and Bela Suveg, so this video is only the first part of the bout. Paul won 15-8.




Kim Ji Sun only recently arrived from South Korea. I don't know if she is staying or for how long or what. But she is good! Being newly arrived she was a U coming into this tournament. Left a B.




Having watched Kim Ji Sun beat Bela I was curious to see how she might deal with Matthew Comes in this semifinal bout. She did some interesting stuff, but Matthew's deadly leg hits and fast fleches won the day. Matthew went on to beat Yuly in the final, 15-14, which would have earned him his A if he hadn't just earned it the day before in Portland...by beating Yuly. Sheesh.




The other semifinal. Yuly is impressive. I didn't video the final, wanting to watch it with my own eyes—and having seen several Yuly-Matthew bouts before. They got to 14-14 before the first period ended. In the second Matthew won with one of his long lunges to the leg, of course.

2014 Subway Washington Games, Senior Mixed Epee

2014 Subway Washington Games, Senior Mixed Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=105085&highlight_competitor_id=91067

Yay for the rare July tournament. I did about as usual for me lately: Not bad in the pools (3 and 3), lost my first DE. My pool results were a little weird. Other than Bela Suveg, who beat everyone, I beat everyone except the two women who everyone else beat. Still, I was pleased to finally beat Jim Henderson and to solidify my Craig Haworth strategies. I had a close one with Dylan Meehan but managed to come back from being down 3-4 to win 5-4. In my DE I quickly lost to Joshua Meehan. There were four Meehans fencing, plus Justin Meehan reffing. Quite the fencing family.

There were 33 fencers competing, although John Comes withdrew during the pools after twisting his knee. There were five As but only two Bs and three Cs, which made it a rather "bottom heavy" A2. With few Bs and Cs but a surplus of Ds, Es, and Us, well my pool was: Bela Suveg (A), Jim Henderson (C), Craig Haworth (D), me (E), Claire Heppner (E), Abby Barr (U), and Dylan Meehan (U). For once I was kinda in the middle of a pool! Here's how things went.

I started with Bela Suveg. Might as well get it over with, I figured. Also, I tried something new this time, epee-wise. I used either my fairly stiff, "good for beats and binds" LP epee or my more flicky Vniti, depending on what I thought would be best with each person. With strong fencers like Bela I used the flicky Vniti, figuring beats and binds are less useful against people as strong as Bela. This tactic seemed to work pretty well overall.

With Bela I started out bouncing and strong, while he seemed not quite ready, maybe. I got the first point, a somewhat surprising hit to his hand. I was just putting my point out a lot and bouncing in and out, and blam, hit his hand. How nice. Perhaps the flicky Vniti helped there. I got the second point too, with a parry-4 riposte that felt rather nice. Things went downhill from there. In my bouncing in and out I bounced too close and blam, he hit me, 2-1. Then, after a bit more maneuvering I tried bouncing into distance and fleching, but it wasn't a very good fleche and he parried and riposted, making it 2-2. So much for my initial lead. I can't remember the next point, but it was his, 3-2. Then, after a bit more maneuvering I tried a feint-8 fleche-6, a tactic I sometimes try with lefties. It worked, but he counterattacked and made it a double, 4-3. I don't remember the final point, but it was his. I think I was trying to bounce in and out, looking for a single-light opportunity, and I came too close and got hit. So I lost, 5-3. Having seen Bela many times before I figure 5-3 isn't too bad for my first time fencing him. I also figure I need to work on my bouncing in-and-out, stutter-stepping thing more. Much of it is just something I've been trying out over the last week since watching the FIE World Championships and getting inspired. I think I need to work on keeping the advancing smaller and the retreats more frequent, among other things.

Second bout was against Jim Henderson. The last bunch of times we've fenced he's beaten me, sometimes quite badly. My notes about him said little more than "don't miss". Thanks, notes. I switched to my stiffer LP epee for Jim, thinking he might be susceptible to beats. Turns out he was, although it took me some time to make it work. Hmm, writing this now I realize I actually adjusted during this bout, a good sign! Early on he got up a couple points. I continued my bouncing in-and-out thing, being patient and waiting for openings. But when they came up I found Jim was deceiving my parries, getting me to make the wrong parry, or making nice disengages. He also seemed well able to parry my attacks and make nice ripostes. I think I managed to get back to a tie at 2-2. Then he made a lovely shot to my leg, 2-3. At this point I began to focus less on parries and more on beats. At first I had trouble finding his blade to make a beat, but eventually it felt like I started to be able to draw him out a little into places where I could make a rapid bouncing-advance along with a very hard beat attack. After some probing and attempts to mislead him I managed to make a very strong beat. Strong enough to make his tip smack hard onto the floor. I hit and scored. Jim suggested to the ref that his tip had hit the floor off the strip. I thought it had hit the strip, and the ref agreed. Luckily we were on one of RCFC's few grounded strips. So I got the point, 3-3.

I became rather careful then, and I think my footwork got better. I didn't want to attack. I wanted Jim to make a large attack while I retreated, then beat-attack into his committed lunge. So I patiently waited, bouncing in and out, trying to draw him, and making lots of slow bounce retreats. I also used a lot of slow circle-4 and feint-4 type motions, hoping they might induce him to attack. It paid off. Finally he did attack, with a fleche, lowish, toward my leg, exactly the kind of thing my circle-4 stuff was trying to trigger. I responded with a strong parry-8, catching his blade and riposting as he ran by. Score! I'm up, 4-3. The last point was much the same—me patiently waiting and trying to draw an attack. When he did attack I made a strong beat-parry and scored with the riposte, winning 5-3.

Next up was Craig Haworth. In the past he tended to beat me but recently it has felt more even to me. I watched him fence others in my pool and saw he was basically doing the same things he was doing the last few times I've fenced him. Relatively slow footwork, a very strong and fast circle-6 parry-riposte usually followed by a fast flick to the chest, along with some surprisingly long lunges, usually to the leg. In the past I was never quite sure what to do with him, except that I could usually get doubles by attacking with a counter-clockwise circling, evading his circle-6 such that we both hit. This time I thought I could get an advantage using very fast footwork with lots of bouncing "false attacks", triggering his circle-6, after which I could deal with things in various ways. Watching his footwork I thought he tended to be a little over-balanced when he lunges. Also, since Craig is a strong fencer I switched back to my Vniti. Not much point in trying to power through his parries or attempt much in the way of beats.

I started out aggressively bouncing in and out, mixing in some fast advancing "stutter-bounces" that might scare him back or might also be turned into real attacks. He retreated in the face of this and soon was way back in his end-strip box. I continued to press, but with more caution, thinking he would attack out of the box at some point. We had a flurry of blade action. I was careful to not overcommit but tried to keep the pressure on. During the exchange he took just too much of a step back and went off the end of the strip. I did not intend to push him off the end, and I think he didn't realize just how close he was. But he stepped off and I got a point. That's the first time I've ever seen that happen that I can recall. Once in practice Yuly pushed me off the end of the strip, but that's the only other time I can think of.

The next point came after a big exchange, where I managed to land a riposte. I can't remember the details, but I was happy to be up 2-0. Then he got me with one of his long lunges to the leg. Perhaps I was bouncing too close, as I've been doing a lot. Well, 2-1. Then we got a double somehow, 3-2. I think I got the next one, somehow, making it 4-2, a comfortable place. My notes about Craig said to try my 4-6 tactic and variations. I had been trying to set it up but not quite commiting. So now I commited and it seemed to work. I landed my point nicely, but it didn't go off and Craig scored. I had my epee checked, it was fine. This is one of the risks of the Vniti—it is so whippy sometimes it looks like a good hit but landed flat. So I was up 4-3. I know how every point counts in pools and how it would be best to get a single light to win rather than a double. But at 4-3 I got a little worried and decided to double out. I knew from past experience I could score doubles with Craig by fleching while disengaging his circle-6. So I did that. It worked perfectly. Ending with a double and a score of 5-4 was not as good as a single and 5-3, but I was pleased at how well I was able to pull the double out when I wanted it.

So I was 2 and 1. Not bad. And the remaining three fencers were two Us and one E. Looking good? Well, I should know better than to think ahead of things like that. Next up with Abby Barr. I've seen her around but never fenced her. She seemed pretty good, but fairly small. I took my "beat and bind" LP epee on strip, thinking it was the one for her. But alas, it failed the small shim. It's been a little flakey lately like that. Oh well, I switched to the Vniti. In hindsight maybe I should have switched to one of my stiff Absolute spares instead, but I didn't think of it. Anyway, things began well and I got up 2-1. Then I bounced into distance with a couple of stutter-steps/body-feints. She made a bit of a panic parry and I rather easily lunged to her bib, making it 3-1. Going fine! Then...well I'm not quite sure. Perhaps she adjusted to me. Definitely I got a little too cocky and let myself bounce too close too much. I was also getting tired from all my bouncing, which probably made me more sloppy and slow. She got a point, then we doubled, 4-3. Then, when I should have been patient and keeping good distance, I bounced too close without a plan and she easily hit my leg, making it 4-4. And again I got too close and she hit, winning 5-4. So, a lesson. People often say confidence is good in fencing. But when I get up a few points I often get reckless.

Next up was Claire Heppner. In theory I should have had no big trouble with her, but my attacks kept failing and she kept hitting me. I got one easy point when we had a blade exchange where it seemed like someone hit, but neither of us did. She paused just for a second and I got an easy hit. Besides that though we quickly got to 1-4, yikes! At that point I redoubled my efforts and scored, 2-4. A ways to go. The next one turned into a double, so she won, 5-3. I think I was making many of the same mistakes I made with Abby—bouncing too close too much, too often without a good plan. I was certainly tired and getting sloppy. I could try to blame the Vniti a bit—I simply missed several times, and the Vniti has a "less stable" point than the LP. But still, I lost fair and square.

My final pool bout was with Dylan Meehan. I had watched him and he seemed pretty good—maybe not super-great but better than his U rating might suggest, I thought. He was young and fast, but didn't seem "strong" like Bela or Craig. So I decided to stop using the Vniti and, since the LP was out of service for the moment, try one of my spare Absolute epees. They might be even stiffer than the LP, but a little annoying in other ways.

By this point we were double-stripping and not getting much rest between bouts. And I was feeling tired. So I tried to be extra careful. He got the first point, I forget how (my point by point notes get worse over the pool bouts, perhaps a symptom of being tired?). I kept being patient, slowly retreating, waiting and trying to figure out what to do. He got impatient and launched an attack from too far, which I was able to parry and score with a riposte (parry-4 riposte I think). So, 1-1. Then, well, I don't remember the details, but he got up a point, 2-3, then 3-4. I hate being down 3-4 in a pool bout. But I turned up the energy and was able to make a strong beat attack, getting a single light, 4-4! For the final point we maneuvered cautiously, then both attacked. Double touch, thrown out. More maneuvering, then an exchange of bladework, after which I made a small retreat, perhaps just a little off balance, and he attacked. As his blade came out I managed a nice hard beat and scored a single light, winning 5-4. Woo!

So I was 3 and 3 in the pools. Not bad, not bad. Bela won all his bouts, so took 1st. Jim Henderson was 4 and 2, so took 2nd. Craig and were both 3 and 3, but my indicator was -1 while his was +1, so he was 3rd and I was 4th. Phooey. Maybe I shouldn't have ended our bout with that double after all! Still, I seeded 15 out of 32 out of the pools. Above the median. After the DEs I finished 19th, a little below the median.

For my DE I was paired with Joshua Meehan. A B fencer I'd never seen, I was told he was a leftie, aggressive, and strong, but, according to Jim Arrigoni, "you can beat him". Hmmm. Well, he trounced me pretty badly. Ah well.

Videos in next post.

2014 WWD Senior Division Championships, Senior Men's Epee

2014 WWD Senior Division Championships, Senior Men's Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=26171&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=104339

I did less well this time, compared to recent tournaments; finishing 22nd out of 27. I wasn't feeling on my game too well. A bit spacey, slow. Also there were a lot of good fencers among the 27. Nearly half were As or Bs. And then there were people like Steffen Felt who is a C in epee but mostly fences foil. He came in 2nd. The WWD Division Championship has a special trophy for whoever does best in all three weapons, so a number of people fence all three, like Steffen, and also Iain Valentine, who I fenced in my DE.

I've fenced most of the people who were there, other than Steffen Felt. Iain I'd only fenced once, in practice at SAS. Kevin Mar was there too, who I haven't fenced or seen fencing since Blade Fest 2012. Unfortunately I didn't get to fence him today. My pool was a bunch of familiar people:

My first pool bout was with Joel Howard. It was close. We tied 3-3, then he scored, then I scored, making it 4-4. He got the final point and won 5-4. I did best when he attacked and I did parry-ripostes. My own attacks were less successful.

Second pool was with my other clubmate, Yuly Suvorov. Usually I can at least get a point or two on him, and sometimes even beat him to five points (although not in a tournament...yet). Today though he destroyed me 5-0. Three times I attacked and he parried and scored on the riposte. One or two of those attacks were into his powerful 4, which I should know not to do. Twice he attacked and scored. Once with a lovely 8 opposition, nice and small. I counterattacked but his opposition pushed my blade aside just enough to make me miss—my point couldn't have been more than an inch from his chest. Another time he attacked more or less straight in. I had lost focus a bit and he wasted no time taking advantage. Afterwards he said he was doing a lot in 8, and that was "not something you usually let me do". He also said he went to a clinic recently which focused on blade takes and he was doing a lot of simple, small, oppositions in 8.

My third bout was with Garrett Armstrong. The first time I fenced him, at SAS, he beat me badly. The second time, also at SAS, he was beating me badly until I started using footwork/distance and fleches, with which I came back to 4-4, but lost the last point. After that I felt like I knew better how to fence him. My fleche into his advance had worked so well last time I began with that tactic this time. But it didn't work as well this time and he popped me with his good prime. I tried a couple more times and he managed to stop me but didn't manage to score on the riposte. I was probably lucky at least one of those times and he just missed. Seeing how my fleche tactic wasn't working too well I changed to something a little more patient, with more feints. I had some success feinting fleches—body feints, or starting the motion of a fleche, or even starting to fleche but stopping suddenly with the distance not fully collapsed. It seemed that these kind of actions could get him to start his prime parry, but since I was not close enough for prime to work he'd parry air and I could attack straight in. I suppose these were second intention attacks, although I wasn't thinking about it that way. I'm not sure how clearly I was thinking at all. Still, I managed to get up 3-1. At that point Garrett began to launch his own attacks more frequently. One worked, making it 3-2. He tried another fleche but I was able to catch his blade and riposte as he fleched by. At 4-2 we had a bit of a simultaneous attack and doubled, so I won 5-3.

My fourth bout was with Matthew Comes. If I remember right we started with a double touch, me doing a prime riposte. He said "nice double". Then he got me just barely on the knee. I knew to use extra distance with him, but apparently not quite enough. His tip actually just touched the wrinkle of my fencing pants just above the knee, which was sticking out an inch or so. Sheesh. Then, although I knew to watch out for toe touch attempts, he got me with one. I learned a little though—he got it right off the line. He's very good with tempo changes and lulling people into fencing at his tempo—then he'll suddenly change from a slow to a fast tempo. I knew that and was ready for it in general, but wasn't ready for it right off the line the way he did it. He was on guard in a relaxed way, then the ref called "fence" and he took a slow calm step forward and I did the same. Then he suddenly went for the toe and hit. That calm coming off the line tricked me. So he was up 3-1. The next point was annoying and stupid of me. We were fencing for a bit, had a little exchange, then he dropped his point to my knee or toe and I was convinced it hit. Perhaps there was a beep on a neighboring strip. Whatever, I thought argh, he got me again, and stopped fencing. It took him a moment to realize, and he had retreated after the exchange. But as I slowly looked up at the scoring machine he leapt forward and popped me on the chest. Ugh, I felt like an idiot! Perhaps out of anger and frustration I managed to get the next point, pegging him on the arm while he was doing some blade waving. Still, that only made it 4-2. Annoyed still, I fleched with a strong beat, hoping his French grip epee would go way out of line. It did, but he made one of his signature half-behind-the-back flexi-ripostes and hit my shoulder. A frustrating bout, but I think I learned a little more about his style and how to read it, especially his timing and tempo changes, which seem key. Better, I saw a number of things I want to work on myself, especially these tempo changes and lulling opponents into certain tempos.

Next up, Scott Phillips, who I've always had trouble with. The last time, at the Battle in Seattle I think, he destroyed me, mostly with fleches. Beforehand Joel said Scott is a very "clean" fencer and that it's best to fence him "cleanly". I managed the first point by catching him with a 7 parry. Then we doubled, 2-1. After that, well, I kept trying to catch him in 7 again. Or at least I kept making circle 6 motions. According to Joel he caught on to this and took advantage, evading my blade and scoring the rest of the way to 5-2. In the final point I felt like I had spaced out. My focus today was certainly not what it could have been.

My final pool bout was against Andrew Lee, who I've fenced several times in recent months. The last two times we fenced I used an aggressive tactic, mainly meant to prevent him from fleching. It did prevent him from fleching, but also pushed distance too much, allowing him to hit with rather direct attacks. This time I was more than ready to abandon that tactic and instead try a more patient game with wider distance. Russ even said as I connected up not to push too hard. I was like, "oh yea, I learned that lesson last time!" I was ready to respond to his fleches with prime parries, which I thought might work. But, like other times, when he did fleche my instinct kicked in and I did not try prime. Still I managed to catch one or two. Mostly we played a very patient game, both searching for openings. I mostly bounced in and out of medium to long distance, ready to retreat and counterattack. From time to time I launched attacks, but tried not not overcommit. He reacted by quickly retreating and a couple times I continued my somewhat cautious attack until we were at his end of the strip. I think once I made a fully committed attack, perhaps a fleche, and got hit with a nice riposte. After that I kept things more controlled. I tried a variety of half-lunges, hoping for a reaction I could renew into. I tried feints of many kinds, but he didn't bite, or made retreating counterattacks. Eventually we got to 4-3, Andrew in the lead. Needing to score two singles I became even more cautious. Luckily for me Joel was watching and at one point called out "ten seconds!" I had not realized the time was almost up. And I was down a point. So I began advancing more aggressively, while still trying to not overcommit. He retreated, clearly trying to kill time. After a few seconds of that I accelerated into a fleche. To my surprise, the action being somewhat reckless, I scored. So it was 4-4 with four seconds remaining.

It wasn't until much later, when I was at home telling the story, that I realized at that point I could have let time expire. Since we were tied the bout would have gone into overtime—sudden death overtime I think. Certainly it would have been wise to do that rather than launch a last second all out attack. But in the bout itself...well, like I said I was feeling spacey and it didn't occur to me that with the score tied I could let time run out. For some reason I assumed I had to score in four seconds or lose. So when the ref called "fence" I made some very rapid advances, while Andrew retreated. Then I made what was probably an awkward and ugly fleche. We had a quick blade exchange and as I ran by off strip I had no idea if either of us had hit. Looking back I saw that I had scored a single light, with one second on the clock. I won, 5-4, beating Andrew for the first time ever. I was elated and a little surprised at having scored twice with two rather desperate attacks with seconds left. It was only hours later that I realized the second attack was actually a dumb and unnecessary thing to have tried. On the other hand, maybe that helped make it work. Perhaps Andrew assumed I would let time run out and was not really ready for my all out last second fleche. Maybe being stupid actually helped me there, heh. Or maybe I was just very lucky. It was certainly an ugly attack.

So, with that inglorious end I came out of the pool with two wins and four losses. My wins were 5-4 and 5-3, while my losses were 5-0, 5-2, 5-3, and 5-4. So my indicator was not great: -8. Still, out of seven fencers I came in 5th. Joel and Garrett each won just one bout—Joel beat me and Garrett beat Joel.

So I was the 21st seed and thus paired with the 12th seed, who turned out to be Iain Valentine. He's a very good foil fencer. I've rarely seen him fence epee. One night not long ago he was doing epee at SAS and I got the chance to fence him to 10 points, if I remember right. To both of our surprises, I think, I beat him 10-1, with what felt like ease. Well, that night was not this day, and he beat me with relative ease, 15-7. On the plus side, I felt like I was mostly "doing the right things". We had a whole bunch of exchanges where I almost scored but just missed, or my tip was flat, or just a little off. Granted, he did nail me with a few very nice attacks. A few times I thought I had hit and at least made a double, only to see his single light on, which got a bit frustrating. One of these times I had the ref check my epee but it was fine. A few points later I made a more obvious hit that didn't score and asked for another check. Nothing—the epee was dead. Maybe I had lost some points earlier to a dying epee. Or maybe not. It seemed like a few at least might have been lost. By then the score was 5-13, so it was looking quite bad. And even if some hits of mine had been lost I would probably still have been down a good bit.

So I changed epees and faced a question. My LP epee had failed when I was warming up with Aaron Page. We were about done anyway when suddenly the LP was dead. Recently it has been failing the shim test a lot. I'd twist the contact spring back in enough to pass shims, only to have it failing again after a bit of fencing. So last night I changed the tip to one with a tighter contact spring. At first it was too short and not registering, so I stretched it out a little until it seemed good and was passing shims. However, after warming up with Aaron it was again not registering. Probably the spring got smooshed back. But with pools about to start I didn't want to fiddle with it. Instead I fenced with my cheap-but-stiff Absolute epee. So when that one failed in my DE with Iain I had to pick between my cheap-and-rather-whippy Blue Gauntlet blade or my Vniti. I had decided not long ago the Vniti should be a last resort epee, but when faced with it or the Blue Gauntlet epee I decided on the Vniti.

I plugged in and tested the Vniti and it was also dead! I had tested it before taking it to the ref in case it failed, which would otherwise be a red card. When it did fail I paused, ready to go get my last epee. But the ref saw and came over, suggesting it might be my body cord. We tested the cord on my bell guard and nothing, indicating it probably was the body cord. I was ready to get my spare but the ref did a final check to see if it was the strip cord. When he was doing that he noticed my body cord's connection to the strip cord was "very loose", and we quickly determined that that was the issue. He said "I fix it". He got a little screwdriver and used it to pull the "ribs" of the body cord prongs out a bit—they were quite flat. Then it fit more snuggly and worked fine. Another armory lesson learned. He offered me my first epee back but I said I was fine. The score was 13-5 after all, and I had already been thinking I might try some flicks, since the Vniti is whippy. Maybe that would change things up.

We started fencing again. Right off the bat I tried a flick to Iain's forearm. It worked like a charm, ringing over his bell guard and feeling like a very nice flick. Then as he attacked in a somewhat foil-like way I managed to peg the underside of his hand. That one also felt very nice. A very solid and direct hand hit, with my blade bending quite a lot, feeling like the Vniti it is. So two nice touches there, but still not much hope at 13-7. Iain got the next two and won, 15-7.

So that was it for me. In other DE bouts there were some close ones. In the table of 32 Zach DeWitt lost to Andrew Lee 15-14. Very close, and I think Zach had been up a couple points near the end. John Comes beat Aaron Page 15-14.

In the table of 16 Iain Valentine faced Dmitry Bokhanevich, who had seeded 5th in the pools. I knew I would have extreme trouble with Dmitry and I figured Iain probably would too. They fenced an extremely close bout, tied off and on all the way to 14-14. Iain got the last point with a desperate and somewhat awkward infighting jump with a foil-like prime parry to the chest. Iain scored a few times with those "foil-like" primes. Joel called them "reverse primes" and we debating a bit whether that's the right thing to call them. I argued they were not "reverse", just rather extremely angled. When Joel asked Iain he said, thinking about the final touch, "they are called 'oh god I've got to do something or I'll get hit and it doesn't matter what it is!'" Ah yes, those.

Also in the table of 16 Cameron Brown beat Charlie Muñoz 15-11. It was quite close for a while. Charlie had some very nice attacks. Unfortunately on several of them he had an excellent chance to score but simply missed.

In the final 8 Steffen Felt took out Iain Valentine, 15-13. They are both normally foil fencers but were both fencing very good epee. I took video of that bout, below. In the semis Steffen Felt beat Yuly 15-12, which was impressive. Hans Engel beat Jay Slater 15-10. I left before the final bout. It turned out Hans beat Steffen 15-13.

2014 Seattle International Veteran's Cup, Men's Epee

2014 Seattle International Veteran's Cup, Men's Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24100&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=96733
http://www.salleauriol.com/liveresults/FTEvent4.htm

I did quite well in the pools, taking 2nd place out of the 7 in my pool. Out of 20 fencers I was the 6th seed after the pools, which gave me a bye in the round of 32 and put me against Carlo Malaguzzi in the round of 16. Yes, Carlo, who I had in my DE just last week in the Rain City Open vet epee. Last week I almost beat him. This week it was not as close. He was fencing very well. In fact he came in 3rd overall, earning his C. Thanks to my good pool results I did best of everyone who lost in the round of 16, thus putting me in 9th place overall.

I ended up writing more than I thought I would, and probably with various typos. I should edit this later.

My pool was Travis Exum (A, SAS), Russ Redding (B, SAS), Mark Blom (C, WFA), Aaron Page (D, MTFC), me (E, SAS), Doug Robinson (U, La Salle), and Peter Yan (U, no club listed, but Northern California Division).

I thought in pools clubmates are supposed to fence each other first, but that wasn't done in this pool. My first bout was with Doug Robinson. I had never seen him before but got to watch him in one pool bout before I fenced him, which gave me just enough information to be concerned. I didn't have a plan other than to "fence my game" and do my best to be as active on my feet as I could. After some probing he made an attack and I did a parry-riposte to score. I think it was a fairly straightforward 4 or 6 parry. Then I tried an attack and he scored with a parry-riposte. I decided to hold back a bit and try for ripostes or counterattacks. He fleched from a little too far and I was able to retreat quickly, giving me plenty of time to deal with his blade and get my point on, scoring and making it 2-1. I'm less clear on the next few points, except that I mostly scored with parry-ripostes. It was clear I was doing best when waiting for his attacks, and he obliged me by attacking fairly consistently. He got another point somehow, perhaps a double. I won 5-2. Nice start.

Next I fenced Aaron Page. I'm sure we have fenced before, but it must have been quite a while ago and I can't remember [edit: I just checked Ask Fred and it looks like we haven't fenced before]. I've certainly watched him fence a bunch of times. I was rather worried about fencing him. He's tall and smart and good at things I'm not, like ceding parries. Later he told me he likes doing counter-binds. I had never heard of a counter-bind. He explained and it is similar to what I was doing with Adam Frank last week—someone takes your blade into a bind and you "go with it" and "around again" to end up binding their blade. With Adam it was "parallel" since he is a leftie (he'd try to bind in 8 and I'd go along in 8 "twice" until I was binding him in 8). With same-handed people the counter-bind thing would result in opposite bind types. Also seems similar to envelopment, but more in reaction to an attempt to bind. Or something. I was also worried about fencing Aaron because I've watched him beat people I have a lot of trouble with, like Jeremy Gee, Tobias, and others. Later in this tournament he almost beat Bela Suveg (they went 9-9). So I was worried but ended up winning 5-1, to my surprise.

I didn't have much of a plan with Aaron, other than to be extra careful of his long reach, and to try and avoid getting too close, where his ceding parries seem strongest. I scored the first point, making a straight lunge into his preparation. He had advanced while making some fairly large blade motions, letting me attack straight in. I scored the second point with, if I remember right, a high septime "lift" and "pop". Then he scored one, but I can't quite remember how. Perhaps with a disengaging attack that got me to parry the wrong way. From 2-1 I ended up scoring the rest of the points, to 5-1. Several times I thought he got me with a flick-like attack or counterattack, but his light never went off. Apparently they were just flat or something. One of them seemed more solid and when I saw I had scored and he hadn't I touched my arm where he had hit and made a gesture of "huh, no?" That time he had the ref check his epee, but it was fine. To some degree I was lucky his flicky things didn't score, and said so afterwards. He wasn't having it though and said I was fencing very well. We chatted for a while later on. Sometimes I wish the Tacoma club was closer. I would enjoy practice fencing there, and I imagine it would be a good place to take the kids. The other thing that worked to my advantage in our bout was fast footwork—what a revelation it is to realize how fast footwork is so useful, haha. I avoided several of his picks with quick retreats, as well as his toe touch attempt (although perhaps it was not an all out attempt but a semi-false attack). Anyway, beating him 5-1 was a great surprise and helped get me more into a good fencing headspace and focus.

However. My next bout was with Travis Exum. Well. We fence in practice fairly often, and he nearly always destroys me. Now and then I do okay with him. It's not impossible to imagine beating him to five points, but it wasn't something I thought very likely. So I planned to be very cautious and stick to counterattacks. I figured it I focused on getting double touches by counterattacking his attacks I might get a reasonable number of points, even if I lost. And perhaps, I thought, if things went slowly enough we wouldn't even get to five points. The fewer points the better, I figured, not really aiming to win. Well, despite having this plan I found myself attacking sometimes. His style involves lots of sudden small advances and what might be called body feints. I think several times I thought he was launching a real attack when he wasn't. So I would end up making a real, committed counterattack into what was little more than a feint. He took advantage of these mistakes every time. After it was over he said, about the last point, "you can't attack and defend at the same time, pick one!" I had attacked into his not-actually-an-attack again. When he took advantage I apparently tried to attack more deeply—half-crossing my feet, he said—and tried to parry his counterattack. It failed, needless to say. He won, 5-1. Well at least I got one point, even if it was a double touch.

Travis was 1st seed after the pools and I thought he might win first place, but Mike Perka beat him in the semifinals, so he came in third with Carlo.

My next bout was with Mark Blom. A year or more ago he usually beat me, but the last time we fenced, in the pools of the Battle in Seattle, vet epee, I had beaten him. He's pretty good, certainly. He came in 3rd place in our pool and 10th place overall. But in our pool I beat him 5-0. Like when we fenced at the Battle in Seattle I felt like his footwork was a little slow, while I was doing my best to be as fast as I could. I bounced in and out of his distance, drawing attacks and scoring either with parries, beats/lifts, or simple counterattacks to his arm. He uses a French grip but even so my reach is about as long, if not even a little longer. A couple times I was able to pull my body back as he attacked, so he fell short, yet extend above his blade and hit him on the arm.

At 3-0 I tried a fleche. Mark is left-handed and my notes suggested trying a 8-6 fleche (and also said to "fence him like Charlie", whatever that is supposed to mean). The last several times I've tried fleching lefties with a feint in 8 then lifting straight up into 6 (with no wrist rotation like I usually use when feinting low and fleching high against right-handed people)...well the last few times I've tried that it has failed. I remember it failing with Johannes, Adam Frank, and Matson Lalor. So I've been reluctant to try it. But at 3-0 I thought I'd give it a go. I set it up in terms of timing and distance then launched. It worked nicely.  I think against those other people it has failed because they've done a prime-like parry then bound my blade into 6. To work it needs to draw a parry 8, I think. Mark responded to my feint in 8 with a parry 8, so my lift up into 6 evaded his blade nicely. With the score 4-0 Mark seemed willing to try a fleche of his own, but his timing was a little off and I saw it coming with plenty of time to react. I made a hard beat-parry (thinking about his French grip) and landed the riposte. So I won, 5-0, woo! He was very nice afterward, congratulating me and telling me how well I've been fencing lately. Later we talked more and he again said I've been fencing well. I said something about putting my all into fast footwork and how that seemed to be a key aspect of beating him this time and at the Battle in Seattle. He admitted he does not always move as fast as he could/should. We joked about how easy it is to slip into slower footwork. "It's a tactic!" rationalization, etc.

So I was three and one. Going good. Next up was Russ Redding. Well, he's my coach and all, so knows me very well. He's taught me a good portion of what I know. In practice fencing sometimes I can do pretty well against him, but in tournament he's always beaten me. He knows my fencing quite well, but then again, I know his pretty well too. I know he's technically excellent and has very good blade control. He constantly gets his point aimed right at your wrist. He's quick with accurate parries, and is particularly good with prime parries. He's also quick with ceding parries. His main weakness is his footwork speed. Although his balance and footwork control is excellent he is a bit slow. Also, he can't make deep lunges, probably because he has an artificial knee. Nevertheless he is good at half-lunges and renewed fuller lunges. He's also good at fleching when the opportunity is just right. His fleches are not as fast as some people's, but he is excellent at timing, distance, and bladework. Even when I see his fleche coming he often tricks me with subtle bladework feints and such. When I do well against him in practice it usually involves using speed, beats, and binds (he tends to hold his blade out with a straight arm, inviting beats and binds), and second or even third intention. I know I can't just beat or bind his blade since he's too good at slipping out, ceding, and just getting his point back at my wrist. But sometimes I can anticipate the way he will slip out and use that for a second intention attack. Even then I might need a third intention plan. But that can get complicated and risks getting hit by a straight attack into all my prep. Another tactics I can sometimes use with him is picks to his arm, since he tends to hold it out. But again, simple picks rarely work (although they sometimes do). More likely I need to make some kind of feint and pick from an unexpected angle.

So I went into our bout thinking about all those things. The main danger, I think, is that it's all so complicated. If I try a feint with a second intention in mind and he doesn't react the way I hope he can take advantage, especially if my balance or distance or timing isn't just right. And that's basically what happened. I tried using a lot of fast footwork in and out, feinting and seeking patterns and opportunities, but whenever I mistimed things or misjudged distance he'd attack with some confusing disengages. He was using his French grip, like he has recently. I've found him a lot harder to fence when he's posting. It makes it a lot harder to bind his blade, which is one of my key tactics against him when he's using a pistol grip. Still, I got a couple of nice touches. He got more though. One time he attacked with disengages/feints such that I was totally fooled and ended up making a perfect parry to the wrong side. We got to 3-4, Russ a point up, which wasn't too bad really. I tried to use a tactic Russ taught me, which might not have been the best idea, although in theory it might have worked. It was a "third intention" kind of thing. I repeatedly feinted picks to his inside wrist with what I hoped was just a hint of a circle-six second intention. The idea being that the pick feint draws a direct attack, which is caught in a circle six parry. But I knew that he knew this. And I hoped I gave just the slightest hint of that circle six second intention. Then, when he makes his straight attack he expected my circle six and slips out of it, going a little low. Then my third intention was a prime parry. By the time all the other stuff happened the distance ought to be closer and the prime ought to be able to stop a disengage out of six. Well, I think I set all that up fairly well and he obliged me by eventually making the straight thrust and disengaging out of my circle six. But my prime parry came just too late and he hit me in the chest just as my prime swept his blade aside. Maybe I was just slightly slow, or maybe he could tell what I was planning and pushing the distance just enough to get through. In any case, he won, 5-3.

My final pool bout was with Peter Yan. I had never seen him before but got to watch him fence others in our pool. By the time we fenced I felt fairly confident about it. I figured I ought to be able to counterattack and/or parry-riposte his attacks. That's pretty much what happened. He was quick to attack and I was able to parry-riposte or counterattack without too much trouble. Once I caught him in a circle-six parry. Another time or two he charged with large blade movements and I hit with a simple straight thrust. I won 5-0. He was nice, even saluting me after my touches.

So I came out of the pool with four wins and two losses. Just like last week at the Rain City Open, Senior Epee. That time my pool had a five way tie of fencers with four wins and two losses, and I had come in last of the five due to indicators and touches scored. This time I looked at the sheet a little as I signed it. I saw that Travis was undefeated and took first place but only one other person, Mark Blom, was 4 and 2. And it looked like his indicator would be lower than mine. It was. My indicator was +11 and his was +4, so I came in second in my pool. I don't think I've ever had an indicator as high as +11, except maybe in a U-only tournament.

When the DE tableau was posted I saw I had to fence Carlo Malaguzzi, just like in the DEs of the Rain City Open vet epee last week! He had beaten me last week, by one point. And I had had several changes to win while he came back from behind. I had learned a lot about fencing Carlo in that DE and thought I should have a better chance this time. But it turned out to not be as close, he won 10-5. He was fencing very well and went on to beat Tobias Lee, 10-9, before losing to Bela Suveg, 10-7. That earned him 3rd place and a C rating.

I went into the DE with a plan based on last week. Basically I would keep the distance wide and make sure I was very ready to retreat from his fleches, and sometimes I would take the attack to him before he could start his own. Also I tried to be ready to parry his final attacks rather than his preliminary feints. I got the first point with a nice counterattack to his shoulder. That point gave me some confidence, but things went downhill from there. I tried a few times to attack him, the way I had scored some points last week, but I don't think I managed to score with an attack. I tried one fleche that failed badly. And I tried for his leg twice. Nope. And when he attacked and I tried to either get away or counterattack the result was usually either 1) he bound up my blade, 2) I counterattacked and missed, or 3) we had a double touch. He seemed faster than he was last week. Afterward several people commented on how well he was fencing today. Trip said his timing had improved during the pools and was quite good by the time of our DE.

When Carlo had about 7 or 8 points he fleched with a bind. I instinctively tried to power through but he held my blade. I distinctly remember the feeling of pressure between our blades. It felt like something I *could* power through but when I tried the pressure just increased and kept me trapped. He's strong that way. It would have been better to disengage when I felt that blade pressure. At some point earlier on I got a nice touch with a septime lift and *pop*. I love those. When he was nine points I began thinking of a change in tactics, forgetting the bout was only to ten. I had reminded myself before we started that it was only to ten points, and a couple refs were joking about not forgetting it was a vet event. But I still forgot when the score was 9-5. I was thinking I was down but it was still possible to come back. Going to 15 points a score of 9-5 isn't impossible to recover from. I began an attack with a new tactic—although I forget exactly what tactic now...something aggressive—and he hit me with a counterattack. I returned to on guard ready for more only to see Carlo had his mask off and was saluting. Oops. Right, that was it.

When we shook hands he apologized with real feeling for beating me. I was okay with it though—more okay than I had been the week before. Maybe he felt bad because I had made some comment about getting revenge for last week. He was very nice though, and went on to say some things about how he likes fencing me because it's "clean fencing". He said "don't take that wrong", but I understood and we talked a little about how it can be frustrating to fence people who are less experienced (writing this now I feel weird suggesting I am experienced, but I guess I get a little more experienced as I keep at it).

I added some notes about Carlo to my little notebook. It's not just that he likes to attack, has good fleches, and is strong. He likes to beat and bind the blade, either as preparation or within his fleches. Maybe absence of blade would be worth trying. A couple times in our DE I let my blade fall into absence but I didn't keep it there long, afraid that it would only make it harder for me to counterattack or parry. But I remember a few months ago when I was doing a lot of absence of blade in practice and fenced Carlo at a RCFC open epee evening. I did pretty well with it then. If I find I have trouble with his binds maybe I could avoid them with absence of blade. Like some fencers he seems to really want to take the blade, and makes attempts to do so even when I'm using absence of blade. So perhaps as a tactic absence might shut down some of his preferred options. They say fencing is as much about denying your opponent their preferred actions as it is setting up your own.

Later I talked to Trip Atkins about Carlo a little. Trip had Carlo in his pool and beat him 5-4. He said that Carlo does a lot of blade movements, shifting from six to four, high to low, circling, and so on. Sometimes, Trip said, he exposes his hand when doing these things. Trip got most of his points by picking Carlo's hand when he exposed it like that. That was interesting. I was so focused on Carlo's attacks I hadn't noticed his hand.

Of the rest of the tournament: We had three pools in which two people were undefeated, Travis Exum and Bela Suveg. Travis had an indicator of +22—in six bouts he got hit only eight times (I only got one on him). Bela's indicator was +19. So they were the top two seeds. I was pleased to find I was the 6th seed. I had done well in the pools. A couple people, Bob Noble and Mike Perka, had four wins like me but lower indicators, yet seeded higher—they were both in the pool with only six fencers, so their win percentage was higher than mine. Still, 6th seed out of 20 in an A1 event is quite good for me. For once I had a decent place in the DE tableau. Facing Carlo wouldn't have been my first choice, or maybe it would, after last week. My place in the tableau would have put me against the 3rd seed after Carlo, which was Tobias, then the 2nd seed, Bela. It was Carlo who fenced Tobias, eeking out a 10-9 win, then Bela, losing 10-7.

Aaron Page beat Mark Blom then almost beat Bela Suveg, coming back from a couple points to tie it 9-9, but losing the last point. I got the end of that one on video. In the top half of the tableau Trip lost to Varney, and Varney lost to Travis. Michael Chin beat Peter Yan then had to fence Mike Perka. I saw him before that and gave a couple of suggestions based on my pool bout with Mike in the Battle in Seattle, but I guess it didn't help, Michael lost 10-2. Mike Perka beat Travis in the semis, so the final was Bela Suveg and Mike Perka. It was very close, they went to 9-9.

2014 Rain City Open, Senior Epee

2014 Rain City Open, Senior Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=25705#102855

This was a fun tournament for me. I fenced my best, mostly. Physically I put in all I could with lots of bouncing and fast footwork. Mentally, I felt pretty good about my focus and tactics. It was an A2 event with lots of good fencers. I did much better in the pools than I expected but lost my first DE.

I was going to warm up with Garrett Armstrong, but hooking up I found my LP epee grounding out. I thought I had fixed it the day before! Not having another epee right there and wanting to see if I could quickly fix the LP we unhooked. So I didn't get any fencing warm up, although I did a good amount of stretching, jumping, and so on. Turned out I had fixed the tip of my LP epee and tested it the day before. Then I had remembered the bell guard was on wrong, so I had taken it apart, rotated the guard, and put it back together. I had a little trouble getting the wires through the guard's rather small slot. Apparently I had failed to test the epee after that. Well, later I took it apart again and found one wire had broken right where it went through the guard. I had to rewire.

So I had to use a different epee. Remembering how I wasn't entirely happy with using my Vniti on Friday I used one of my cheaper Absolute epees instead. It worked just fine all through the tournament and felt good. It's stiffness is more like the LP blade, and I felt better about my beats and binds than I had with the Vniti on Friday.

My first pool bout was against Michael Orzechowski, who had come down from Alaska. I had fenced him before at the Battle in Seattle, vets, pools. I'd come close to beating him then, but lost. He had beaten Walter Dragonetti though, which was quite impressive. So I knew something about his style. He's very smart, but slower than me, if I am working hard. So I worked hard, bouncing in and out of distance a lot, probing. I found I could draw parries, sometimes rather big sweeping parries. I scored first, by drawing one of these parries and disengaging out with an inverse-advance lunge. Then he scored to tie 1-1. After a bit more maneuvering I tried something similar and scored. He was smarter about it and counterattacked. It would have been a double touch but his point just missed, sliding along my chest. The next time he did get a double, making it 3-2. Then he got a single, making it 3-3. I've forgotten what he did to get the single. I think I was setting something up and he attacked into my preparation, catching me off guard. The next point, I was bouncing and check-stepping in and out and he went low, for my foot or knee, leaning forward as he did. I instinctively put my point right on his shoulder long before his point got close. So I was up, 4-3. Remembering how I had let Carlo come back from behind on Friday I worked extra hard for that last point. I got it with a leg touch, winning 5-3.

Nice way to start. My confidence was boosted. I was tired from how hard I had worked but determined to continue to work as hard as I could. Pool bouts are short, I can put everything I have into them. I probably would not fence more than two DEs at best, so there was no need to save energy. And no excuse for slacking off.

Michael Orzechowski seems like a wonderful guy. He's very friendly. He told me I was fencing very well a few times over the day. Later I learned he had a bit of a knee injury and was not fencing his best. He talked to Russ about knee replacements near the end of the tournament. Apparently Michael is a sports doctor and does things like knee replacements. He made a point of warning Russ to be careful with his artificial knee—saying that "we" have gotten good at doing multiple hip replacements but still suck at multiple knee replacements. One knee replacement is usually pretty good, but it won't last forever and a second replacement will be much much worse.

Michael had brought a younger kid down from Alaska with him, and kept saying "if we had my brains and your body" they'd be so much better at fencing. I thought that came off a little wrong, suggesting the kid wasn't smart, but I understood what he meant. Michael is a much more experienced fencer and is really smart about it, but he's older and his body just can't do what he wants it do. When asking Russ about the Seattle International Veteran's Cup event next weekend—I guess he's down here for the week—he was disappointed there wouldn't be age groups, but was pleased that there are awards for the best fencer within each age group. His reaction was something like, "so much for earning a rating" (he's a C now), but he could win best of age—I think he said he's in his 50s, but perhaps he's over 60. Either way he'll still have some tough fencers to beat. No Dragonetti this time, but William Walker is in his 60s I think, and Russ might be. Then there's Johannes.

My next pool bout was against Jeff Goon, Audun's father. I think Jeff took up fencing after Audun started so hasn't been doing it very long. He was my pool's U fencer. I'm not sure if I had fenced him before. I won rather easily, mostly by baiting attacks then parry-riposting. Or just by getting the distance right and attacking straight in. I got up 3-0 before he scored. I had baited another attack but when I went to parry his blade wasn't there—he had disengaged or come in another line. I managed to counterattack as he hit, but I missed. That was a nice one for him. Next we both made a long lunge at the same time, bell guards clashing. His blade was a little outside mine. I didn't parry but the angle of our blades meant his got deflected slightly to the outside and he ended up missing, but I hit. For the final point I kept up my bouncing footwork, waiting for Jeff to have his weight on his back foot. Then I made a long lunge into distance, catching him flat footed and scoring. So I won, 5-1. I realize writing this up I still have never really talked to Jeff Goon. I should. I've talked to Audun's mother, Tanya Holland (Audun is Audun Holland-Goon), and to Audun. Hmm.

This was a very nice start to the tournament. But next I had to fence Zach Shaw. I'm not sure if I've fenced Zach before, but I've watched him beat people who can beat me. He's "only" a D, but a good D. He'll probably be a C before long. He's young, a teenager, and nice. I didn't have much of a plan. Both his footwork and bladework seemed good. I couldn't see any particular weakness. So I tried to just "fence my game". He nailed me with fleches again and again, winning 5-0. I'd try to parry his fleches, but he used little feints at the start of his fleches that tricked me into the wrong parry, again and again. Some of his fleches hit me on the arm. I started to open the distance and just try to get away. I think that worked a little, but still he caught me whenever distance closed a little. At 4-0 I was still trying my best, knowing every point counts in the pools. At one point it seemed like he was holding his arm a little low and I might be able to hit it from above (I'm a little taller than him too). I tried to set it up with a quick feint in another line, then made a lunge to the top of his arm. But he rather easily picked *my* arm from below before I could reach his. I think he had been holding his arm a little low as a trap, hoping for exactly the kind of thing I did. So he won 5-0.

Zach came in 2nd in our pool. I'm still not sure what I could have done differently, other than be more prepared for fleches. Maybe prime or septime parries. More care about getting hit in the arm. Audun beat him 5-3, maybe I can ask Audun sometime about him. They are both RCFC fencers, so perhaps they know each other's styles and weaknesses better. In the DEs Zach was the 10th seed. He beat Johannes, also a RCFC guy, then lost to Denys Kovtunenko, a Canadian I don't know.

My next bout was against Matthew Comes, who...yea. I've fenced him lots of times now and have never won. And he just gets better and better. When I began fencing again two years ago Matthew was a D. Now he's a B and probably soon will be an A. He's only 15 years old or so. I can't imagine where he'll be in a few more years, if he keeps it up. His dad takes him to all the NACs and such. I can picture them going to World Cups someday. Anyway, I know Matthew's style better than Zach's. I knew he is very good at fleches and toe touches, and an excellent infighter. My plan, if it can be called a plan, was to stay far away. I knew I had to keep the distance extra wide or he'd get me with his long attacks. I also knew there was little hope in fleching him and it was suicide to end up infighting with him. So I kept far away. It wasn't much of a plan because I didn't know how I would score, other than wait and hope.

I don't remember the exact points of my bout with Matthew. He won 5-3, which isn't as bad as I usually do against him. He's beaten me 5-0 or 5-1 before, more than once. He didn't get any toe touches on me, nor any infighting touches. He did catch me flat-footed, with fleches, a couple times. But keeping the distance extra long seemed to work better than anything else I've ever tried with him. Also, I was able to see his baiting tactics and not fall for them like I might in the past. I watched him in other bouts over the day and saw how he often relaxes and retreats calmly, or even steps back as if he's "stopped fencing". Once, in a DE bout, it even looked like he "stopped" and made a kind of salute-like motion. I think these are all attempts to bait attacks. Or at least they are tempo changes. He seems to change his tempo quite a lot in other ways too. I've been trying similar things in practice after this tournament. I'm finding it feels good to relax and take some slow steps back, especially if I've been tensely focused. It can help me "reset", and sometimes it seems like it might throw my opponent off. Even with someone like Varney, who won't fall for the "bait", it feels like it can interrupt whatever he might have been planning.

Anyway, all that to say I didn't fall for Matthew's tempo changes. Whenever he relaxed I prepared for a possible "surprise attack" from him. By keeping the distance wide I ended up near my end of the strip a few times. I used to hate that, but I'm getting better about it. And I think I scored some of my points when I was in my strip end box. Maybe Matthew got a little more eager to attack when I was in the box, which is a key point about being in the box, right?

After Matthew I was 2 and 2. I wasn't happy about my 5-0 loss to Zach, but okay with my 5-3 loss to Matthew. With my 5-3 and 5-1 wins I still felt I was doing pretty good. But I knew I had to fence Adam Frank next, the A fencer of our pool.

I had seen Adam Frank fence a number of times, and fenced him in at least one pool bout. I watched him win first place in the 2013 Leon Auriol Open. I was in his pool then, and, huh, checking now I see he beat me 5-4, which is much closer than I expected. Still, he won all the pools bouts. Tobias and Russ both got 4 points against him too. In the DEs of that tournament  he beat Zach Shaw, Stephen Wilson, William Wang, and Sam Kaardal. In short, having seen him win the Leon Auriol Open I feared him. He's a young leftie. My notes about him said only "NWFC, A2013, leftie, good flicks, extremely good". Lot of help that was! Jeff Lucas was in the pool next to mine and at some point I told him how I had to fence Adam Frank and was worried about it, and even showed him my non-helpful notes. For some reason I can't remember now, Jeff "requested" that I beat Adam. It was something silly, like because Jeff had lost to Jay, the A fencer of his pool, he said I had to beat Adam. I jokingly said "well, okay fine, I'll beat him for you".

As it turned out, I did beat Adam, to my surprise. I clearly remember after we shook hands at the end I turned and started back toward my end of the strip and saw a group of people who had been watching—mainly the people in my pool. I was amazed I had won and probably had a silly expression on my face. When I saw them watching I opened my eyes wide and mouthed "wow". They were all smiling and I found myself surrounded by congratulations. It felt awesome. People congratulated me on it several times later too. John Comes thanked me for beating him—I guess he doesn't like Adam very much for some reason. I've never really talked to Adam and don't know anything about him personally. He seemed rather crushed when he shook hands though. He still took first place in our pool though. In the DEs he beat Luke LaRocque, then lost to Farooq Habib 5-0. Yes, 5-0 in a DE bout to 15. I got that one on video. Passivity was called three times. They went into overtime with the score still 0-0.

Anyway, my pool bout with Adam Frank. A bit before, when Adam was fencing someone else, Russ came by and I asked if he had any advice. He said he didn't know Adam, but after watching for a minute said something about his parry 8 and how I should parry 8 with him, but I'd have to "do it twice" to get through. So, that wasn't much of a plan but it was something. I spent most of the bout trying to nag at Adam's hand, finding I could draw his parry 8 to some degree. Russ's advice is usually good and I was in fact able to score a few times by circling 8 with his 8, followed by a second parry 8, catching his blade and moving into a higher line. Adam is a leftie so our parry 8s circled together. I think I was up 3-2 when he made an excellent and very hard hit to my leg. Days later as I type this I still have quite a welt about two inches above my knee from that hit. That tied it 3-3. Then, somehow, we got a double, 4-4. The final point was a surprise. We took our time maneuvering. He kept retreating toward his end of the strip. Eventually one of us attacked and the other counterattacked, or something simultaneous happened, I can't remember exactly how it started. Our guards clashed. I heard a beep and the ref say halt. Since we were at his end of the strip the score machine was way behind me and I couldn't see it. But at RCFC they have red and green lights at each strip end and I saw the green light go off. No red light. In that instant I did not remember which color I was and thought he was green, thus he had scored and won. I turned and headed back for my on guard line to salute and only then saw the score machine showing I had won, 5-4. I was green!

That win was the high point of the day for me. Having everyone congratulate me felt very good. And I was able to go to Jeff Lucas and say "well you said I had to", all nonchalantly.

My final pool bout was against Audun Holland-Goon. Audun is very young and still rather small. I think he started fencing around the time I began again, two years ago. We've fenced a few times. At first I think I could beat him fairly easily, but recently it's become more difficult and he's beaten me. In a U tournament in Tacoma last year I had him in a DE and made the mistake of assuming I would win. I lost. Now, facing him in this pool, I knew his style better. He's patient and careful, and tends to wait for chances to parry and riposte, which he's pretty good at. Sometimes he tries for toe touches. It's hard to attack or feint to his low lines because I'm quite a bit taller. Watching him in our pool I noticed his footwork tended to fall into certain repeating patterns. So my plan was to continue the bouncing fast footwork I had been doing, feinting in and out a lot but mostly being patient and waiting for openings or second intentions. I think I was able to see patterns in his footwork and take advantage of them. On the other hand he got me with picks to the arm a couple times.

Audun, being cautious, kept retreating, and we fenced mostly near his end of the strip. I was also cautious but felt it was to my advantage to be at his end of the strip. There I could wait for him to get nervous and try an attack or perhaps more easily fall for a feint. I kept waiting for him to make a mistake, but he didn't give me many. Once, to break things up, I fleched. I thought he parried and nothing happened, but apparently I had just hit. Another time I was making overly large blade movements and he pegged my hand. He managed to get to four points first, 3-4, which made me worry. Somehow I got a single, making it 4-4. In the final point we ended up infighting. I made a low feint then a high attack, closing distance a lot. He parried and our blades got bound up high, our bodies close. I managed to pull out and riposte, or remise, in prime to his hip. It worked and I won, 5-4.

I felt happy about that win too, especially for having been down a couple points. Audun seemed fine with it and smiled when we shook hands, saying "good bout".

So I came out of the pool with four wins and two losses, which was way better than I had expected. I knew no one in our pool was undefeated, so I figured I must have come in better than average. I was wrong!

I learned something about seeding after pools. If there's a tie in terms of percentage of wins and indicator, it is broken by the number of touches scored. I was in a three way tie like this. Matthew Comes, Steven Benack, and I all won 4 out of 6 bouts and had an indicator of +1. I had scored 23 touches and received 22. Matthew Comes scored 24 touches and received 23. Steven Benack scored 25 touches and received 24. Therefore of us three Steven got the highest seed (14) and I got the lowest (16). I'm not sure I see the logic. All three of us lost one bout 3-5. I had the worst loss, 0-5, while Matthew lost one 1-5, and Steven 2-5. So I did worst in that regard, and Steven did best. However I won one of my bouts 5-1, while the best Matthew or Steven did was 5-3. So I did best in that regard. Both Steven and I had two close wins, 5-4, while Matthew only had one 5-4 win. The rest of his wins were 5-3. So Matthew did best in that regard. Anyway, as 16th seed I fenced Matson Lalor, 17th seed. Had I been 15th seed I would have fenced John Comes, who I probably would have had an easier time with. Instead John Comes had to fence his son Matthew.

Seeding after the pools, tie resolved by touches scored.

After the pool was over I was quite pleased with my 4 and 2 results. I knew no one in the pool was undefeated but was surprised when Zach Shaw said we had a "five way tie" for first place. Out of the seven fencers in my pool five had won 4 and lost 2. Zach had lost to Audun and Matthew Comes. Audun had lost to Adam Frank and me. Adam had lost to Zach and me. Matthew had lost to Audun and Adam. And I had lost to Zach and Matthew. So it went to indicators. Adam's was +13, Zach's +8, and Audun's +3. So they came in first to third. Matthew and I had indicators of +1, but he had scored one touch more than I had (and received one more), so he got 4th place and I got 5th. Weird how these things work out sometimes. Makes it even clearer how every point counts in the pools.

My DE was against Matson Lalor, a leftie Canadian kid I had heard of but never fenced or even watched. Hans had been in his pool and I asked him for advice, but all he could say was that Matson had good bladework and footwork. That wasn't very helpful, although his warning about Matson's excellent parries at least kept me cautious. In our bout Matson took an early lead. He was able to hit my arm quite a lot. I tried the various leftie tactics I know and they all failed. Eventually I had some success using septime parries/takes, which isn't something I usually consider a leftie tactic, except perhaps in the form of a 7-6 bind. I also got a point with a prime-like riposte, which I thought of as "Bela approved". As an aside: I learned this tournament that Bela Suveg is quite friendly and nice off the strip. I had only seen him fencing before and thought he seemed rather arrogant, maybe even a jerk. Jeff Lucas, who had apparently chatted with him before, told me Bela was a great guy. He was in Jeff's pool next to mine, and Jeff introduced us—Bela said we already knew each other, although we had never talked before as far as I remember. He was very nice "off strip". He even complimented me on my fencing after a couple bouts, especially on my prime-like ripostes. That's why I felt like my prime riposte against Lalor would be "Bela approved".

In any case, my few points against Lalor were too little too late, and he won 15-5. Afterward Russ talked to me about it. He said I wasn't closing my outside line as well as I should have, especially with a leftie like Lalor. He also said I was going in with a bent arm too much, and Lalor was attacking straight in. I said I had been trying to draw attacks a lot, feinting, thus the bent arm. Russ said if I was going to do that then I needed to "get out faster". Yep.

I felt bad after losing to Lalor by so much. But before long I got over it and enjoyed the rest of the tournament. I took a bunch of videos but haven't gotten them all online yet. I'll add them here as I do.

I'd also like to say more about the rest of the tournament, especially watching some bouts, like Matthew Comes, Farooq Habib, and especially Sam Larsen, who came in first. Perhaps I'll add more later when I have more time.








The overtime period of Matthew Comes and Dnys Kovtenenko's bout. Matthew came back from behind to tie it up at 8-8 as time ran out. Matthew got priority yet got the winning point with a behind-the-back move with seconds left. Afterward Johannes kept saying "that was so dangerous!"-->




The final bout. Sam Larsen was in excellent form:



Bela Suveg and Yuly Suvorov, from a non-ideal angle: