Battle in Seattle 2016, Senior Epee
As expected, I got fairly stomped on. But on the bright side I had a good pool bout with Matson Lalor, despite losing, and a good DE bout, also despite losing. But mostly I got stomped. Kinda embarrassing, but oh well:
http://www.fencingtime.com/LiveResults/Battle2016/FTEvent110264323.htm
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=30762&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=121248
While writing about the Battle in Seattle vet epee I looked back and discovered I had had a downward trend over the four years I've done it, until this year. The senior epee Battle in Seattle event is much harder and I usually don't do very well. But do I have a downward trend there too? Let's see...84th out of 112 (2014), 72nd out of 89 (2015), and 82nd out of 91 (2016). Yep. Damn. ...well, actually, last year was very similar to this year (basically getting stomped on, winning just one pool bout), while the year before was the time I won one pool bout, eeked out another, and came close in two more. And oh yea, that was also the year my DE was with John Varney, which I lost of course. I ended up in a slightly higher spot thanks to the better pool.
POOLS
I did poorly, so let's see if I can keep this write-up short.
My first pool bout was with Patric Wallace, who I had never seen before. He was friendly. We chatted a little during the pool. Apparently he is from New Jersey. I didn't check anyone's rating until just now. Patric is an A13. He killed me 5-1. He was strong and used lots of beats. My one point was when he fleched and I smacked his blade in 8 and riposted to the body as he passed.
Second bout was with Matson Lalor, a Canadian from Dynamo I had seen a few times before. I don't think we had fenced before, but maybe. I thought he was an A, but looking now I see he is a B15. Anyway, this was the one pool bout I felt pretty good about. Mostly because I got two toe touches. I rarely even try for them in tournaments. Now and then I've gotten one. I don't think I had ever gotten two in a single pool bout.
He kept pushing me back. I would retreat, but tried to keep up some in-and-out footwork. Early in the bout I noticed his foot seeming rather close. In the midst of other things I went for it and to my own surprise, hit. After that we got to 2-2 somehow. Then he fleched. I parried but could not riposte before he passed. He managed a remise as he passed and scored. The ref took a moment to consider whether he had passed before hitting, but he hadn't. It was a good hit. Then he was pushing me again and I pulled off another toe touch, making it 3-3. The first one had felt nice, but the second one felt even better. Something about getting those. I was hoping they might demoralize him a bit. Maybe they did. He seemed a little more cautious. But maybe they also made me overconfident or something. I made an impatient attack at a bad time and got hit. Then, down 4-3, while we were energetically fencing I tried to pull off another toe touch, but it wasn't close and I got hit.
So I lost 5-3. As I unhooked Patric said "two toe touches, yes, but three? yea, no." He went on to say my toe touches were very nice and well hidden. It was nice to hear. I felt good about the bout.
My next bout was with Dillon Grewell. I had seen him before, and maybe we had fenced before, but I couldn't remember details. I thought I'd have a decent chance. I thought he was probably a C, and looking now I see he is. Watching him, and chatting with Patric, I got the idea that he tended to telegraph his fleches. But when we fenced I fell into a weird mindset where I was either too passively spacey or too impulsively reckless. He killed me 5-0. Ouch.
Then I had Glenn Biasi. I think he had come mainly for vet foil, but was doing epee as well "just because". He did poorly overall. I didn't think about any of that going in. I was annoyed with my spacey mindset with Dillon and eager to refocus and re-energize. So I fenced hard and high-energy. I won 5-1. Afterward Patric, who had been watching, said I didn't have to work so hard to beat him. I said I was trying to get my mind, and body, back in the groove, which he seemed to find reasonable.
Next bout was with Henry Lange, the tall leftie who won the whole tournament. I had fenced him once or twice before and always had a hard time. And he's only gotten better. I had something of a plan, but it didn't work at all. Another 5-0 loss, ugh. Twice he got me with a long lunge into my feint check-steps. Twice with lovely fleches. And once while I was trying to worry his hand while keeping distance. Sigh.
My final bout was with Zach Shaw, a kid who I've fenced a few times and feel like I should be able to handle, but somehow never do.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
With a pool like that I thought I would get an impossible DE, but it turned out better than I feared. I still lost, but it was a good, fun, fairly close bout. It was with Michael Desimone, a guy I had never met, which is one of best things about these large events: fencing people I don't know at all. Especially in the DEs, where you have time to scope them out, do early "reconnaissance", try to figure out tactics and apply them, adjust to changing tactics and new information, and so on. I felt like this DE bout had all that.
By the end of the first period I was down 3-5, but felt like I had learned a lot. Where the proper distance was, recognizing some of his invitation/traps and getting ideas about how to take advantage of them. He kept doing an invitation, opening his outside forearm. I got one hit there early on, but also made some overly deep attacks that failed. During the break Russ emphasized shallow attacks and said something about using a double disengage if I wanted to defeat that arm invitation.
Over the next two periods we both got some nice touches, we both made some mistakes, and the score remained close. I never quite managed to tie it up, but was never more than two points down. I tried to make that double disengage idea work, but never could. Mostly I tried to stay very shallow and keep the distance rather wide. He mostly did the same. Once or twice he fleched and I parried and just missed my riposte. Once he got a nice knee touch on me. Another time I was showing a hand invitation and he hit my hand. Got too close.
At 12-10 I got a touch that felt quite nice—a bit of subtle distance work and broken time, creating an opening. Then, at 12-11 he fleched and almost caught me unready, but I eeked out a double. That made it 13-12. I felt like the next point was particularly important. I could tie it up. But if he got a point, even a double, he'd be at 14. I was doing my best to work the distance, throwing out lots of little feints/shallow target probes, and showing little invitations. He was doing much the same. At some point I made a little invitation just as he made a little feint and pop, he hit my hand. It seemed almost accidental, maybe lucky, but damn, 14-12. He fleched for a double to win.
Afterward we talked a bit. We both thought it was a good, fun bout. We had both been thinking similarly in terms of tactics. I think we both had had a good time seeing what the other did and trying to figure things out. We had never met before. It was a good example of a problem-solving DE. I think we both thought it could have gone either way. We both had several semi-lucky hits and several almost-hit misses.
I watched Michael's next DE, against Zhice (David) Que, who had seeded quite a bit higher (Michael was 48th, Que was 17th). I thought maybe I would see how a better fencer might deal with some of Michael's stuff—maybe I'd see things I could have or should have done. I watched as this "better" fencer kept getting way too close, it seemed to me, and getting hit. And he kept doing it, apparently not figuring out the right distance. The bout wasn't even close (15-5). Michael and I chatted a bit after that. I said that other guy kept getting too close, and he was like I know, wtf?! I watched his next DE, which he also won, against Bela Suveg, who had seeded closer to Michael (49th), but is tough—I've never come close to beating him anyway. Then Michael faced Kaiden Crotchett, who was the top seed, and lost 15-4. Anyway, I had already felt pretty good about my DE. Seeing Michael go on to do as well as he did made me feel even better, despite having lost.
As always with these kind of events, I enjoyed watching the rest of the DEs, checking out all these amazing fencers, trying to learn stuff. The most exciting bout I saw was Svetoslav Dimitrov and Jason Lipton. Lipton got a nice lead and seemed to figure out how to deal with Dimitrov's nice fleches. But Dimitrov, who I think is like 14 and has only been fencing a couple years or so, did really well adjusting his tactics and timing, hitting again and again with such fast fleches. He clawed his way back to tie 14-14. He lost the last point, but even so he did well enough to come in 8th and jump from a D to an A rating. Before facing Lipton he beat Kyle Yamasaki, impressive. That one was also very close, 15-14.
In the end it came down to an unsurprising few, such as Kaiden, Sam Larsen, Henry Lange. In the final 8 Sam and Kaiden had a very close bout. Kaiden had the lead for most of it, but Sam came back in the end to win 15-14. Then Sam took out Jason Lipton 15-3. That made the final Sam and Henry Lange, which was another very close bout. It went to 14-14. Lange won.
PS, it looks like Lipton uploaded videos of his bout with Dimitrov:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noeYxmYZNZg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMAzVCMYME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ljU_VOgJE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM0RoqQjcIA
Friday, February 19, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Battle in Seattle 2016, Vet Epee
Battle in Seattle 2016, Vet Epee
http://www.fencingtime.com/LiveResults/Battle2016/FTEvent110264329.htm
https://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=121254&highlight_competitor_id=91067
The Battle in Seattle! One of the biggest tournaments in the Pacific Northwest. I always look forward to it. People come from far and wide. It is a Div-1A ROC, which means, well I'm still not quite sure what it means—something like, if you do well you earn points that effect your competitive ranking and qualify you for various national events. I don't know exactly how it all works, since I am not good enough for it to matter. But many people are, so tournaments like this tend to attract good fencers from all over the western US and Canada. The points and qualification stuff matter less for the vet events (for people over 40) than for the senior (over 14). Just showing up at a vet ROC qualifies you for summer national vet events.
A few years ago, after I had only started fencing again about six months earlier, I went to the Battle in Seattle vet epee event but skipped the big senior event because it looked scary—but I went to watch, then wished I was in it. Since then I've done both vet and senior epee every year.
That first time I did surprisingly okay. Looking back I see I went four and two in the pools, beating Maria Copelan, William Walker, and Jim Henderson (all of whom I've lost to in later tournaments). How weird, especially given how raw a fencer I was back then. In that first year DEs I beat John Comes before losing to Erich Cranor. I came in 17th out of 33. Huh. Not bad at all. Maybe that was what gave me my love of this tournament.
Let's see how I've done since then <sound of looking stuff up>. The next year, 2014, I did worse in vet epee, coming in 21st out of 35. I did alright in the pools (3 and 2), beating Mike Perka and Mark Blom, surprisingly. But my DE was with James Neale and I lost badly. Then, last year I did even worse, 25th out of 30, losing every pool bout but one and losing my DE to William Walker.
So I've had a downward kind of progress in the Battle in Seattle vet epee. I hadn't realized that until just now. Well, this year I turned it around. I didn't do great, but well enough. I ended up 14th out of 28, the exact halfway spot. That's slightly better than my first year, where I ended up slightly below the halfway spot. My pool result wasn't quite as good this year, but in my defense it was a harder pool.
Overall, well, something I look at is how well I do compared to my initial seed. In this case I ended up 14th and my post-pool seed was 15th. My initial seed? It was 13th. But I was seeded highest of the four C15 fencers. I think the seeding is random within fencers of the same rating and year. So my initial seed could have ranged between 13th and 16th. But whatever, my final result and seeds were more or less the same: right around the middle of the pack. I'm okay with that! The Battle in Seattle attracts a lot of great fencers.
POOLS
My pool had two good A-fencers I doubted I could beat (Ameli and Perka), two guys I "should" be able to beat (Lucas and Robinson), one guy who is tough and maaaybe I could handle (Moore), and another guy I didn't know at all (Goossens).
My first bout was with Sean Ameli. Might as well get the hardest one over with, eh? Maybe Mike Perka is better on average, maybe not, I don't know. Perka did just slightly better in the pools this time (tied victories and indicator, one more touch scored), getting 2nd seed to Ameli's 3rd. But I figured Ameli would be harder for me. I've fenced Perka more, even won a pool bout once, and had ideas about how to fence him. I've only fenced Ameli once, I think, several years ago when I had only recently started fencing again. All I knew was that he beat me badly that one time and I barely understood what had happened. I remembered that he's left-handed, and that had been hard for me back then, and that I felt like a noob, heh. It may have been my first serious experience with lefties. I got hit on the outside line a lot.
This time I felt a lot more comfortable. Less of a noob! Still, he got the first two points, then quickly got up four to my one. I'm better than I used to be, but still have a long way to go. I hardly remember the points, they went by so fast. I think he got me nicely on the leg with an accelerating lunge. Another time I attempted a flick to the inside wrist but apparently mismanaged distance and got hit on the arm.
I had been trying to play it safe, but at 4-1 I changed to riskier tactics. Playing it safe sure wasn't working. I held my blade up in a semi-absent position, making an obvious invitation to the lower arm. I even stuck my arm out a bit, trying to tempt him. He clearly saw this as a blatant invitation and made a few feints into it, perhaps to see how I would react, what my plan was. Or perhaps to hit, as I was being rather risky sticking out a target like that. I let one of his feints come awfully close, trying to dare him to really try. I think I instinctively pulled my whole arm back a bit. After a little bit he made a more committed attack to my arm and I did what I had planned: retreated a step, straightening and raising my arm while angling the blade down a little. It worked perfectly, my tip landing on his arm near the elbow, while his tip went below my arm.
That felt very nice. It was something I had in my mind from watching videos of Max Heinzer earlier in the day. Watching Heinzer do this thing was odd, because it looked so obvious, yet he was getting people to walk into it. That's kind of how I felt here. It felt too obvious to actually work, but it did.
That made is 4-2, still not very good. Next I tried another thing I've gotten watching Heinzer. Not that I think I'm doing what he does by any stretch—more like stuff I've been inspired to try after watching the way he fences, and developed into something of my own. In fact, I think I've developed a small set of inter-related tactics inspired by both Heinzer and Dragonetti. Maybe I could call it my Heinzeretti tactics? I don't know. Anyway, this next one involved holding the blade level but angled maybe 45 degrees to the inside. I'm still working on this and figuring out how and why it works when it does. There are a number of things that can happen. If nothing else the blade position is another semi-absent type of thing, and sets up several invitations. I've found that some people are tempted to attack into my high outside line, and that it is easy for me to move into a strong six parry. I've also played with holding my blade out rather far in this position, then slowly bringing it in, combined with footwork and other blade movements, with the goal of stealing distance. In any case, I haven't tried it much with lefties and thought it might not work very well. But I tried it anyway. We maneuvered about a bit and I at least tried to do the stealing distance bit. I think he probed my high outside line and I responded with motions toward a six parry. Eventually he did attack high and outside, with more speed and more angulation, perhaps thinking he could angle around my six. That is a common leftie thing, isn't it? Being able to get around a "normal" six? But I saw his attack coming and instead of going to six I counterattacked low and inside. In doing this I dropped my body down and inside a bit. As a result his blade went just over my head and I hit his body.
After that 4-1 start those last two points both felt very nice. I had made it 4-3, a much nicer place to be. But I still needed two singles and was running out of ideas. Going back to the line I thought if I was in his place I might just try to double out, get it over with. Perhaps I could do something to encourage an attempt to double, then deal with it? I decided to make a fake charge right off the line. I'd act like the last two points had given me some kind of momentum and I was going to do some kind of fast advance-advance-fleche or something. But I'd break off suddenly and if he attacked into it I would retreat and counterattack. So that's what I did. At the call "fence" I came forward quickly and, hopefully, aggressively, then stopped abruptly, ready to counter and retreat. But I botched it. I had advanced a little too far and perhaps a little awkwardly, and he had advanced too. So when I stopped he easily hit me before I could retreat or counterattack. Whoops. Still, a 5-3 loss was better than 5-1, especially against the guy I thought I'd have the most trouble with.
My next bout was with Michael Moore. I like him. He's fun to fence. Lots of energy! I fenced him once before, in a DE at last year's Columbia Cup in Portland, vet epee. I mentioned it to him, chatting, but he didn't remember that specific bout. I had also watched him at another tournament or two. In particular I remember watching George Raush beat him in a DE, but only by putting everything he had into it, leaving George "out of gas" for his next DE. I mentioned that to Michael too and he said something about how he likes to fence hard, such that even if he loses his opponent will have paid a price for it.
So we fenced, and it was a great bout. I think we have somewhat similar styles. Strong blade actions, for example. Not someone you want to try to power through. We both fenced quite patiently though, which surprised me a little. I thought he would attack more, but we both worked hard to get the other person to attack. And we both seemed to want to use strong bladework counterattacks. So the bout was a fun, very active game of distance and feints. A game of seeing how close you could get, trying to draw an attack, without getting too close.
He got the first point, basically because I was less patient and attacked from too far. Then I began to see how it should go and tried to work the distance right, taking plenty of time. I don't remember who started the next attack, but it wound up a double, making it 2-1. Then he tried an attack right off the line, perhaps because we had just spend a good bit of time setting up patterns of baiting and waiting. He almost got me by surprise. I managed to get my point out and make it a double, 3-2. Then we had another lengthy distance and feinting game, which finally ended up in a bunch of action and...another double? No, I had a single light! Tied 3-3. He had the ref check his weapon, which seemed like a good idea. I had no idea if he had hit me or not. Maybe he had. His weapon checked out. Perhaps he had hit flat.
Then we had another long but high energy distance game, finally resulting in a double, making it 4-4. Exciting! We started up another distance game, but I stupidly got impatient and attacked at a non-ideal time. He got a single and won, 5-4. Why did I attack impatiently? I don't know. Maybe the excitement got to me?
Next I had my friend Jeff Lucas. If I remember right I got up 2-1, then he got a simple pick under my forearm. He put his tip out and I stuck my arm onto it. I felt like it was at least half my fault for sticking my arm out, but later he said he has been working on picking under the guard like that. Then we maneuvered around a bit and I got a touch on his outside arm. I don't remember the details. I think he had let his guard drift a little to the center, opening his outside line just enough for me to pick it off. Then, he got the next point, making a 3-3 tie. I forget what happened. My notes for that point just say "oops, uh oh". Whatever happened I thought I could do better. I tried to up my game, be more careful and tricky, more dynamic.
I got the next point with a "Heinzeretti" type thing—I think it was the "blade to the inside and steal distance" thing. On the last point, he kept making feints and probes, putting his blade out, but from a reasonably safe distance. Somehow I got into my head the notion of closing distance quickly and "taking" his blade in prime. It is something Russ has shown me a few times but I have not practiced much recently. I tried it, advancing fast and moving my blade into prime, with the idea of pushing his blade away as I closed. But he retreated and pulled his blade back faster than I advanced, so my prime "take" missed his blade. By that point I was committed to some kind of attack, so I just made a weird, very pronated fleche out of prime. He tried to retreat and do something about my blade, but I managed to hit. So I won 5-3. Right after that last point he said, incredulously, "what was that??" I said something like "I'm not quite sure, it wasn't supposed to go like that!"
My next bout was with Bruno Goossens. I had never met him or seen him fence before. I lost 5-2 and ended up somewhat confused about what had happened. He had a style that looked like just the kind of thing I like and could do well against—French grip, holds the blade out a lot, that kind of thing. But he was tricksy and smart, and amazingly controlled and accurate.
I think he got the first point, then I got one. Then I tried a fast attack off the line, maybe because he had a calm demeanor and seemed surprisable. He wasn't. Now down 2-1 I took a more cautious approach and tried to find a way to deal with his French grip and extended arm tactics. I tried some kind of beat attack. It worked, but he got his point back on very quickly. We doubled, 3-2. So I tried being more cautious. He was patient and let me edge in. I made various feints and beats while slowly advancing, looking for openings, trying to figure him out. At some point, while my mind was occupied with his blade and how to get it out of the way he went for a toe touch and got it easily. It was nicely done. I was overly concerned with his blade and focused on beating and feinting combined with advancing. He waited for the perfect moment when my weight was on my front foot. I had an instant of time in which I saw the attack coming but was unable to do anything about it. He timed it just right. Next, if I remember right, he made an attack off the line and I wasn't quite ready for that. He scored and won, 5-2.
I watched him fence a bit after our bout, and chatted to a couple other people about him. I was not able to "figure him out", but got the idea that he had a "French style". I think he is French. At least his jacket said FRA on it, although he lives in Oregon and is a B13 in the USFA. He came in 8th overall, winning two DEs, including one against Joel Howard. In my pool he did well, beating everyone except Sean Ameli and Mike Perka.
My next bout was with Doug Robinson, down from Canada. We've fenced a few times and although I couldn't remember the details I felt fairly confident. But I started off a bit awkwardly and he got up 2-1. Then he attacked into my six line with a disengage to the inside. Instinctively I went into prime and scored. That felt nice. After that we doubled, making it 3-3. At that point I started using "Heinzeretti" tactics more. I had been trying to use them less, but when things got close I tended to fall back to them, and they worked pretty well for me, late bout. Maybe, for pool bouts, a slight change of tactics toward the end, to something I am comfortable with, is useful.
So I was doing a slightly blade-up thing, showing a bit of arm invitation. He made an extension, probably just a feint. I did a double beat advance fleche and scored, which felt good. After a meh start things were feeling better. Confident again I tried to use better footwork, bouncing in and out, looking for openings or trying to draw attacks. Eventually he attacked and I was able to bounce back and counterattack, getting a single light. So I won 5-3, yay.
At this point in the pools I was 2 and 3. My last bout was with Mike Perka, an A-rated fencer who often wins or places high in vet events. I had almost beaten him a couple years ago, in the pools of an earlier Battle in Seattle vet epee event. I remembered thinking he seemed a bit slow, at least footwork-wise. Also, someone in that pool had suggested I attack "straight up his arm" when he does "blade wiggle" things. So I went in with those things in mind, planning to use quick in-and-out footwork while looking for chance to go "up his arm".
I don't remember the first few points exactly, except at one point he got me with a lovely hit to the hand—to the finger even. And another time he fleched with disengages or "wiggles", getting me to go for a prime parry while his blade ended up on the outside. Wrong parry! Soon he was up 3-2. Then, maybe getting a better sense of timing I attacked "up his wiggle". I scored on his arm, but he managed to get my arm from below, doubling. Now we were at 4-3 and again I turned to Heinzeretti tactics. As with Doug I tried a slightly blade-up position, using in-and-out footwork, hoping to tempt him toward my lower arm. He extended, perhaps just a feint, I beat hard and went up his arm, getting a single. Yay, 4-4. Then I tried my Heinzeretti "to the side" guard. I was not at all sure this was a good idea, but wasn't sure what else to do. At some point he made a "blade wiggle" and I went for it, and got him on the arm again. Single light. I won 5-4, woo!
So I came out of the pools 3 and 3, which was what I had been hoping for, but didn't think I would manage after losing to Michael Moore and Bruno Goossens. Sean and Mike did the best, both winning five, and both with a +11 indicator. Bruno had won four, +8. Michael and I had both gone three and three. His indicator was zero while mine was -1, so he seeded higher.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
I seeded 15th out of 28. Not bad. Michael Moore was one spot above me, but looking at the DE table I don't think it would have been better for me if I had had his spot. He started with Mark Blom, who I may or may not have been able to beat. Then he had 3rd seed David Jensen, who I probably couldn't beat. Then again, I don't think I've ever fenced Jensen, so that could have been cool.
Instead I started with Gerald Duffy and then had Mike Perka, again. Still, although I've fenced Perka before, and just had in the pools, it was interesting to see how things differed between the pool bout, which I had barely eeked out a win, and the DE, which was a lot harder.
But first my first DE, which was against Gerald Duffy. I had never even seen him before and went in with no idea at all about his style. But that is one of the things I like about tournaments like the Battle in Seattle: Getting to fence people I've never even seen. Especially in a DE where there is more time to figure things out.
I started out cautious and probing, trying to figure out how this guy fences, what might work, what to be careful about, etc. I used a lot of in-and-out footwork, trying to set distance traps, and Heinzeretti-type blade stuff, combined with probes, feints, and shallow attacks. I also tried to use a lot of tempo changes—switching up being bouncingly aggressive with slowing down, breaking off, or even suddenly freezing for a moment. I was planning to keep the first period score low while I tried to figure things out. But he made attacks perhaps a little too quickly, or into my traps. I got a lead, and soon a sizable lead. The first period ended 7-3 or 7-4. A comfortable lead in a DE to ten.
In the second period I felt comfortable being patient and killing time, while doing the same sort of stuff I used in the first period. Maybe he attacked more than was wise because he knew he had to catch-up. In any case I got the three points I needed while he only got one, or none. I won 10-4. I enjoyed the feeling of being in control of a DE bout. After the first few points I felt relaxed and confident. I felt like I was in control of the tempo, like I had the initiative, while he was more reactive. That was nice because it is something I have definitely been working on, and have too often been on the wrong side of—being reactive to someone else's tempo.
I was near the bottom of the DE table, so my second DE was with the 2nd seed, which was Mike Perka. Seeing that made me laugh. The odds of winning were slim, but I had just beaten him in the pools. Then again, I had barely beaten him and felt there had been at least a little luck involved. Well, a DE should show if either of us had learned something useful in that pool bout.
He got a lead early on. I tried to do the kind of things that had worked in the pool bout, while also trying to see and adjust to changes he might make. He made some nice attacks, confusing me with his blade wiggles. Once he was up two or three points I got a little smarter and started scoring doubles. Or maybe he was content to double. Either way we reached 9-5 before the first period ended. Not a good score in a vet DE to ten points!
So it was a long shot, a very long shot. Still, I wasn't about to give up, especially since this would be the last bit of fencing I would get that day. I went into the second period determined to at least get a good point or two. I got a single light on his arm, attacking "up the wiggle". Okay, good. Then, although it is risky, I tried that high-low-outside fleche. It came off well and gave me another single light. Good, good. Then, after a little maneuvering, I tried it again, which was probably not the best idea. As a tactic it depends on the other person responding to the high feint with a parry or high-line counterattack. The first time he made a counterattack, which went over my shoulder. This time, however, I could not surprise him and he counterattacked lower, perfectly nailing my arm long before I came close.
I lost 10-7. But those last two points of mine had felt nice, so I was pretty okay with it.
Perka went on to lose 10-8 to Carl Loeffler. I don't know Carl, but he did well. He went on to beat David Jensen to face Sean Ameli in the final. I watched the final closely, knowing that Sean is very good, but Carl had been fencing very well. Should be good! But it wasn't even close. Carl won 10-3.
http://www.fencingtime.com/LiveResults/Battle2016/FTEvent110264329.htm
https://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=121254&highlight_competitor_id=91067
The Battle in Seattle! One of the biggest tournaments in the Pacific Northwest. I always look forward to it. People come from far and wide. It is a Div-1A ROC, which means, well I'm still not quite sure what it means—something like, if you do well you earn points that effect your competitive ranking and qualify you for various national events. I don't know exactly how it all works, since I am not good enough for it to matter. But many people are, so tournaments like this tend to attract good fencers from all over the western US and Canada. The points and qualification stuff matter less for the vet events (for people over 40) than for the senior (over 14). Just showing up at a vet ROC qualifies you for summer national vet events.
A few years ago, after I had only started fencing again about six months earlier, I went to the Battle in Seattle vet epee event but skipped the big senior event because it looked scary—but I went to watch, then wished I was in it. Since then I've done both vet and senior epee every year.
That first time I did surprisingly okay. Looking back I see I went four and two in the pools, beating Maria Copelan, William Walker, and Jim Henderson (all of whom I've lost to in later tournaments). How weird, especially given how raw a fencer I was back then. In that first year DEs I beat John Comes before losing to Erich Cranor. I came in 17th out of 33. Huh. Not bad at all. Maybe that was what gave me my love of this tournament.
Let's see how I've done since then <sound of looking stuff up>. The next year, 2014, I did worse in vet epee, coming in 21st out of 35. I did alright in the pools (3 and 2), beating Mike Perka and Mark Blom, surprisingly. But my DE was with James Neale and I lost badly. Then, last year I did even worse, 25th out of 30, losing every pool bout but one and losing my DE to William Walker.
So I've had a downward kind of progress in the Battle in Seattle vet epee. I hadn't realized that until just now. Well, this year I turned it around. I didn't do great, but well enough. I ended up 14th out of 28, the exact halfway spot. That's slightly better than my first year, where I ended up slightly below the halfway spot. My pool result wasn't quite as good this year, but in my defense it was a harder pool.
Overall, well, something I look at is how well I do compared to my initial seed. In this case I ended up 14th and my post-pool seed was 15th. My initial seed? It was 13th. But I was seeded highest of the four C15 fencers. I think the seeding is random within fencers of the same rating and year. So my initial seed could have ranged between 13th and 16th. But whatever, my final result and seeds were more or less the same: right around the middle of the pack. I'm okay with that! The Battle in Seattle attracts a lot of great fencers.
POOLS
My pool had two good A-fencers I doubted I could beat (Ameli and Perka), two guys I "should" be able to beat (Lucas and Robinson), one guy who is tough and maaaybe I could handle (Moore), and another guy I didn't know at all (Goossens).
My first bout was with Sean Ameli. Might as well get the hardest one over with, eh? Maybe Mike Perka is better on average, maybe not, I don't know. Perka did just slightly better in the pools this time (tied victories and indicator, one more touch scored), getting 2nd seed to Ameli's 3rd. But I figured Ameli would be harder for me. I've fenced Perka more, even won a pool bout once, and had ideas about how to fence him. I've only fenced Ameli once, I think, several years ago when I had only recently started fencing again. All I knew was that he beat me badly that one time and I barely understood what had happened. I remembered that he's left-handed, and that had been hard for me back then, and that I felt like a noob, heh. It may have been my first serious experience with lefties. I got hit on the outside line a lot.
This time I felt a lot more comfortable. Less of a noob! Still, he got the first two points, then quickly got up four to my one. I'm better than I used to be, but still have a long way to go. I hardly remember the points, they went by so fast. I think he got me nicely on the leg with an accelerating lunge. Another time I attempted a flick to the inside wrist but apparently mismanaged distance and got hit on the arm.
I had been trying to play it safe, but at 4-1 I changed to riskier tactics. Playing it safe sure wasn't working. I held my blade up in a semi-absent position, making an obvious invitation to the lower arm. I even stuck my arm out a bit, trying to tempt him. He clearly saw this as a blatant invitation and made a few feints into it, perhaps to see how I would react, what my plan was. Or perhaps to hit, as I was being rather risky sticking out a target like that. I let one of his feints come awfully close, trying to dare him to really try. I think I instinctively pulled my whole arm back a bit. After a little bit he made a more committed attack to my arm and I did what I had planned: retreated a step, straightening and raising my arm while angling the blade down a little. It worked perfectly, my tip landing on his arm near the elbow, while his tip went below my arm.
That felt very nice. It was something I had in my mind from watching videos of Max Heinzer earlier in the day. Watching Heinzer do this thing was odd, because it looked so obvious, yet he was getting people to walk into it. That's kind of how I felt here. It felt too obvious to actually work, but it did.
That made is 4-2, still not very good. Next I tried another thing I've gotten watching Heinzer. Not that I think I'm doing what he does by any stretch—more like stuff I've been inspired to try after watching the way he fences, and developed into something of my own. In fact, I think I've developed a small set of inter-related tactics inspired by both Heinzer and Dragonetti. Maybe I could call it my Heinzeretti tactics? I don't know. Anyway, this next one involved holding the blade level but angled maybe 45 degrees to the inside. I'm still working on this and figuring out how and why it works when it does. There are a number of things that can happen. If nothing else the blade position is another semi-absent type of thing, and sets up several invitations. I've found that some people are tempted to attack into my high outside line, and that it is easy for me to move into a strong six parry. I've also played with holding my blade out rather far in this position, then slowly bringing it in, combined with footwork and other blade movements, with the goal of stealing distance. In any case, I haven't tried it much with lefties and thought it might not work very well. But I tried it anyway. We maneuvered about a bit and I at least tried to do the stealing distance bit. I think he probed my high outside line and I responded with motions toward a six parry. Eventually he did attack high and outside, with more speed and more angulation, perhaps thinking he could angle around my six. That is a common leftie thing, isn't it? Being able to get around a "normal" six? But I saw his attack coming and instead of going to six I counterattacked low and inside. In doing this I dropped my body down and inside a bit. As a result his blade went just over my head and I hit his body.
After that 4-1 start those last two points both felt very nice. I had made it 4-3, a much nicer place to be. But I still needed two singles and was running out of ideas. Going back to the line I thought if I was in his place I might just try to double out, get it over with. Perhaps I could do something to encourage an attempt to double, then deal with it? I decided to make a fake charge right off the line. I'd act like the last two points had given me some kind of momentum and I was going to do some kind of fast advance-advance-fleche or something. But I'd break off suddenly and if he attacked into it I would retreat and counterattack. So that's what I did. At the call "fence" I came forward quickly and, hopefully, aggressively, then stopped abruptly, ready to counter and retreat. But I botched it. I had advanced a little too far and perhaps a little awkwardly, and he had advanced too. So when I stopped he easily hit me before I could retreat or counterattack. Whoops. Still, a 5-3 loss was better than 5-1, especially against the guy I thought I'd have the most trouble with.
My next bout was with Michael Moore. I like him. He's fun to fence. Lots of energy! I fenced him once before, in a DE at last year's Columbia Cup in Portland, vet epee. I mentioned it to him, chatting, but he didn't remember that specific bout. I had also watched him at another tournament or two. In particular I remember watching George Raush beat him in a DE, but only by putting everything he had into it, leaving George "out of gas" for his next DE. I mentioned that to Michael too and he said something about how he likes to fence hard, such that even if he loses his opponent will have paid a price for it.
So we fenced, and it was a great bout. I think we have somewhat similar styles. Strong blade actions, for example. Not someone you want to try to power through. We both fenced quite patiently though, which surprised me a little. I thought he would attack more, but we both worked hard to get the other person to attack. And we both seemed to want to use strong bladework counterattacks. So the bout was a fun, very active game of distance and feints. A game of seeing how close you could get, trying to draw an attack, without getting too close.
He got the first point, basically because I was less patient and attacked from too far. Then I began to see how it should go and tried to work the distance right, taking plenty of time. I don't remember who started the next attack, but it wound up a double, making it 2-1. Then he tried an attack right off the line, perhaps because we had just spend a good bit of time setting up patterns of baiting and waiting. He almost got me by surprise. I managed to get my point out and make it a double, 3-2. Then we had another lengthy distance and feinting game, which finally ended up in a bunch of action and...another double? No, I had a single light! Tied 3-3. He had the ref check his weapon, which seemed like a good idea. I had no idea if he had hit me or not. Maybe he had. His weapon checked out. Perhaps he had hit flat.
Then we had another long but high energy distance game, finally resulting in a double, making it 4-4. Exciting! We started up another distance game, but I stupidly got impatient and attacked at a non-ideal time. He got a single and won, 5-4. Why did I attack impatiently? I don't know. Maybe the excitement got to me?
Next I had my friend Jeff Lucas. If I remember right I got up 2-1, then he got a simple pick under my forearm. He put his tip out and I stuck my arm onto it. I felt like it was at least half my fault for sticking my arm out, but later he said he has been working on picking under the guard like that. Then we maneuvered around a bit and I got a touch on his outside arm. I don't remember the details. I think he had let his guard drift a little to the center, opening his outside line just enough for me to pick it off. Then, he got the next point, making a 3-3 tie. I forget what happened. My notes for that point just say "oops, uh oh". Whatever happened I thought I could do better. I tried to up my game, be more careful and tricky, more dynamic.
I got the next point with a "Heinzeretti" type thing—I think it was the "blade to the inside and steal distance" thing. On the last point, he kept making feints and probes, putting his blade out, but from a reasonably safe distance. Somehow I got into my head the notion of closing distance quickly and "taking" his blade in prime. It is something Russ has shown me a few times but I have not practiced much recently. I tried it, advancing fast and moving my blade into prime, with the idea of pushing his blade away as I closed. But he retreated and pulled his blade back faster than I advanced, so my prime "take" missed his blade. By that point I was committed to some kind of attack, so I just made a weird, very pronated fleche out of prime. He tried to retreat and do something about my blade, but I managed to hit. So I won 5-3. Right after that last point he said, incredulously, "what was that??" I said something like "I'm not quite sure, it wasn't supposed to go like that!"
My next bout was with Bruno Goossens. I had never met him or seen him fence before. I lost 5-2 and ended up somewhat confused about what had happened. He had a style that looked like just the kind of thing I like and could do well against—French grip, holds the blade out a lot, that kind of thing. But he was tricksy and smart, and amazingly controlled and accurate.
I think he got the first point, then I got one. Then I tried a fast attack off the line, maybe because he had a calm demeanor and seemed surprisable. He wasn't. Now down 2-1 I took a more cautious approach and tried to find a way to deal with his French grip and extended arm tactics. I tried some kind of beat attack. It worked, but he got his point back on very quickly. We doubled, 3-2. So I tried being more cautious. He was patient and let me edge in. I made various feints and beats while slowly advancing, looking for openings, trying to figure him out. At some point, while my mind was occupied with his blade and how to get it out of the way he went for a toe touch and got it easily. It was nicely done. I was overly concerned with his blade and focused on beating and feinting combined with advancing. He waited for the perfect moment when my weight was on my front foot. I had an instant of time in which I saw the attack coming but was unable to do anything about it. He timed it just right. Next, if I remember right, he made an attack off the line and I wasn't quite ready for that. He scored and won, 5-2.
I watched him fence a bit after our bout, and chatted to a couple other people about him. I was not able to "figure him out", but got the idea that he had a "French style". I think he is French. At least his jacket said FRA on it, although he lives in Oregon and is a B13 in the USFA. He came in 8th overall, winning two DEs, including one against Joel Howard. In my pool he did well, beating everyone except Sean Ameli and Mike Perka.
My next bout was with Doug Robinson, down from Canada. We've fenced a few times and although I couldn't remember the details I felt fairly confident. But I started off a bit awkwardly and he got up 2-1. Then he attacked into my six line with a disengage to the inside. Instinctively I went into prime and scored. That felt nice. After that we doubled, making it 3-3. At that point I started using "Heinzeretti" tactics more. I had been trying to use them less, but when things got close I tended to fall back to them, and they worked pretty well for me, late bout. Maybe, for pool bouts, a slight change of tactics toward the end, to something I am comfortable with, is useful.
So I was doing a slightly blade-up thing, showing a bit of arm invitation. He made an extension, probably just a feint. I did a double beat advance fleche and scored, which felt good. After a meh start things were feeling better. Confident again I tried to use better footwork, bouncing in and out, looking for openings or trying to draw attacks. Eventually he attacked and I was able to bounce back and counterattack, getting a single light. So I won 5-3, yay.
At this point in the pools I was 2 and 3. My last bout was with Mike Perka, an A-rated fencer who often wins or places high in vet events. I had almost beaten him a couple years ago, in the pools of an earlier Battle in Seattle vet epee event. I remembered thinking he seemed a bit slow, at least footwork-wise. Also, someone in that pool had suggested I attack "straight up his arm" when he does "blade wiggle" things. So I went in with those things in mind, planning to use quick in-and-out footwork while looking for chance to go "up his arm".
I don't remember the first few points exactly, except at one point he got me with a lovely hit to the hand—to the finger even. And another time he fleched with disengages or "wiggles", getting me to go for a prime parry while his blade ended up on the outside. Wrong parry! Soon he was up 3-2. Then, maybe getting a better sense of timing I attacked "up his wiggle". I scored on his arm, but he managed to get my arm from below, doubling. Now we were at 4-3 and again I turned to Heinzeretti tactics. As with Doug I tried a slightly blade-up position, using in-and-out footwork, hoping to tempt him toward my lower arm. He extended, perhaps just a feint, I beat hard and went up his arm, getting a single. Yay, 4-4. Then I tried my Heinzeretti "to the side" guard. I was not at all sure this was a good idea, but wasn't sure what else to do. At some point he made a "blade wiggle" and I went for it, and got him on the arm again. Single light. I won 5-4, woo!
So I came out of the pools 3 and 3, which was what I had been hoping for, but didn't think I would manage after losing to Michael Moore and Bruno Goossens. Sean and Mike did the best, both winning five, and both with a +11 indicator. Bruno had won four, +8. Michael and I had both gone three and three. His indicator was zero while mine was -1, so he seeded higher.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
I seeded 15th out of 28. Not bad. Michael Moore was one spot above me, but looking at the DE table I don't think it would have been better for me if I had had his spot. He started with Mark Blom, who I may or may not have been able to beat. Then he had 3rd seed David Jensen, who I probably couldn't beat. Then again, I don't think I've ever fenced Jensen, so that could have been cool.
Instead I started with Gerald Duffy and then had Mike Perka, again. Still, although I've fenced Perka before, and just had in the pools, it was interesting to see how things differed between the pool bout, which I had barely eeked out a win, and the DE, which was a lot harder.
But first my first DE, which was against Gerald Duffy. I had never even seen him before and went in with no idea at all about his style. But that is one of the things I like about tournaments like the Battle in Seattle: Getting to fence people I've never even seen. Especially in a DE where there is more time to figure things out.
I started out cautious and probing, trying to figure out how this guy fences, what might work, what to be careful about, etc. I used a lot of in-and-out footwork, trying to set distance traps, and Heinzeretti-type blade stuff, combined with probes, feints, and shallow attacks. I also tried to use a lot of tempo changes—switching up being bouncingly aggressive with slowing down, breaking off, or even suddenly freezing for a moment. I was planning to keep the first period score low while I tried to figure things out. But he made attacks perhaps a little too quickly, or into my traps. I got a lead, and soon a sizable lead. The first period ended 7-3 or 7-4. A comfortable lead in a DE to ten.
In the second period I felt comfortable being patient and killing time, while doing the same sort of stuff I used in the first period. Maybe he attacked more than was wise because he knew he had to catch-up. In any case I got the three points I needed while he only got one, or none. I won 10-4. I enjoyed the feeling of being in control of a DE bout. After the first few points I felt relaxed and confident. I felt like I was in control of the tempo, like I had the initiative, while he was more reactive. That was nice because it is something I have definitely been working on, and have too often been on the wrong side of—being reactive to someone else's tempo.
I was near the bottom of the DE table, so my second DE was with the 2nd seed, which was Mike Perka. Seeing that made me laugh. The odds of winning were slim, but I had just beaten him in the pools. Then again, I had barely beaten him and felt there had been at least a little luck involved. Well, a DE should show if either of us had learned something useful in that pool bout.
He got a lead early on. I tried to do the kind of things that had worked in the pool bout, while also trying to see and adjust to changes he might make. He made some nice attacks, confusing me with his blade wiggles. Once he was up two or three points I got a little smarter and started scoring doubles. Or maybe he was content to double. Either way we reached 9-5 before the first period ended. Not a good score in a vet DE to ten points!
So it was a long shot, a very long shot. Still, I wasn't about to give up, especially since this would be the last bit of fencing I would get that day. I went into the second period determined to at least get a good point or two. I got a single light on his arm, attacking "up the wiggle". Okay, good. Then, although it is risky, I tried that high-low-outside fleche. It came off well and gave me another single light. Good, good. Then, after a little maneuvering, I tried it again, which was probably not the best idea. As a tactic it depends on the other person responding to the high feint with a parry or high-line counterattack. The first time he made a counterattack, which went over my shoulder. This time, however, I could not surprise him and he counterattacked lower, perfectly nailing my arm long before I came close.
I lost 10-7. But those last two points of mine had felt nice, so I was pretty okay with it.
Perka went on to lose 10-8 to Carl Loeffler. I don't know Carl, but he did well. He went on to beat David Jensen to face Sean Ameli in the final. I watched the final closely, knowing that Sean is very good, but Carl had been fencing very well. Should be good! But it wasn't even close. Carl won 10-3.
Videos from Battle in Seattle 2016
Three videos from the 2016 Battle in Seattle, senior men's epee:
Mark Segal (L) v Jason Lipton (R), table of 16:
Sam Larsen (L) v Kaiden Crotchett, table of 8:
Henry Lange (L) v Sam Larsen (R), final gold medal bout:
Mark Segal (L) v Jason Lipton (R), table of 16:
Sam Larsen (L) v Kaiden Crotchett, table of 8:
Henry Lange (L) v Sam Larsen (R), final gold medal bout:
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Broken blade
It was just a matter of time. I had a good run with two Leon Paul FIE epee blades. They've been quite reliable. Held up perfectly during Summer Nationals. Lately they have both been bending near the tip too easily, in a way that suggested breaking might be in the future.
One of them—the one that hasn't broken yet—still has the original LP wire and barrel it came with (yes, I bought it wired because lazy). It never seemed as robust as the older ones I've had.
Yesterday at open fencing I got a touch that made a small bend. I straightened it by hand and crack!—it broke in my hands. Better than breaking on another person anyway.
The one that broke has been my main epee for well over a year. That might not seem like a long time, but I beat on the thing about three times a week, and thanks to my less-than-perfect technique it has had more than its share of overly hard hits. I think a year and a half life is fairly normal for a FIE blade that takes as much abuse as this one got. I rewired it two or three times, changing it to a German barrel and tip. Recently the wire was starting to come off a bit. I glued it back in, but poorly, and thought I should probably rewire it again soon. I almost rewired it last week. I'm glad it didn't break right after a rewire.
After it broke I had to decide what to replace it with. I've been thinking of trying a different kind of FIE blade, especially since the newest LP blade I got doesn't seem as good as the older ones. And LP has been fiddling with their blades, I think, since the FIE made them pull their SR-71 and other folded steel blades. I've heard good things about BF and StM, but have never tried either. I figured when one of my LPs broke I might try one of those.
Joel told me about a fencing supply place called Fencing Star that is going out of business and selling everything at 30% off. He said their stock was dwindling and there might not be a huge selection. So I checked and sure enough, everything is 30% off. The only FIE epee blades they had were StM. They are about half the price of a LP FIE blade, which was too good to pass up. Unless maybe there are different kinds of StM FIE blades and this exact one isn't great. Well, we'll see. It will be here in a couple days.
If nothing else it should help me decide what to do when my other LP blade breaks, sooner or later.
One of them—the one that hasn't broken yet—still has the original LP wire and barrel it came with (yes, I bought it wired because lazy). It never seemed as robust as the older ones I've had.
Yesterday at open fencing I got a touch that made a small bend. I straightened it by hand and crack!—it broke in my hands. Better than breaking on another person anyway.
The one that broke has been my main epee for well over a year. That might not seem like a long time, but I beat on the thing about three times a week, and thanks to my less-than-perfect technique it has had more than its share of overly hard hits. I think a year and a half life is fairly normal for a FIE blade that takes as much abuse as this one got. I rewired it two or three times, changing it to a German barrel and tip. Recently the wire was starting to come off a bit. I glued it back in, but poorly, and thought I should probably rewire it again soon. I almost rewired it last week. I'm glad it didn't break right after a rewire.
After it broke I had to decide what to replace it with. I've been thinking of trying a different kind of FIE blade, especially since the newest LP blade I got doesn't seem as good as the older ones. And LP has been fiddling with their blades, I think, since the FIE made them pull their SR-71 and other folded steel blades. I've heard good things about BF and StM, but have never tried either. I figured when one of my LPs broke I might try one of those.
Joel told me about a fencing supply place called Fencing Star that is going out of business and selling everything at 30% off. He said their stock was dwindling and there might not be a huge selection. So I checked and sure enough, everything is 30% off. The only FIE epee blades they had were StM. They are about half the price of a LP FIE blade, which was too good to pass up. Unless maybe there are different kinds of StM FIE blades and this exact one isn't great. Well, we'll see. It will be here in a couple days.
If nothing else it should help me decide what to do when my other LP blade breaks, sooner or later.
Monday, December 28, 2015
RCFC "Home for the Holidays" Open
RCFC "Home for the Holidays" Open
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31384&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=123623
Good pools, got a first round bye, lost first DE. So I came in 9th, or "best" of those who did not make the round of 8. Lost my DE to Svetoslav Dimitrov (again!), who ended up coming in 8th, just one spot ahead of me, or "worst" of those who lost in the round of 8. Funny how that works. Had I won that DE (and lost the next, most likely) I probably would not have done much better. In fact, let's see...looking at results and seeds I would have been 6th had I won that DE. Assuming I lost the second DE, which would have been against Andrew Lee.
POOLS
First up I had Donovan Kawewehi, who I hadn't fenced or even seen in a couple years or so. He said he hadn't fenced a lot recently, and I hoped he would be rusty while I would have gotten a lot better. I tried using a "hard" style, with hard beats and the like, but things did not go well. He got a point, and another, and before I knew it the score was 1-4. I had forgotten how "hard" he fences. My attempt to be strong seemed mainly to create openings for him. I had my usual first bout lack of focus. Several times I had a chance to score and simply missed. Finally getting myself a little more together I managed to retreat from his fast attack and manage to end with a double touch, 2-5. Eesh. I wrote in my notes "many issues". Oof.
After waiting several bouts I fenced Kenji Yamamoto. I don't think I had ever fenced him before, or seen him fence. I started off a bit distracted and he got the first point. Wake up! Focus! So I woke up and focused more. I got a point in a way I can't remember. Then we ended up in an awkward infighting situation. We both tried close-in primes. I thought he hit, but when I looked at the lights mine was on and his was not. Apparently I had landed on his back calf? I was starting to feel a little more confident and after some maneuvering, trying to trick some distance, I launched a beat-fleche that worked nicely. So I was up 3-1. Feeling better. Then we were maneuvering again, throwing out various feints and such. I made a feint check-step kind of thing and he reponded with a half-duck and an overly big parry that made a nice big opening for me to lunge into. So, 4-1, the opposite of my first bout. I tried to avoid ending with a double touch so as to be a point up overall so far. Again we maneuvered, makes various feints. At one point I extended and he started a counterattack. I did something I had been practicing a bit: A small retreat with a cutover. It worked nicely. He didn't get my blade in opposition and my point ended up on his arm near the elbow. Sweet, 5-1!
My third bout was with Jeff Lucas. I was ready for one of his attacks right off the line, but he didn't do it, perhaps because we had been talking about that very thing earlier. I tried it on him though, thinking I might turn the tables. It was a little messy though and resulted in a double touch. Otherwise I made several large, ugly attacks and got lucky or just didn't hit. I got in one nice-feeling beat-fleche and eventually got the score to 4-1. Again I tried to end with a single, but he got a counterattack in and doubled. So, 5-2.
So far I was up two and one. Looking at who was left I saw three of increasing difficulty—Abby Barr, Tobias Lee, and, the final bout in our pool, Matthew Comes. I thought I should be able to beat Abby, had a chance with Toby maybe, and would probably lose badly to Matthew. If things went as "expected" I would end up three and three or, if I could beat Toby, four and two. Looking at it that way made my bout with Toby seem particularly important. Of course I knew that anything could happen and I shouldn't invest myself too much in thinking this way. So after noting these things I put it out of my head and focused on "one touch at a time". If anything I just thought that the bouts would get harder and I should try to fence my best and avoid doing anything too stupid.
Anyway, I fenced Abby Barr. She's pretty good, and left-handed too. I remembered to keep my guard lower than usual, to protect against her picks to the hand. Mostly I tried to keep the pressure on and the distance wider than her reach, but close to my reach. At a few points my concentration flagged and I had some bad misses. Luckily she wasn't able to take advantage of my lapses. I think a couple of times she had a chance and missed. Somewhere in there she got a point, while I worked up to 4-1. Then I made an attack that went a bit awkward and I missed, opening myself up badly. But her riposte/counter missed, lucky me. We ended up in infighting distance and I made a desperate prime which almost missed, but just nicked her leg. So I won 5-1, but that last touch was quite lucky.
Then I had Tobias Lee. I figured this bout would make a big difference for DE seeding—assuming I would lose to Matthew Comes. I like fencing Toby. Over time I had come to a better and better understanding of how to fence him, what might work, what not to do, what to watch out for, etc. I don't think I have ever won even a pool bout with him, but it seemed possible. I had to be careful, watch the distance, look out for picks, and take advantage of opportunities to get control of his blade with beats or binds and attack when the time was right—but not too much! No chasing him down the strip! No reaching far for a seemingly open target only to get my arm picked off. Beforehand I wrote a note to myself: "be careful and active—like fencing Travis". Not that Toby fences like Travis so much as I had to fence like I do when I fence Travis: Avoiding anything rash, being extra-wary of distance, and taking advantage of opportunities, but not too much! If a chance fails, let it fail instead of trying to force it. Stuff like that.
Anyway, I think I did well enough. It was close. He got up 3-2. I did do some chasing, but I think I managed to stop myself before getting hit. I don't remember exactly how the first few points went. At 3-2 he got a lovely hit to my hand that surprised me. I thought I was being careful enough to avoid things like that. That made it 4-2, which didn't look good, but I doubled down and worked hard. I got the next point, somehow. At 4-3 he made an attack that perhaps was aimed to maybe doubled out. I think he expected me to counterattack or use a circle-6 or 4 parry. And I think I started a circle-6 and our foibles caught part way through. If I had continued the circle-6 we might have doubled, but I went into a high-7 instead, which resulted in a single light for me. I certainly hadn't planned to use a high-7, it just happened in the moment. Nice when that happens and it works.
That made it 4-4. A comeback! I tried to stick with something familiar at the end. He made a somewhat low feint, so I used that hard-2 smack thing, hoping to throw his blade far out of line, followed by a high line attack. He recovered fast and caught my blade in 6 then immediately returned to a low line and hit, before I could do my prime-y escape-from-6 thing. It felt like I had done a low-high thing while he had done a nice low-high-low thing, almost like a third intention, one step ahead of me. So he won, 5-4. So close! Then again, it could have been worse given his being up 4-2 at one point.
So I was three and two at that point, with just Matthew Comes to go. I wrote in my notes that I wanted to score at least one point. I didn't want to lose 5-0, as I have with him before sometimes. I don't think I was being defeatist, just realistic. I would still fence my best. And by this point I was well warmed-up and in the zone. My bout with Toby had helped my focus and determination quite a lot. Still...
The bout ended up being a huge surprise. I got the first two points in ways I don't quite remember. I think one of them was a strong feint from me, which he perhaps took to be more of an attack than it was. He did one of his duck-parries but I was not close enough, so he couldn't hit but I could, and did. I think the other point was a simple fleche or beat-fleche on my part. That it actually worked surprised both of us, I think. Then he got a point, I don't remember how. Then after some maneuvering I launched a fleche again but immediately realized I was just a little too far. He retreated and I felt his tip tap my arm as I reached for his shoulder. But his tap was too light and did not score, while my reach eventually landed. That made the score 3-1. He was annoyed. For me it was nice and unexpected, but I tried to put it out of my mind. He could easily come back and win. He quickly launched one of his beautiful fleches. Normally it would have worked, and it really should have worked this time, but by what felt like sheer luck he missed, his tip going over my shoulder. My counterattack landed, making it 4-1. Now he was quite annoyed and I was feeling quite good. But really, even at this point I could picture him winning. I figured I should try to double out, so I tried an off-the-line advance-fleche on him. Maybe he was expecting a double-touch attempt, because he easily retreated and parried, scoring, 4-2. I still figured I would look for double-touch possibilities, but more carefully. We maneuvered a little, then he fleched and I countered. We doubled. So I won, 5-3. So much for my "just one point" plan. It was certainly the first time I had beaten him in any tournament bout. Part of it was luck—he made several mistakes and misses. But I think I did well enough, fencing with focus, energy, and good form. After the last point he went to his end of the strip for a few moments, mentally berating himself or whatever, then came and shook hands. I actually felt a bit bad for him and shook hands unemotionally, not wanting to seem gloating or anything. Then I remember turning and walking back to my strip end to unhook. I saw people who had been watching—Donovan, Jeff, Abby, I think—and I couldn't help but break into a smile and widen my eyes like "unexpected wow!"
Of course Matthew Comes still took first place in our pool, winning five and losing just that one, with a +14 indicator. This made him 2nd seed for the DEs. He later pointed out to me that if not for our bout he would have been 1st seed. Joseph Choo was 1st seed, having won all his bouts, but even so his indicator was lower than Matthew's. This meant Matthew and Andrew Lee had to fence in a semifinal instead of a final bout—assuming they got there. I think Matthew had expected to fence Andrew in the final. Instead they fenced in a semi-final. Then Matthew beat Joseph Choo in the final, which was a fairly close bout.
Anyway, for me it meant I was 6th seed for the DEs, out of 19. If I had lost to Matthew I would have been around 10th seed instead. Now if I had just beaten Tobias too... Actually, Toby and I both went four and two in the pools, and we both had a +9 indicator. But he had one more touch scored, so he came in 2nd in our pool and I was 3rd. I was 6th seed and he was 5th. Just one point! If it had been the other way around my DE would have been with...let's see...Mark Benack. Hmm. Given how much Mark has been progressing recently that may or may not have been a better situation. Toby beat him, but it was close.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
Being 6th seed gave me a bye in the round of 32. It meant I would fence the 11th seed, who also had a bye. That was Svetoslav Dimitrov. I sighed when I saw his name. We fenced for the first time last summer, and I beat him (resulting in my getting a C rating). He had fleched a lot, and often from too far, which made things rather straightforward for me. Since then we had fenced twice and I lost both times. I had him in my pool at BladeFest and an SAS Open. Both times he was much more patient than that first time, and I ended up attacking too much. At BladeFest it was close, but at SAS he mauled me. So here we were again, and in a DE again. In those two pool bouts I expected him to fence like he had in that first DE: lots of fleching. But he hadn't. He had been more defensive and careful. So this time I figured he would again be more defensive. Other people told me to expect lots of fleching, and I had seen him fencing aggressively in other pool bouts. So maybe he was more cautious fencing me in particular. Well, I figured I could be patient too. I would push him, but carefully, and wait. Eventually he would start attacking, especially if I kept pushing him back toward his end of the strip.
That was my basic plan. To out-patience him and get him to start fleching. And as far as that goes, it worked. A minute or two into the first period, after a point or two scored either way, he did start fleching. The problem was his fleches kept scoring. That wasn't part of my plan! By the end of the first period he was up a good amount. Something like 10-4. The second period went much the same. I remember it being 14-8 and scoring a point. Joel was watching and said something like "you got him just where you want him now!" Anyway, he won 15-9.
In hindsight the obvious problem I had was the long amount of time that passed between pools and my DE. It was at least 30 minutes. By the time our DE began I was cold and felt slow. I should have done more during the wait to stay energized. And I could have amped up my energy during the DE. I realized early on that I felt slow, but instead of working to increase my activity I thought I could "pretend" I was slow as a way of luring him out of being defensive and into fleching. I soon realized I was only fooling myself. Giving myself an excuse to stay slow. I've done that before—my brain comes up with excuses to be lazy and I buy into it.
Later, at SAS, I told Russ about the tournament. I described the long wait between pools and the DEs and how I woud benefit from finding a way to stay energized and "in the zone" during waits like that. I thought he might have some ideas but instead said "If you ever figure out how to stay consistent in fencing, let me know!"
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31384&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=123623
Good pools, got a first round bye, lost first DE. So I came in 9th, or "best" of those who did not make the round of 8. Lost my DE to Svetoslav Dimitrov (again!), who ended up coming in 8th, just one spot ahead of me, or "worst" of those who lost in the round of 8. Funny how that works. Had I won that DE (and lost the next, most likely) I probably would not have done much better. In fact, let's see...looking at results and seeds I would have been 6th had I won that DE. Assuming I lost the second DE, which would have been against Andrew Lee.
POOLS
First up I had Donovan Kawewehi, who I hadn't fenced or even seen in a couple years or so. He said he hadn't fenced a lot recently, and I hoped he would be rusty while I would have gotten a lot better. I tried using a "hard" style, with hard beats and the like, but things did not go well. He got a point, and another, and before I knew it the score was 1-4. I had forgotten how "hard" he fences. My attempt to be strong seemed mainly to create openings for him. I had my usual first bout lack of focus. Several times I had a chance to score and simply missed. Finally getting myself a little more together I managed to retreat from his fast attack and manage to end with a double touch, 2-5. Eesh. I wrote in my notes "many issues". Oof.
After waiting several bouts I fenced Kenji Yamamoto. I don't think I had ever fenced him before, or seen him fence. I started off a bit distracted and he got the first point. Wake up! Focus! So I woke up and focused more. I got a point in a way I can't remember. Then we ended up in an awkward infighting situation. We both tried close-in primes. I thought he hit, but when I looked at the lights mine was on and his was not. Apparently I had landed on his back calf? I was starting to feel a little more confident and after some maneuvering, trying to trick some distance, I launched a beat-fleche that worked nicely. So I was up 3-1. Feeling better. Then we were maneuvering again, throwing out various feints and such. I made a feint check-step kind of thing and he reponded with a half-duck and an overly big parry that made a nice big opening for me to lunge into. So, 4-1, the opposite of my first bout. I tried to avoid ending with a double touch so as to be a point up overall so far. Again we maneuvered, makes various feints. At one point I extended and he started a counterattack. I did something I had been practicing a bit: A small retreat with a cutover. It worked nicely. He didn't get my blade in opposition and my point ended up on his arm near the elbow. Sweet, 5-1!
My third bout was with Jeff Lucas. I was ready for one of his attacks right off the line, but he didn't do it, perhaps because we had been talking about that very thing earlier. I tried it on him though, thinking I might turn the tables. It was a little messy though and resulted in a double touch. Otherwise I made several large, ugly attacks and got lucky or just didn't hit. I got in one nice-feeling beat-fleche and eventually got the score to 4-1. Again I tried to end with a single, but he got a counterattack in and doubled. So, 5-2.
So far I was up two and one. Looking at who was left I saw three of increasing difficulty—Abby Barr, Tobias Lee, and, the final bout in our pool, Matthew Comes. I thought I should be able to beat Abby, had a chance with Toby maybe, and would probably lose badly to Matthew. If things went as "expected" I would end up three and three or, if I could beat Toby, four and two. Looking at it that way made my bout with Toby seem particularly important. Of course I knew that anything could happen and I shouldn't invest myself too much in thinking this way. So after noting these things I put it out of my head and focused on "one touch at a time". If anything I just thought that the bouts would get harder and I should try to fence my best and avoid doing anything too stupid.
Anyway, I fenced Abby Barr. She's pretty good, and left-handed too. I remembered to keep my guard lower than usual, to protect against her picks to the hand. Mostly I tried to keep the pressure on and the distance wider than her reach, but close to my reach. At a few points my concentration flagged and I had some bad misses. Luckily she wasn't able to take advantage of my lapses. I think a couple of times she had a chance and missed. Somewhere in there she got a point, while I worked up to 4-1. Then I made an attack that went a bit awkward and I missed, opening myself up badly. But her riposte/counter missed, lucky me. We ended up in infighting distance and I made a desperate prime which almost missed, but just nicked her leg. So I won 5-1, but that last touch was quite lucky.
Then I had Tobias Lee. I figured this bout would make a big difference for DE seeding—assuming I would lose to Matthew Comes. I like fencing Toby. Over time I had come to a better and better understanding of how to fence him, what might work, what not to do, what to watch out for, etc. I don't think I have ever won even a pool bout with him, but it seemed possible. I had to be careful, watch the distance, look out for picks, and take advantage of opportunities to get control of his blade with beats or binds and attack when the time was right—but not too much! No chasing him down the strip! No reaching far for a seemingly open target only to get my arm picked off. Beforehand I wrote a note to myself: "be careful and active—like fencing Travis". Not that Toby fences like Travis so much as I had to fence like I do when I fence Travis: Avoiding anything rash, being extra-wary of distance, and taking advantage of opportunities, but not too much! If a chance fails, let it fail instead of trying to force it. Stuff like that.
Anyway, I think I did well enough. It was close. He got up 3-2. I did do some chasing, but I think I managed to stop myself before getting hit. I don't remember exactly how the first few points went. At 3-2 he got a lovely hit to my hand that surprised me. I thought I was being careful enough to avoid things like that. That made it 4-2, which didn't look good, but I doubled down and worked hard. I got the next point, somehow. At 4-3 he made an attack that perhaps was aimed to maybe doubled out. I think he expected me to counterattack or use a circle-6 or 4 parry. And I think I started a circle-6 and our foibles caught part way through. If I had continued the circle-6 we might have doubled, but I went into a high-7 instead, which resulted in a single light for me. I certainly hadn't planned to use a high-7, it just happened in the moment. Nice when that happens and it works.
That made it 4-4. A comeback! I tried to stick with something familiar at the end. He made a somewhat low feint, so I used that hard-2 smack thing, hoping to throw his blade far out of line, followed by a high line attack. He recovered fast and caught my blade in 6 then immediately returned to a low line and hit, before I could do my prime-y escape-from-6 thing. It felt like I had done a low-high thing while he had done a nice low-high-low thing, almost like a third intention, one step ahead of me. So he won, 5-4. So close! Then again, it could have been worse given his being up 4-2 at one point.
So I was three and two at that point, with just Matthew Comes to go. I wrote in my notes that I wanted to score at least one point. I didn't want to lose 5-0, as I have with him before sometimes. I don't think I was being defeatist, just realistic. I would still fence my best. And by this point I was well warmed-up and in the zone. My bout with Toby had helped my focus and determination quite a lot. Still...
The bout ended up being a huge surprise. I got the first two points in ways I don't quite remember. I think one of them was a strong feint from me, which he perhaps took to be more of an attack than it was. He did one of his duck-parries but I was not close enough, so he couldn't hit but I could, and did. I think the other point was a simple fleche or beat-fleche on my part. That it actually worked surprised both of us, I think. Then he got a point, I don't remember how. Then after some maneuvering I launched a fleche again but immediately realized I was just a little too far. He retreated and I felt his tip tap my arm as I reached for his shoulder. But his tap was too light and did not score, while my reach eventually landed. That made the score 3-1. He was annoyed. For me it was nice and unexpected, but I tried to put it out of my mind. He could easily come back and win. He quickly launched one of his beautiful fleches. Normally it would have worked, and it really should have worked this time, but by what felt like sheer luck he missed, his tip going over my shoulder. My counterattack landed, making it 4-1. Now he was quite annoyed and I was feeling quite good. But really, even at this point I could picture him winning. I figured I should try to double out, so I tried an off-the-line advance-fleche on him. Maybe he was expecting a double-touch attempt, because he easily retreated and parried, scoring, 4-2. I still figured I would look for double-touch possibilities, but more carefully. We maneuvered a little, then he fleched and I countered. We doubled. So I won, 5-3. So much for my "just one point" plan. It was certainly the first time I had beaten him in any tournament bout. Part of it was luck—he made several mistakes and misses. But I think I did well enough, fencing with focus, energy, and good form. After the last point he went to his end of the strip for a few moments, mentally berating himself or whatever, then came and shook hands. I actually felt a bit bad for him and shook hands unemotionally, not wanting to seem gloating or anything. Then I remember turning and walking back to my strip end to unhook. I saw people who had been watching—Donovan, Jeff, Abby, I think—and I couldn't help but break into a smile and widen my eyes like "unexpected wow!"
Of course Matthew Comes still took first place in our pool, winning five and losing just that one, with a +14 indicator. This made him 2nd seed for the DEs. He later pointed out to me that if not for our bout he would have been 1st seed. Joseph Choo was 1st seed, having won all his bouts, but even so his indicator was lower than Matthew's. This meant Matthew and Andrew Lee had to fence in a semifinal instead of a final bout—assuming they got there. I think Matthew had expected to fence Andrew in the final. Instead they fenced in a semi-final. Then Matthew beat Joseph Choo in the final, which was a fairly close bout.
Anyway, for me it meant I was 6th seed for the DEs, out of 19. If I had lost to Matthew I would have been around 10th seed instead. Now if I had just beaten Tobias too... Actually, Toby and I both went four and two in the pools, and we both had a +9 indicator. But he had one more touch scored, so he came in 2nd in our pool and I was 3rd. I was 6th seed and he was 5th. Just one point! If it had been the other way around my DE would have been with...let's see...Mark Benack. Hmm. Given how much Mark has been progressing recently that may or may not have been a better situation. Toby beat him, but it was close.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
Being 6th seed gave me a bye in the round of 32. It meant I would fence the 11th seed, who also had a bye. That was Svetoslav Dimitrov. I sighed when I saw his name. We fenced for the first time last summer, and I beat him (resulting in my getting a C rating). He had fleched a lot, and often from too far, which made things rather straightforward for me. Since then we had fenced twice and I lost both times. I had him in my pool at BladeFest and an SAS Open. Both times he was much more patient than that first time, and I ended up attacking too much. At BladeFest it was close, but at SAS he mauled me. So here we were again, and in a DE again. In those two pool bouts I expected him to fence like he had in that first DE: lots of fleching. But he hadn't. He had been more defensive and careful. So this time I figured he would again be more defensive. Other people told me to expect lots of fleching, and I had seen him fencing aggressively in other pool bouts. So maybe he was more cautious fencing me in particular. Well, I figured I could be patient too. I would push him, but carefully, and wait. Eventually he would start attacking, especially if I kept pushing him back toward his end of the strip.
That was my basic plan. To out-patience him and get him to start fleching. And as far as that goes, it worked. A minute or two into the first period, after a point or two scored either way, he did start fleching. The problem was his fleches kept scoring. That wasn't part of my plan! By the end of the first period he was up a good amount. Something like 10-4. The second period went much the same. I remember it being 14-8 and scoring a point. Joel was watching and said something like "you got him just where you want him now!" Anyway, he won 15-9.
In hindsight the obvious problem I had was the long amount of time that passed between pools and my DE. It was at least 30 minutes. By the time our DE began I was cold and felt slow. I should have done more during the wait to stay energized. And I could have amped up my energy during the DE. I realized early on that I felt slow, but instead of working to increase my activity I thought I could "pretend" I was slow as a way of luring him out of being defensive and into fleching. I soon realized I was only fooling myself. Giving myself an excuse to stay slow. I've done that before—my brain comes up with excuses to be lazy and I buy into it.
Later, at SAS, I told Russ about the tournament. I described the long wait between pools and the DEs and how I woud benefit from finding a way to stay energized and "in the zone" during waits like that. I thought he might have some ideas but instead said "If you ever figure out how to stay consistent in fencing, let me know!"
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Ray Coates Memorial Team Epee
Ray Coates Memorial Team Epee
I barely took notes and the results never seem to have made it to AskFred. So I gotta go on memory here, which is already fading. Oop, wait, it is on AskFred, here:
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31383#123618
I was on "The Marshall Plan" team, with Kundry and Perth. Kundry was captain. I had never done a team event before, other than last year when my team had to forfeit in the first match when Shawn had to drop out. On the other hand, I had fenced most of the people we had to face this time, while Kundry and Perth mostly hadn't. So I gave a lot of advice and ended up being anchor twice.
The tableau table looks weird on AskFred:
https://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=123618&highlight_competitor_id=129105
Because we fenced off for every place, so almost every team could get three matches. It's also a good format because the final matches are usually close. There were no pools. Instead the tableau was seeded by points based on letter/year ratings. Not perfect, but close enough.
We won our first match by a decent margin, then lost our next two by about the same margin. Our first two matches are in the big table on AskFred. The third one is in "Table H (loser finishes 4th)", which FencingTime calls, more sensibly, "Bronze medal match".
I was the anchor, the last fencer, in the second two matches. The first time we were down 34-40 and I had Matthew Comes. I only got one point. The second time I had Mark Blom at the end, who I feel like I've figured out to a degree. But the score was 30-40, so I had to score 15 points before he scord 5. And in less than three minutes. So there wasn't much hope. I managed to get eight points before he got five, mostly via doubles, so at least that felt rather nice.
FIRST MATCH
I did scribble some notes after our first match. We went up against team "IDK": Jeff Johnson, Jim Henderson, Garrett Armstrong, and Jeff Lucas. The first bout was me and Jeff Lucas. He was the alternate. They switched him out for Jeff Johnson after this first bout. I felt bad beating Jeff Lucas 5-0 but, well, it's a tournament. You do what you must. Afterward he was annoyed. Not at me but at the whole situation, and called it quits and went home. He told me his team told him to play a defensive game, which made some sense but probably wasn't the best idea, given his style. Had he been fencing more like he usually does he probably would have gotten at least a double touch or two against me. Ah well, I did feel bad. Still, starting off 5-0 in a team event is a nice thing. We kept a lead the rest of the way. If they hadn't had an alternate I'd have fenced Jeff Johnson first and chances are he'd have beaten me, or at least it would have been a lot closer.
My second bout was with Garrett Armstrong. I got a couple good points in near the start, then made a couple of bad attacks that failed and gave him points. At one point my attack missed and his point got my back hip, but in an odd way, kind of tucked into the seams. It didn't go off. He had his epee checked but it was fine. It just landed in an odd way. The bout began with my team up a good amount and I was able to get us to the next five point break. I can't remember how many points he got. Three?
It was interesting to watch Perth fence Jeff Johnson. I had warned him about Jeff's style, but he still got in a fair number of his standard attacks. But Perth got some nice hits on Jeff. At least two lovely fast fleches that doubled—being in the lead it was fine to double. For the final point Perth made a nice fake that got Jeff to bite, and Perth did a kind of cutover counter to his arm, for a single light. Very nice. I think Jeff scored more than five, but we still kept the lead.
My third bout was with Jim Henderson—it was the second to last bout. We seem to go back and forth and I wasn't sure how things would go this time. I got two or three nice shallow hits, just in distance. In one case we had a minor exchange, then a moment pause, his arm slightly raised and looking like an invitation. The distance felt just close enough and I made a simple straight attack and got his arm, to maybe both of our surprises. I made a couple of mistakes and he got two, possibly three points, to my five. Kundry thanked me for giving her the last bout with a score of 30-40.
Kundry had the final bout with Jeff Johnson. As with Perth it was interesting to watch. She had seen enough of his fencing, along with my advice, to know what to expect. I'm still not sure how she got her points, but she scored five points to his four. So we won, yay!
SECOND MATCH
We watched the match that would decide who we had next. It was team "Rebel Scum" (Kyle Margolies, Jameson Lu, and Svetoslav Dimitrov) or "Darth Maulers" (Matthew Comes, Robert Tiosejo, and Tzveti Dimitrova), both WFA teams. Matthew was obviously the ringer in this group, but Rebel Scum did pretty well with him, maybe because they fence more often, being from the same club. I don't know. I was hoping Rebel Scum would win, not wanting to face Matthew. And it was pretty close. But Darth Maulers won 45-40. So we had to fence them.
Our plan, as Kundry put it, was to score lots of points against Robert and Tzveti, and try to keep the score low when facing Matthew. Well, scoring points on Robert and Tzveti was not so easy. I don't remember the details. I think I did alright with both of them, but scored more evenly instead of "a lot of points". I was given the anchor spot, to face Matthew at the end, with the idea that I had fenced him many times, while Kundry and Perth hadn't. I had a somewhat better idea of what not to do, at least. Well, by the time we reached the final bout we were down 34-40. Unsurprisingly Matthew finished me off easily enough. I got one point and at least that one felt pretty nice. Otherwise, oofta.
THIRD MATCH
Having won one and lost one put us in a semifinal match for third and fourth place, to my surprise. If we won this last match we'd get medals, which would be nice. We were up against team "Darth Old Guys": Mark Blom, Johannes Klein, and John Comes. Two lefties! Still seemed like a winnable match. I had fenced all three of these guys many times, but I don't think Kundry or Perth had at all. So I gave what advice I could and was made the anchor against Mark Blom.
If I remember right I had the first bout, with John Comes. Again I've forgotten the details. I think he won, but only 5-4. Not a bad start. But we slipped from there, with a point gap opening up wider and wider. I had trouble with Johannes, scoring three, maybe four to his five, I think. Kundry and Perth had some good moments. Both had trouble with Mark Blom, I think. So by the time we reached the final bout it was 30-40. I felt confident against Mark Blom, but that was too large a hole! Still I would try. Obviously I had to attack a lot. There was only three minutes. If time ran out and they were ahead, they would win. Mark had only to kill time and look for doubles. Perhaps this made him fence in a way that was actually easier for me. In short I was quite aggressive, throwing out hard beats and fleching. I got a good number of points, some of which felt quite nice. Early on I launched a beat-fleche that worked nicely. Shortly after I tried again, but was not quite as close. Mark had a chance to pick my arm as I flew in, but missed. I remember the instant of feeling the edge of his blade on my arm as I reached for his shoulder. A nice feeling, if a little lucky. A point or two after that I tried the beat-fleche a third time and that time he did pick me off. Basically, if he gave me his blade I would try an attack with a hard beat. If he dropped his blade into an absence position I might try a low line. I think I got his leg once or twice that way.
Anyway, I put my all into it and scored eight points before he got the five he needed. At least three of his points were doubles. All in all, although we lost, that last bout felt good and I was fairly happy with the result.
I barely took notes and the results never seem to have made it to AskFred. So I gotta go on memory here, which is already fading. Oop, wait, it is on AskFred, here:
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31383#123618
I was on "The Marshall Plan" team, with Kundry and Perth. Kundry was captain. I had never done a team event before, other than last year when my team had to forfeit in the first match when Shawn had to drop out. On the other hand, I had fenced most of the people we had to face this time, while Kundry and Perth mostly hadn't. So I gave a lot of advice and ended up being anchor twice.
The tableau table looks weird on AskFred:
https://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=123618&highlight_competitor_id=129105
Because we fenced off for every place, so almost every team could get three matches. It's also a good format because the final matches are usually close. There were no pools. Instead the tableau was seeded by points based on letter/year ratings. Not perfect, but close enough.
We won our first match by a decent margin, then lost our next two by about the same margin. Our first two matches are in the big table on AskFred. The third one is in "Table H (loser finishes 4th)", which FencingTime calls, more sensibly, "Bronze medal match".
I was the anchor, the last fencer, in the second two matches. The first time we were down 34-40 and I had Matthew Comes. I only got one point. The second time I had Mark Blom at the end, who I feel like I've figured out to a degree. But the score was 30-40, so I had to score 15 points before he scord 5. And in less than three minutes. So there wasn't much hope. I managed to get eight points before he got five, mostly via doubles, so at least that felt rather nice.
FIRST MATCH
I did scribble some notes after our first match. We went up against team "IDK": Jeff Johnson, Jim Henderson, Garrett Armstrong, and Jeff Lucas. The first bout was me and Jeff Lucas. He was the alternate. They switched him out for Jeff Johnson after this first bout. I felt bad beating Jeff Lucas 5-0 but, well, it's a tournament. You do what you must. Afterward he was annoyed. Not at me but at the whole situation, and called it quits and went home. He told me his team told him to play a defensive game, which made some sense but probably wasn't the best idea, given his style. Had he been fencing more like he usually does he probably would have gotten at least a double touch or two against me. Ah well, I did feel bad. Still, starting off 5-0 in a team event is a nice thing. We kept a lead the rest of the way. If they hadn't had an alternate I'd have fenced Jeff Johnson first and chances are he'd have beaten me, or at least it would have been a lot closer.
My second bout was with Garrett Armstrong. I got a couple good points in near the start, then made a couple of bad attacks that failed and gave him points. At one point my attack missed and his point got my back hip, but in an odd way, kind of tucked into the seams. It didn't go off. He had his epee checked but it was fine. It just landed in an odd way. The bout began with my team up a good amount and I was able to get us to the next five point break. I can't remember how many points he got. Three?
It was interesting to watch Perth fence Jeff Johnson. I had warned him about Jeff's style, but he still got in a fair number of his standard attacks. But Perth got some nice hits on Jeff. At least two lovely fast fleches that doubled—being in the lead it was fine to double. For the final point Perth made a nice fake that got Jeff to bite, and Perth did a kind of cutover counter to his arm, for a single light. Very nice. I think Jeff scored more than five, but we still kept the lead.
My third bout was with Jim Henderson—it was the second to last bout. We seem to go back and forth and I wasn't sure how things would go this time. I got two or three nice shallow hits, just in distance. In one case we had a minor exchange, then a moment pause, his arm slightly raised and looking like an invitation. The distance felt just close enough and I made a simple straight attack and got his arm, to maybe both of our surprises. I made a couple of mistakes and he got two, possibly three points, to my five. Kundry thanked me for giving her the last bout with a score of 30-40.
Kundry had the final bout with Jeff Johnson. As with Perth it was interesting to watch. She had seen enough of his fencing, along with my advice, to know what to expect. I'm still not sure how she got her points, but she scored five points to his four. So we won, yay!
SECOND MATCH
We watched the match that would decide who we had next. It was team "Rebel Scum" (Kyle Margolies, Jameson Lu, and Svetoslav Dimitrov) or "Darth Maulers" (Matthew Comes, Robert Tiosejo, and Tzveti Dimitrova), both WFA teams. Matthew was obviously the ringer in this group, but Rebel Scum did pretty well with him, maybe because they fence more often, being from the same club. I don't know. I was hoping Rebel Scum would win, not wanting to face Matthew. And it was pretty close. But Darth Maulers won 45-40. So we had to fence them.
Our plan, as Kundry put it, was to score lots of points against Robert and Tzveti, and try to keep the score low when facing Matthew. Well, scoring points on Robert and Tzveti was not so easy. I don't remember the details. I think I did alright with both of them, but scored more evenly instead of "a lot of points". I was given the anchor spot, to face Matthew at the end, with the idea that I had fenced him many times, while Kundry and Perth hadn't. I had a somewhat better idea of what not to do, at least. Well, by the time we reached the final bout we were down 34-40. Unsurprisingly Matthew finished me off easily enough. I got one point and at least that one felt pretty nice. Otherwise, oofta.
THIRD MATCH
Having won one and lost one put us in a semifinal match for third and fourth place, to my surprise. If we won this last match we'd get medals, which would be nice. We were up against team "Darth Old Guys": Mark Blom, Johannes Klein, and John Comes. Two lefties! Still seemed like a winnable match. I had fenced all three of these guys many times, but I don't think Kundry or Perth had at all. So I gave what advice I could and was made the anchor against Mark Blom.
If I remember right I had the first bout, with John Comes. Again I've forgotten the details. I think he won, but only 5-4. Not a bad start. But we slipped from there, with a point gap opening up wider and wider. I had trouble with Johannes, scoring three, maybe four to his five, I think. Kundry and Perth had some good moments. Both had trouble with Mark Blom, I think. So by the time we reached the final bout it was 30-40. I felt confident against Mark Blom, but that was too large a hole! Still I would try. Obviously I had to attack a lot. There was only three minutes. If time ran out and they were ahead, they would win. Mark had only to kill time and look for doubles. Perhaps this made him fence in a way that was actually easier for me. In short I was quite aggressive, throwing out hard beats and fleching. I got a good number of points, some of which felt quite nice. Early on I launched a beat-fleche that worked nicely. Shortly after I tried again, but was not quite as close. Mark had a chance to pick my arm as I flew in, but missed. I remember the instant of feeling the edge of his blade on my arm as I reached for his shoulder. A nice feeling, if a little lucky. A point or two after that I tried the beat-fleche a third time and that time he did pick me off. Basically, if he gave me his blade I would try an attack with a hard beat. If he dropped his blade into an absence position I might try a low line. I think I got his leg once or twice that way.
Anyway, I put my all into it and scored eight points before he got the five he needed. At least three of his points were doubles. All in all, although we lost, that last bout felt good and I was fairly happy with the result.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
SAS Open Epee #1
SAS Open Epee #1
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31620&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=124588
A small, local tournament. Very local: my club, yay! Called "#1" because, I assume, it is the club's first open epee tournament of this season. There will be another one or two, later.
I like these little SAS open tournaments. Because they are easy to get to, for one. Also they tend to get a small but decent number of fencers with a good mix of skill. And they are pretty relaxed, and most of us know each other. I got my E at one of these, in part because there were just enough people and ratings to make it an A1. This time it was only a B1. There were three A-rated fencers, but no Bs. One more A or B would have made it an A1, probably. Not that such things mattered to me: I'm more than content with a C rating, for now.
I didn't do as well as I was hoping, but enjoyed it anyway. I lost a couple pool bouts I thought I might be able to win. Then I had a "winnable" DE, and had the lead and a sense of controlling the bout most of the way. But near the end there was a shift that I didn't figure out and adapt to, and I ended up losing. I felt like I had dropped the ball in that bout, and as a result came in 13th out of 17. Had I won, and then lost the next no doubt, to Yuly, I'd have a much better final result. Well, maybe only 8th, due to a lackluster pool.
I stuck around and watched the rest, enjoying it. Joel Howard did well, finally getting that D that's eluded him for too long. Garrett Armstrong did well too, renewing his C. Unsurprisingly the final was between two of the A fencers: Matthew Comes and Andrew Lee. Andrew won, his calm control making it look easy. In the semifinal Andrew and Yuly fenced, both working very hard. Andrew won, apparently the first time he's beaten Yuly.
POOLS
We had three pools. With three A-fencers and no Bs, it felt like there was a ringer in each pool. I had the pool with Andrew Lee. Each pool had one or two SAS fencers. The other SAS guy in my pool was Jim Arrigoni.
Being clubmates, Jim Arrigoni and I fenced first. We fence all the time and have for years now. We know each other's style very well, and our fencing often becomes layers of knowing how the other will likely react. In practice we fence in a rather lighthearted way. We hadn't fenced in a tournament in years. It felt a bit odd and maybe even wrong to go at it more seriously, more carefully and with less risk-taking than I might in practice. But I did. Mostly I tried to set up distance traps, so that distance would collapse and I could attack, or distance would expand and he'd attack from too far.
Mostly it worked like that. As usual I had a semi-rough start, even though I had warmed up pretty well. I think we traded points, or doubled, to 2-2. Then I started to feel more in the groove. He fleched from too far, perhaps thanks to my trying to set up distance traps. He disengaged to the inside, but early enough that I had time to go into a prime parry and score as he passed. Then, after more working the distance, he seemed to step in too close and I attacked straight in, hitting before his parry could stop me. That made it 4-2. I forget the details of the final point. I think it was a similar distance type thing, but he managed a double. So I won 5-3.
Second bout was with Svetoslav Dimitrov. I think it was the third time we've fenced. The first being a DE in which he fleched a lot and I won, mostly with counterattacks and distance. The second was a pool bout in which I expected fleches but he was defensive and I lost. This time was similar. He was quite defensive. I think he's a relatively new fencer and has apparently crossed the point of being attack-happy, as many people are at first, to a more epee-appropriate defensive approach. I certainly went through a similar process.
Anyway, he is young and fast, and his defensive is good. I had trouble getting him to bite on my feints and invitations, traps, etc. As we hooked up I noticed the sun was shining brightly through the windows at my end of the strip. So I thought, hey, maybe I can use this. Maybe I can pull him back toward my end of the strip where the brightness would be to my advantage. But his defensive thing, coupled with my love of advancing (not always wisely), resulted in most of the fencing happening near his end of the strip. That was okay, I like fencing near the far end of the strip. So I pushed him back and threw out all the feints and invitations I could, trying to get him to attack at the wrong time. He wouldn't bite. So I kept pushing, getting him near the back line. Eventually he had to attack, right? But I get nervous when I have someone at the very end of the strip (I like being near their end more than right at the end), and worry that if I get too eager to push them I'll end up closing the distance too much. So I ended up not pushing him as much as I could have, or should have, near the strip end.
I didn't write notes for every point, but the basic idea was that I was too impatient, compared to his patient defense especially. And when I attacked I felt awkward and even spastic. I tried attacking with beats, but often missed his blade. I fleched poorly, right into his parries. In short, he got point after point and won 5-1. I don't even remember how I got the one point. About halfway through I fleched badly and ended up impaling my thigh on his point, so badly that his epee got a big bend in it. He tried to straighten it, but had trouble getting it right. It was a nasty bend and I felt a little bad. It was totally the fault of my awkward fleche. After a bit of trying to fix it he just changed weapons and went on to take me down point by point. I suppose the first DE I had with him, where he fleched a lot, won't happen again, not that way. Main lesson learned: More patience! Even if I'm losing—better to lose 3-1 than 5-1, right?
Next up was Jeff Johnson. I've written about fencing him a few times recently here. Suffice it to say I expected him to be very defensive and use a lot of absence of blade. And I figured my plan should involve patience, second-intention-type attempts to draw an attack, protection of my outside line, and the use of beats whenever possible. Also, I had imagined dealing with his outside line arm attack by using a wide six parry—wide enough to stop his leftie angulation, and wide enough that a riposte from six might be hard, so maybe if I caught him in six I would try to transfer to prime. He surprised me by attacking a lot more than I expected. I had figured I would have to work hard to get him to attack at all, but he attacked quite a bit without any help from me. And my six-focused plan failed, as his attacks tended to disengage to the inside. My "wide" six parries certainly helped him in this way. He got me this way two or three times before I started to wise up, by which time the bout was about over. At first I thought maybe he was attacking more than expected because he knew or could guess what my plan would be—since I like talking about tactics with him and basically tell him my plans after bouts (and write about it here). But watching other bouts, he seemed to be attacking more than I expected in general.
Anyway, although I lost it was a pretty good bout. I got the first point with a beat attack, as he kindly put his blade out just the way I like. Then, as I tried to set things up he got me with that disengaging attack two or maybe three times. He also got a lovely hand hit that felt, to me, somewhat "lucky", but somewhat good in keeping his point in the right place. In this way he got up 4-1. Ack. I finally started to grasp the way he was fencing that day, not like I was expecting. I had been very cautious, so i figured an aggressive change-up might work. So I did a fast charge-fleche right off the line, with a beat in there I think, and scored, perhaps surprising him. Okay, 4-2. Then I thought I would fake the same thing but stop short, hopefully triggering a reaction that would create an opening. It half worked. I charged, he retreated and counterattacked as I stopped, falling short. Then I tried to beat attack into his counter, a broken time kind of thing I guess. It worked in that I scored, but he got his point back on in time to make it a double. So he won, 5-3. The bout didn't go the way I had hoped—I wanted to win! But from being down 4-1 I was okay with losing 5-3.
The next bout was with Michael Schwartz. We hadn't fenced before, although we were both in the recent Thursday night vet tournament. I think he, or someone, said he was pretty new. I'm guessing that means he's either recently returned to fencing or new to the area, because he's pretty strong. I'd guess he used to fence and took a long break. He seems to have that "bit rusty but knows his stuff" feel. Watching him in other bouts I noted his good prime parry, his speed and strength. I went in thinking I would try to avoid getting too close. I didn't want to fleche into that prime, or to infight at all, if I could help it. My plan was to stay shallow, try to work the distance with fast in and out footwork. Maybe try that "seconde smack" thing, and generally break things up with beats and retreats.
Thing began badly. He got the first two points. In my notes I just wrote "too impatient not focused". I tried to be more careful and focused. I got a couple points, I don't remember how. But he racked up a couple more, making the score 4-2. Yet again I was one point from losing, with a long way to go for myself. I needed single lights, so was very cautious and shallow, but tried to stay very active and focused. I got the next point with a strong up-beat and hand pick. That felt nice and gave me a little confidence. Then we maneuvered a bit. I threw out a few "seconde sweeps", in part hoping to look like invitations to go high, in part hoping to prep a change-up. After a bit I came in a bit harder with a strong seconde smack following immediately with a six, hoping to get a nice opposition attack in six. He brought his blade up into my six, but with enough strength to block my opposition attack. As distance closed I instinctively turned my hand and replaced my tip lower to his thigh, hitting and getting a single, yay. I had tied it 4-4. Then we maneuvered a little again and he made a mistake, basically. He extended from far enough to not be a real threat, and I made a simple counter and hit his extended arm. So I came back from 4-2 to win, 5-4. That felt nice. And it was a fun bout all around. I hope we'll get to fence more in the future.
My final pool bout was with Andrew Lee. I would try my best, of course, but didn't expect to win. But I didn't expect to lose 5-0 either, which is what happened, argh. I noted that there were many "almost things, but he is just too fast". Like one time we had an exchange and it seemed like I had a chance to launch a direct attack to his chest, as he pulled his arm back and retreated. I tried and watched as my tip reached just to about an inch from his chest as he retreated—and seemingly calmly too, like an inch is a million miles. Once or twice we got into infighting and my prime landed flat, while he hit. He also got a very nice toe touch. Well done. Five to zero, oof.
I realized after this tournament that I haven't been working on toe touches since we moved to our new space. For some reason we haven't put in the grounded metal strips yet. Without them I've been reluctant to work on toe touches, since so often it is hard to tell if they are floor hits or not. But Andrew's toe touch was unquestionably good. And in practice both Travis and Monica have gotten me with them. So in the last week I've begun working on them again—and decided that the lack of a grounded strip makes it necessary to practice better toe touches. So maybe that is a good thing.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
So I came out of the pools two and three, with a -9 indicator. Not great. That made me 13th seed. Russ, who was running the tournament, printed out the pool results and taped them up. As I looked, far enough to not quite read it right, Yuly came round asking who was 12th seed. It looked like I was so I said "me", and he said that meant we'd fence each other. I thought "oh great", a DE with Yuly? Should I just go home now? But I had misread the sheet from afar. I was 13th seed. So my DE would be with Jim Henderson, who was 4th seed (well done, Jim!). Yuly had Michael Schwartz, and then either me or Jim (Yuly beat Michael a lot better than I had in pools).
So, Jim Henderson. That seemed "winnable". The last few times we fenced I had done well, mostly, if I remember right. I felt like I knew what to do, more or less. Mainly it involved being patient and not doing anything rash, being wary of his good acceleration attacks and his good parry-ripostes; using beats a lot, for attacks as well as breaking things up.
That somewhat vague plan worked well at first, and I got up quite a bit, mostly using, I wrote down "beats and care". Even with trying to be patient I began to feel like I was not patient enough. In DEs I've been trying to keep the first period score fairly low, and we were getting near ten points. Then again, I was ahead and things seemed to be working, so why not? Toward the end of the period he caught up a little. We ended the period 10-8. I didn't have a coach to talk to, but someone, Perth I think, talked to me a little. Mostly I felt like I knew what to do and just had to keep doing it, without screwing up. Patience, care, beats...
The second period didn't go as well. We had a lot of doubles and he got some singles. He had adjusted slightly in a way I couldn't figure out. He tied it, then took the lead. My confidence eroded and I became a bit unsure. We got to 14-13. I probably should have taken extra care at that point, but my impatience that day took over and I tried a surprise fast attack. It was from too far and basically gave him an easy point and the win.
Well, he fenced smart. I had a nice early lead and he adjusted in a way that worked, and that I couldn't quite see. Later I went and simply asked him if he had adjusted somehow. He said "oh yes". I had meant the question as also "what did you do?" When he didn't say I asked bluntly, but he just smiled and wouldn't say, which made me laugh. Me, I'm very open about tactics and love talking about them, maybe sometimes to my detriment in local tournaments like this one. And I have no qualms asking people outright what they did. If they don't want to say, that's perfectly fine.
I tried to think it through a bit more as I watched the rest of the tournament, but didn't get any insights. I realized though that I couldn't remember the details of the bout too well, especially the second half. To me that means I hadn't been paying attention as closely as I could have, and should have, during the bout. So, although I didn't figure out what he was doing, I did realize something I wasn't doing. Focus. And that is something I've been working on in practice. My natural state is somewhat distracted, but I certainly know how to focus, moment-to-moment, when I remember to. It's almost like flipping a switch. I just have to remember to do it. Inevitably I slip back into less focus. The practice is working to more frequently and consistently remember to flip that switch. It's a lot like meditation, but a lot less passive. I think I've gotten the hang of it. I just have to remember to do it.
Other highlights of the day. Joel Howard and John Comes had an excellent and close bout, Joel winning 15-13. With his pool results that was enough to get him a D, which has been a long time coming. Jim and Mark Benack did not get byes and fenced each other. Jim did pretty well at first, but fell for Mark's flick more and more, and lost in the end, 15-13. Tobias Lee had a very close bout with Jeff Johnson, winning 15-14. I only saw a bit of that one. That put Tobias and Andrew Lee against each other round of eight, which was fun to watch. I remember when Andrew was a U, and over time Tobias saying it was getting harder and harder fencing his son. And nowadays it certainly is. Andrew won 15-8. The final point involved Andrew chasing Tobias down the strip, in what looked like the very thing I've done with Tobias sometimes—chasing, inevitably to get picked off. But Andrew chased him down to the end then fleched, and scored. Man, if I tried that it would be suicide!
Garrett Armstrong did well, beating Carlo, then Joel, to reach the semifinals, where Matthew Comes beat him soundly. Garrett renewed his C, which was getting a bit old. Yuly and Andrew fenced in the other semifinal. They both put a lot of energy into it and were breathing hard at the end. It was fairly close, but Andrew seemed more in control and kept a lead through most or all of it, winning 15-12. Tobias said it was the first time he had beaten Yuly, so that was exciting. I thought surely Andrew had beaten him before, sometime or other, but I guess not.
The final was Andrew and Matthew Comes. I knew they had fenced a lot before. Being a little surprised that Andrew hadn't beaten Yuly before I asked Tobias if he had beaten Matthew before. Tobias said "oh yes, lots of times". Heh. They are nearly the same age and have improved from beginners to A-rated fencers over the same years in the same local area (I just checked—Matthew is a year older; Andrew still qualifies as cadet, Matthew doesn't, I think). So yea, they've probably fenced many times over this period. Yuly, on the other hand, moved to the area more recently, was already A-rated, and is something near ten years older. Anyway, in big tournaments like NACs Matthew seems to usually do better than Andrew, although both tend to do pretty well. This weekend, as I write this, they fenced Junior Epee at a NAC. They both did well, but Matthew did very well, coming in 6th. I think Matthew' often does well at big events where he fences people unfamiliar with his somewhat odd style. Whereas Andrew's style is more "normal". I guess I'm speculating that Matthew benefits more when fencing people who don't know him. But with someone like Andrew, who has been fencing Matthew since they were beginners, things are different. Matthew can't surprise Andrew the way he can with many others. [EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood, or Toby was joking, or something: This was actually the first time Andrew beat Matthew in a 15 point DE. Yuly and Matthew. So my random speculation in this paragraph might not be quite right. And, so it was a doubly awesome tournament for Andrew!]
It was a fun bout to watch, and fairly close. But Andrew seemed more in control and ended up winning 15-12. I watched, hoping to learn something about how to fence Matthew. But I don't think I learned much. Andrew made it look rather easy. There were many times when it looked like Matthew scored or at least doubled, but instead Andrew got a single light. And mostly I couldn't tell how he did it, unless it was magic.
https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=31620&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=124588
A small, local tournament. Very local: my club, yay! Called "#1" because, I assume, it is the club's first open epee tournament of this season. There will be another one or two, later.
I like these little SAS open tournaments. Because they are easy to get to, for one. Also they tend to get a small but decent number of fencers with a good mix of skill. And they are pretty relaxed, and most of us know each other. I got my E at one of these, in part because there were just enough people and ratings to make it an A1. This time it was only a B1. There were three A-rated fencers, but no Bs. One more A or B would have made it an A1, probably. Not that such things mattered to me: I'm more than content with a C rating, for now.
I didn't do as well as I was hoping, but enjoyed it anyway. I lost a couple pool bouts I thought I might be able to win. Then I had a "winnable" DE, and had the lead and a sense of controlling the bout most of the way. But near the end there was a shift that I didn't figure out and adapt to, and I ended up losing. I felt like I had dropped the ball in that bout, and as a result came in 13th out of 17. Had I won, and then lost the next no doubt, to Yuly, I'd have a much better final result. Well, maybe only 8th, due to a lackluster pool.
I stuck around and watched the rest, enjoying it. Joel Howard did well, finally getting that D that's eluded him for too long. Garrett Armstrong did well too, renewing his C. Unsurprisingly the final was between two of the A fencers: Matthew Comes and Andrew Lee. Andrew won, his calm control making it look easy. In the semifinal Andrew and Yuly fenced, both working very hard. Andrew won, apparently the first time he's beaten Yuly.
POOLS
We had three pools. With three A-fencers and no Bs, it felt like there was a ringer in each pool. I had the pool with Andrew Lee. Each pool had one or two SAS fencers. The other SAS guy in my pool was Jim Arrigoni.
Being clubmates, Jim Arrigoni and I fenced first. We fence all the time and have for years now. We know each other's style very well, and our fencing often becomes layers of knowing how the other will likely react. In practice we fence in a rather lighthearted way. We hadn't fenced in a tournament in years. It felt a bit odd and maybe even wrong to go at it more seriously, more carefully and with less risk-taking than I might in practice. But I did. Mostly I tried to set up distance traps, so that distance would collapse and I could attack, or distance would expand and he'd attack from too far.
Mostly it worked like that. As usual I had a semi-rough start, even though I had warmed up pretty well. I think we traded points, or doubled, to 2-2. Then I started to feel more in the groove. He fleched from too far, perhaps thanks to my trying to set up distance traps. He disengaged to the inside, but early enough that I had time to go into a prime parry and score as he passed. Then, after more working the distance, he seemed to step in too close and I attacked straight in, hitting before his parry could stop me. That made it 4-2. I forget the details of the final point. I think it was a similar distance type thing, but he managed a double. So I won 5-3.
Second bout was with Svetoslav Dimitrov. I think it was the third time we've fenced. The first being a DE in which he fleched a lot and I won, mostly with counterattacks and distance. The second was a pool bout in which I expected fleches but he was defensive and I lost. This time was similar. He was quite defensive. I think he's a relatively new fencer and has apparently crossed the point of being attack-happy, as many people are at first, to a more epee-appropriate defensive approach. I certainly went through a similar process.
Anyway, he is young and fast, and his defensive is good. I had trouble getting him to bite on my feints and invitations, traps, etc. As we hooked up I noticed the sun was shining brightly through the windows at my end of the strip. So I thought, hey, maybe I can use this. Maybe I can pull him back toward my end of the strip where the brightness would be to my advantage. But his defensive thing, coupled with my love of advancing (not always wisely), resulted in most of the fencing happening near his end of the strip. That was okay, I like fencing near the far end of the strip. So I pushed him back and threw out all the feints and invitations I could, trying to get him to attack at the wrong time. He wouldn't bite. So I kept pushing, getting him near the back line. Eventually he had to attack, right? But I get nervous when I have someone at the very end of the strip (I like being near their end more than right at the end), and worry that if I get too eager to push them I'll end up closing the distance too much. So I ended up not pushing him as much as I could have, or should have, near the strip end.
I didn't write notes for every point, but the basic idea was that I was too impatient, compared to his patient defense especially. And when I attacked I felt awkward and even spastic. I tried attacking with beats, but often missed his blade. I fleched poorly, right into his parries. In short, he got point after point and won 5-1. I don't even remember how I got the one point. About halfway through I fleched badly and ended up impaling my thigh on his point, so badly that his epee got a big bend in it. He tried to straighten it, but had trouble getting it right. It was a nasty bend and I felt a little bad. It was totally the fault of my awkward fleche. After a bit of trying to fix it he just changed weapons and went on to take me down point by point. I suppose the first DE I had with him, where he fleched a lot, won't happen again, not that way. Main lesson learned: More patience! Even if I'm losing—better to lose 3-1 than 5-1, right?
Next up was Jeff Johnson. I've written about fencing him a few times recently here. Suffice it to say I expected him to be very defensive and use a lot of absence of blade. And I figured my plan should involve patience, second-intention-type attempts to draw an attack, protection of my outside line, and the use of beats whenever possible. Also, I had imagined dealing with his outside line arm attack by using a wide six parry—wide enough to stop his leftie angulation, and wide enough that a riposte from six might be hard, so maybe if I caught him in six I would try to transfer to prime. He surprised me by attacking a lot more than I expected. I had figured I would have to work hard to get him to attack at all, but he attacked quite a bit without any help from me. And my six-focused plan failed, as his attacks tended to disengage to the inside. My "wide" six parries certainly helped him in this way. He got me this way two or three times before I started to wise up, by which time the bout was about over. At first I thought maybe he was attacking more than expected because he knew or could guess what my plan would be—since I like talking about tactics with him and basically tell him my plans after bouts (and write about it here). But watching other bouts, he seemed to be attacking more than I expected in general.
Anyway, although I lost it was a pretty good bout. I got the first point with a beat attack, as he kindly put his blade out just the way I like. Then, as I tried to set things up he got me with that disengaging attack two or maybe three times. He also got a lovely hand hit that felt, to me, somewhat "lucky", but somewhat good in keeping his point in the right place. In this way he got up 4-1. Ack. I finally started to grasp the way he was fencing that day, not like I was expecting. I had been very cautious, so i figured an aggressive change-up might work. So I did a fast charge-fleche right off the line, with a beat in there I think, and scored, perhaps surprising him. Okay, 4-2. Then I thought I would fake the same thing but stop short, hopefully triggering a reaction that would create an opening. It half worked. I charged, he retreated and counterattacked as I stopped, falling short. Then I tried to beat attack into his counter, a broken time kind of thing I guess. It worked in that I scored, but he got his point back on in time to make it a double. So he won, 5-3. The bout didn't go the way I had hoped—I wanted to win! But from being down 4-1 I was okay with losing 5-3.
The next bout was with Michael Schwartz. We hadn't fenced before, although we were both in the recent Thursday night vet tournament. I think he, or someone, said he was pretty new. I'm guessing that means he's either recently returned to fencing or new to the area, because he's pretty strong. I'd guess he used to fence and took a long break. He seems to have that "bit rusty but knows his stuff" feel. Watching him in other bouts I noted his good prime parry, his speed and strength. I went in thinking I would try to avoid getting too close. I didn't want to fleche into that prime, or to infight at all, if I could help it. My plan was to stay shallow, try to work the distance with fast in and out footwork. Maybe try that "seconde smack" thing, and generally break things up with beats and retreats.
Thing began badly. He got the first two points. In my notes I just wrote "too impatient not focused". I tried to be more careful and focused. I got a couple points, I don't remember how. But he racked up a couple more, making the score 4-2. Yet again I was one point from losing, with a long way to go for myself. I needed single lights, so was very cautious and shallow, but tried to stay very active and focused. I got the next point with a strong up-beat and hand pick. That felt nice and gave me a little confidence. Then we maneuvered a bit. I threw out a few "seconde sweeps", in part hoping to look like invitations to go high, in part hoping to prep a change-up. After a bit I came in a bit harder with a strong seconde smack following immediately with a six, hoping to get a nice opposition attack in six. He brought his blade up into my six, but with enough strength to block my opposition attack. As distance closed I instinctively turned my hand and replaced my tip lower to his thigh, hitting and getting a single, yay. I had tied it 4-4. Then we maneuvered a little again and he made a mistake, basically. He extended from far enough to not be a real threat, and I made a simple counter and hit his extended arm. So I came back from 4-2 to win, 5-4. That felt nice. And it was a fun bout all around. I hope we'll get to fence more in the future.
My final pool bout was with Andrew Lee. I would try my best, of course, but didn't expect to win. But I didn't expect to lose 5-0 either, which is what happened, argh. I noted that there were many "almost things, but he is just too fast". Like one time we had an exchange and it seemed like I had a chance to launch a direct attack to his chest, as he pulled his arm back and retreated. I tried and watched as my tip reached just to about an inch from his chest as he retreated—and seemingly calmly too, like an inch is a million miles. Once or twice we got into infighting and my prime landed flat, while he hit. He also got a very nice toe touch. Well done. Five to zero, oof.
I realized after this tournament that I haven't been working on toe touches since we moved to our new space. For some reason we haven't put in the grounded metal strips yet. Without them I've been reluctant to work on toe touches, since so often it is hard to tell if they are floor hits or not. But Andrew's toe touch was unquestionably good. And in practice both Travis and Monica have gotten me with them. So in the last week I've begun working on them again—and decided that the lack of a grounded strip makes it necessary to practice better toe touches. So maybe that is a good thing.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
So I came out of the pools two and three, with a -9 indicator. Not great. That made me 13th seed. Russ, who was running the tournament, printed out the pool results and taped them up. As I looked, far enough to not quite read it right, Yuly came round asking who was 12th seed. It looked like I was so I said "me", and he said that meant we'd fence each other. I thought "oh great", a DE with Yuly? Should I just go home now? But I had misread the sheet from afar. I was 13th seed. So my DE would be with Jim Henderson, who was 4th seed (well done, Jim!). Yuly had Michael Schwartz, and then either me or Jim (Yuly beat Michael a lot better than I had in pools).
So, Jim Henderson. That seemed "winnable". The last few times we fenced I had done well, mostly, if I remember right. I felt like I knew what to do, more or less. Mainly it involved being patient and not doing anything rash, being wary of his good acceleration attacks and his good parry-ripostes; using beats a lot, for attacks as well as breaking things up.
That somewhat vague plan worked well at first, and I got up quite a bit, mostly using, I wrote down "beats and care". Even with trying to be patient I began to feel like I was not patient enough. In DEs I've been trying to keep the first period score fairly low, and we were getting near ten points. Then again, I was ahead and things seemed to be working, so why not? Toward the end of the period he caught up a little. We ended the period 10-8. I didn't have a coach to talk to, but someone, Perth I think, talked to me a little. Mostly I felt like I knew what to do and just had to keep doing it, without screwing up. Patience, care, beats...
The second period didn't go as well. We had a lot of doubles and he got some singles. He had adjusted slightly in a way I couldn't figure out. He tied it, then took the lead. My confidence eroded and I became a bit unsure. We got to 14-13. I probably should have taken extra care at that point, but my impatience that day took over and I tried a surprise fast attack. It was from too far and basically gave him an easy point and the win.
Well, he fenced smart. I had a nice early lead and he adjusted in a way that worked, and that I couldn't quite see. Later I went and simply asked him if he had adjusted somehow. He said "oh yes". I had meant the question as also "what did you do?" When he didn't say I asked bluntly, but he just smiled and wouldn't say, which made me laugh. Me, I'm very open about tactics and love talking about them, maybe sometimes to my detriment in local tournaments like this one. And I have no qualms asking people outright what they did. If they don't want to say, that's perfectly fine.
I tried to think it through a bit more as I watched the rest of the tournament, but didn't get any insights. I realized though that I couldn't remember the details of the bout too well, especially the second half. To me that means I hadn't been paying attention as closely as I could have, and should have, during the bout. So, although I didn't figure out what he was doing, I did realize something I wasn't doing. Focus. And that is something I've been working on in practice. My natural state is somewhat distracted, but I certainly know how to focus, moment-to-moment, when I remember to. It's almost like flipping a switch. I just have to remember to do it. Inevitably I slip back into less focus. The practice is working to more frequently and consistently remember to flip that switch. It's a lot like meditation, but a lot less passive. I think I've gotten the hang of it. I just have to remember to do it.
Other highlights of the day. Joel Howard and John Comes had an excellent and close bout, Joel winning 15-13. With his pool results that was enough to get him a D, which has been a long time coming. Jim and Mark Benack did not get byes and fenced each other. Jim did pretty well at first, but fell for Mark's flick more and more, and lost in the end, 15-13. Tobias Lee had a very close bout with Jeff Johnson, winning 15-14. I only saw a bit of that one. That put Tobias and Andrew Lee against each other round of eight, which was fun to watch. I remember when Andrew was a U, and over time Tobias saying it was getting harder and harder fencing his son. And nowadays it certainly is. Andrew won 15-8. The final point involved Andrew chasing Tobias down the strip, in what looked like the very thing I've done with Tobias sometimes—chasing, inevitably to get picked off. But Andrew chased him down to the end then fleched, and scored. Man, if I tried that it would be suicide!
Garrett Armstrong did well, beating Carlo, then Joel, to reach the semifinals, where Matthew Comes beat him soundly. Garrett renewed his C, which was getting a bit old. Yuly and Andrew fenced in the other semifinal. They both put a lot of energy into it and were breathing hard at the end. It was fairly close, but Andrew seemed more in control and kept a lead through most or all of it, winning 15-12. Tobias said it was the first time he had beaten Yuly, so that was exciting. I thought surely Andrew had beaten him before, sometime or other, but I guess not.
The final was Andrew and Matthew Comes. I knew they had fenced a lot before. Being a little surprised that Andrew hadn't beaten Yuly before I asked Tobias if he had beaten Matthew before. Tobias said "oh yes, lots of times". Heh. They are nearly the same age and have improved from beginners to A-rated fencers over the same years in the same local area (I just checked—Matthew is a year older; Andrew still qualifies as cadet, Matthew doesn't, I think). So yea, they've probably fenced many times over this period. Yuly, on the other hand, moved to the area more recently, was already A-rated, and is something near ten years older. Anyway, in big tournaments like NACs Matthew seems to usually do better than Andrew, although both tend to do pretty well. This weekend, as I write this, they fenced Junior Epee at a NAC. They both did well, but Matthew did very well, coming in 6th. I think Matthew' often does well at big events where he fences people unfamiliar with his somewhat odd style. Whereas Andrew's style is more "normal". I guess I'm speculating that Matthew benefits more when fencing people who don't know him. But with someone like Andrew, who has been fencing Matthew since they were beginners, things are different. Matthew can't surprise Andrew the way he can with many others. [EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood, or Toby was joking, or something: This was actually the first time Andrew beat Matthew in a 15 point DE. Yuly and Matthew. So my random speculation in this paragraph might not be quite right. And, so it was a doubly awesome tournament for Andrew!]
It was a fun bout to watch, and fairly close. But Andrew seemed more in control and ended up winning 15-12. I watched, hoping to learn something about how to fence Matthew. But I don't think I learned much. Andrew made it look rather easy. There were many times when it looked like Matthew scored or at least doubled, but instead Andrew got a single light. And mostly I couldn't tell how he did it, unless it was magic.
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