Tournament Report

The Pirate Olympics

53 fencers, A2 event.

A very bottom heavy A2 event. Over half of the fencers were Us and many of them were pretty much novices. But it was still a real fun tournament. They also held a team event and a one touch single elimination event. The main event ran very smoothly. The team and one touch had some jitters but that is to be expected. Although three of us went, we did not field a team. Tom hurt his hand during the event and wanted to take his wife out to eat, and we didn't rally someone else. If I had tried I could have gotten onto another team but when they made the final announcement for close of team registration I was reffing a quarter final bout I think.

Over all I did well. I ended up in 16th. Went three and two in a six man pool. which sounds better than it was. I could nitpick myself here because I really didn't fence that well in most of my bouts. but I won't. I'll be happy with what went well.
I fenced a DE bout with Charles Cory who, like most people I have coached, is always difficult for me. Charles had an awesome pool. he went 5 and 1 including taking Bruce Vail to overtime. So he had a much higher seed than I. He jumped out ahead of me at first with his usual long looping lefty counterattacks to my outside arm. I was able to neutralize his counters with a timing change taking advantage of a mistake he was making. that got me back on top before he fixed his mistake. The I spent the rest of the bout literally arguing with myself about trying the move again.
But I did convince myself to obey the rules and not go back to something that had stopped working. Then to finish off the bout I finally clicked on to how to stop the looping outside counters cold. I finally popped the correct parry for a second intention hit. Things went well. I was then eliminated by David Hueske (he got me last year at this event too) Hueske went on the final four and renewed his B.

I heard a fencer commenting that Miles Bengston was the best fencer a the event by far. He said, "no offense to Bruse, Bruce is really good, but Miles has got this" Well, the final score fothe first place bout was Vail 15 Bengston 3. Although Bruce did comment to me afterwords that Miles was "Going to be really scary in a couple of years"

Over all it was a very nice event. Too bad our more novice epeeists didn't make it.

Surprising

Looking at the new features of 14meters.com I discovered that over the last 5 years or so the two people I have fenced against most in competition are Charles Cory and Patricia Wilkins at 9 times. Not quite sure how that worked out. Tripp Hagan, Rob Mahling, Andrew Quattrociocchi, and Demetris McNelly are all tied for second at 8.

This is a really interesting site.

ugh

I have been reminded with the casual cruelty of reality that it is so much easier to stay in shape than it is to get in shape.

Some data

IN 2006 at the Geoff Elder, we had 21 fencers in the open epee and it was a B1 event. there were 6 fencers from the Atlanta area. (7 if you count Ben Mitchel but he was student here at the time I believe)3 from Savannah, 2 from Warner Robbins, 4 from South Carolina, and 6 from GASOU. (counting Ben.)

In the open foil we had 16 fencer and it was a C1. 10 of those were from GASOU. 1 from Florida, 1 from South Carolina, 3 from Atlanta and 1 from Warner Robbins.

Saber actually had 18 fencers and wad a D1. 4 GASOU, 3 South Carolina, 4 Savannah, 4 Atlanta, 1 Augusta, 1 Warner Robbins, and 1 from California.

Now compare to this year,

Open epee, 39 fencers, A1 event. Atlanta 9 fencers, GASOU 6 fencers, North Carolina 1 fencer.(although he may be in school in Atlanta) Savannah 5 fencers, Warner Robbins 4 fencers, South Carolina 7 fencers, Macon 1 fencer, Tennessee 2 fencers, Florida 2 fencers.

Open foil had 20 fencers and was a B1. GASOU 9 fencers, Florida 5 fencers, Warner Robbins/Wesleyan 3 fencers, Atlanta area, 1 fencers, Savannah 1 fencer, Tennessee 1 fencers.

Saber of course was a total bust.

IN 2008 we had 20 in the epee, 15 in the foil and 15 in the saber.

2009 43 in the epee, 47 in the foil, 15 in the saber.

2010 36 in epee, 39 in foil, and 10 in saber.

A couple of good years

1995 and 1996. I really had a good run during those years. It is hard to get real results from that time period because there was no such record keeper as askfred. But I took a look at my trophy shelf. I won the Geoff Elder in 95, I won the Sword in the Stone in 96, if I recall correctly, I won the MUGFEST at UGA. I also took 6th in the Southeast Sectional Championships. (All epee of course) I also won some tournament at Georgia Tech in 96 where I earned my first C. And I can't recall where but I remember I re earned that C the next week. I guess I should hunt through the medals and see if there was anything else Of interest in that time period. Maybe later.

Stats

I have been looking over the Online fencing journal at 14meters.com It shows some interesting stuff.

The win percentages alone are interesting. Since 2005, which is when I first started showing up on askfred, I have a 56.7 win percentage in epee bouts. (truth in advertising here, data for 05 and probably 06 is not complete, Fred was not widely used in this area at that time.) According to the data from Fred, in the 05-06 season I had a 60.9 % win ratio. Nice. In 06-07 it drops to 57.9, 07-08 it goes back up to 62.2, 08-09 it goes up again to 64.8, 09-10 it crashes to 42.7. Thus far in the 10-11 season my percentage is 25. Ugh.

There is a lot more data to mined from this stuff. I encourage you to give it a shot.

Wow

I knew I had fallen out of the competitive spirit but hadn't really realized how far until this past weekend. There was a NAC in Atlanta and I not only didn't go, I actually forgot about it. Usually I would have headed up there if not to fence, then to at least watch, visit the vendors, observe the refs, just to be part of the game. And I didn't. I just plain forgot about it. The club could have fielded an epee team.

Thinking about it, I have competed in ONE tournament this fall. One. In past years I have often got to three events a month.

I wonder if I am sick?