3 man epee tourney

[bynadutch]

It has been forever since I posted here, the hazards of getting a real job I guess.
I am currently trying to plan a 3 man (person) epee team tournament in central Washington (the state), and was wondering if anyone had any ideas how to make this run the smoothest. I have only attended 'normal' tournaments up to this point. But I am commiting to this dream.
So, any help would be great, format, layout, minimum / maximum number of teams etcetc. would be nice.
Thanks for your help.

[Fechter1]

Format, you have essentially 2 choices: USFA(FIE) or NCAA style
USFA: cumulative scoring to 45
NCAA: by bouts won (5 touch bouts, nine of them)
No matter which you chose, keep in mind that each team match can take up to 1 hr (or even longer).
Tournament format: Usually done as a pool. Rarely you'll have enough teams to fill a DE table of 8. Again, the deciding factor will always be time (pool of 8 teams on 4 strips => 7 rounds, 7+ hours of fencing, 2 pools of 4 teams, then DE of 8 => 6 rounds, 6+ hours, pure DE of 8 => 3 rounds, just to give you a few examples) But the actual format is usually decided after registration, when you have all the entries.
Min/max number of teams: Remember, for every team match, each fencer gets to fence 3 bouts. That means you can run a decent tournament with only 4 teams (9 bouts each, ~3-4 hours fencing). Don't really know why you would want to institute a maximum limit, except for the time factor. But if you really wanted to, maybe make the limit 1 team from each club, style it as a club tournament?

Other than that, I can't think of anything else (then again, a lot of this seems intuitive to me, we've been running team tournaments for years).
Team scoresheets (which include bout/rotation order), are available on the USFA website, as are the standard pool sheets.

Hope that helps.

[kalivor]

Usually when I attend team tournaments, there are pools of three and four teams (unless there are only 5 teams present).

As Fechter pointed out, each team bout will last about an hour. If you're planning on having DEs, eight teams make for three rounds = three hours. If you have them in a pools of four, then the pools can be managed in about three hours as well, making for a nice tidy six hour day (plus requisite delays).

As the number of teams increases, the smaller pools become much more important. If you're planning on DEs, I wouldn't suggest pools of more than six teams.

Remember to doublecheck the fencing order -- ideally you'll have all the teams fencing at the same time rather than, say, four teams waiting while one fences. This occasionally means changing the fencing order on the poolsheets from what would normally be used in an individual competition.

[veeco]

If you've got the possibility to double strip, doing pools of 3 and pools of 4 will take the same time.

[edew]

While the FIE and the NCAA formats are two recognized formats, it doesn't mean you're limited to those two.

Make up something that might be fun and inventive.

Other possibilities may include unlimited scoring, but for 5 minutes gross time per fencer (except for time outs for injuries, and penalties for stalling).

Try and make something up yourself.

[bynadutch]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help, if you haven't piped up yet and still want to, just keep the ideas coming. I love to try new things.
I will let you know how it all turns out.

[yamashk]

I mentioned your potential tourney to some guys in my club and we're definitely interested in sending a team (we're from West o' the mtns). Any ideas as to when you'd be having it? Will you post it on askfred?

[Victor]

Most fencers are OK with the time involved, regardless of format. The biggest problem and complaints focus on the format itself.

Because local team events rarely attract enough competitors to form teams exactly equal to powers of two (2, 4, 8, etc.), a direct elimination means that someone always feels shorted for fencing time. ... Normally, the top positions love a DE bye; not so in a local team event -- we want bouts! ... The same problem holds true in the pools themselves, when you've got, maybe, 3 teams in one pool and 4 in another.

I've seen a variation of combined formats that works pretty well as far as pre-DE pools go. If you're limited for time, arrange the team registration cards in a circle: Each team will fence the teams to either side of it in the diagram. (They fence one team to the left on the circle, one team to the right.) That guarantees that everyone gets the same number of bouts going into Direct Elimination.

If you opt for the DE format, be sure to allow the odd team(s) out an opportunity to fence each other at the bottom of the brackets, even if it doesn't count toward their final standings. Again, the issue seems to be a matter of total fencing time.

I'm sure this only holds true at smaller local events, where there's more of an emphasis on having fun (or at least getting practice), and not so much about winning a national ranking. The top-finishers will walk away with bragging rights regardless, but you've got to recognize also the bottom guys who are really into it for the team-socialization time together.