questions

[glowstix]

1. might end up being a dumb question but, can you look at the final placings of a tournament and tell who fenced who (besides the finals of course), based on where each fencer placed??

2. i was at a tournament a month (B1) ago and recalled that someone got a bye in the first round and the fencer he would have faced in round 2 got injured and pulled out but then he lost in the round of 8. he was the highest seed to lose in that round thus finishing 5th i think which is good for a D. is that even possible?? does the rating system allow you to earn a rating by getting byes like that??

[haroldbuck]

1. might end up being a dumb question but, can you look at the final placings of a tournament and tell who fenced who (besides the finals of course), based on where each fencer placed??

No, you can't always tell. Sometimes there are ties based on the pool results which are broken randomly for seeding purposed but which are not broken in the final results. Thus, you might see a three-way ties for sixth and not know who had been randomly given which seed.

Furthermore, any bouts that don't go according to seed affect the final order as well. For example, if 12 beats 5, and all other bouts go according to seed, the final results will look like

1
2
3
4
6
7
8
12

So looking at the top 8 doesn't really tell you who fenced whom.

2. i was at a tournament a month (B1) ago and recalled that someone got a bye in the first round and the fencer he would have faced in round 2 got injured and pulled out but then he lost in the round of 8. he was the highest seed to lose in that round thus finishing 5th i think which is good for a D. is that even possible?? does the rating system allow you to earn a rating by getting byes like that??

Well, to be fair, I don't know the answer to your question, but it doesn't seem to be so strange for me. First of all, he earned the bye in the first round based on his pool results. Secondly, if he had a bye, he was ranked higher than the person he was supposed to fence in the second round and thus, presumably, expected to beat that person (although we all know there were no guarantees).

[noodle]

yes, the rating system works like that.
for example, an B1 tournament requires 15 people. say a U rated fencer seeded first in a tournament with the exact 15 people needed to make the tournament run. the top seed gets a bye, while the rest get to fence each other. this U gets a bye into the top 8. if he loses his first bout, he drops into the top of the round he lost in, putting him in 5th place (one out of the top 4) and thus earns his D.