Summer 1999 issue of American Fencing

[dberke]

Does anyone by chance have a copy of the Summer 1999 issue of American Fencing? Supposedly there was an article in it explaining how repechage works.

I'm in the processess of implementing repechage rounds in Fencing Time and I need some clarification on the rules regarding swapping fencers in the later tables to avoid duplicate matches. I'm hoping that the article in AF will explain this.

If anyone has the issue and can get me a copy of the article (either photocopied and snail-mailed or scanned and emailed) I'd appreciate it!

Also, if anyone has any other resources explaining the finer details of repechage, that would be appreciated too!

Thanks,
Dan

[Army Fencer]

Try this:

http://www.usfencing.org/Forms/score/DE32r.pdf

[nahouw]

I have written software to run competitions before you came out with FencingTime, and once you came out with it, we abandoned my application.

My application was half automated, and half cards. Seeding is the first problem, which with my application after the hand-seeding, the application handled it the rest of the way.

Repechage, doing it programmatically, is even more challenging then the seeding rules. That is why repechage needs to be done by somebody that understands that.

Basically, if you want to do it programmatically, you will first ensure that the matchups haven't been done before in a prior round. If they have, then you have to re-organize them based on initial seeding. If you then still have matchups that were played before, I don't know the rule to break them -- that is why repechage is hard, and when it gets down to the end, the final rule in fencing is that if you can't make anything under the rules work better than the situation you are in, then you have to leave it as is.

[edew]

In the repechage, you have fencers who won-then-lost. They get placed in a holding cell:

1. Will Loman
2. Walt Locke
3. Wim Luuven
4. Westly Landers

(I'm doing just four, but the point is the same for repechage with 8 fencers. Also, I can't come up with 8 male names starting with "W".)

Then you get fencers who lost-won. They go in their holding cell,

5. Larry Wand
6. Lance Wing
7. Leif Wanders
8. Lars Willem

Now, how they are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 6, 7, 8 is based, I believe on their original seeding. This might be wrong, so someone needs to check this portion.

In any case, you will expect 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, and 4 v 5. EXCEPT, we avoid double jeopardy. Which means if any of the above bouts involve fencers who already fenced each other, you must make switches. If everything works out correctly, you should expect 1 and 8 to have fenced before, as well as 2 and 7; 3 and 6; and 4 and 5.

If so, you need to flip the Lost-Won fencers to avoid the double jeopardy situation. What you do is flip from the bottom up, minimizing the amount of movement of fencers up and down the latter. Hence, you'll flip Leif and Lars, and you'll flip Larry and Lance. You wouldn't, for example, first flip Leif and Lars. Then realizing Lance had fenced Wim already, flip Lance and Lars (moving Lars up two steps in the ladder). Then, realizing that Larry and Will fenced before, flip Larry with Lars (thus moving Lars up THREE steps in the ladder). If you do that, you greatly benefit Westly, the supposed weakest of the Won-Lost fencers by having him fence the weakest of the Lost-Won fencers.

[peet]

Originally Posted by edew

1. Will Loman
2. Walt Locke
3. Wim Luuven
4. Westly Landers
5. Larry Wand
6. Lance Wing
7. Leif Wanders
8. Lars Willem
In any case, you will expect 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, and 4 v 5. EXCEPT, we avoid double jeopardy.
[snip...]
If so, you need to flip the Lost-Won fencers to avoid the double jeopardy situation. What you do is flip from the bottom up, minimizing the amount of movement of fencers up and down the latter.

Hoo boy, after a lot of head scratching, i think i have a sense of it, but:

What do you do if:
Will and Lars have fenced previously, so you switch Leif & Lars.
But:
You find that either:
Walt & Lars have also previously fenced,
Or:
Will and Leif have also previously fenced,
Making the flip cause the same problem it solved?

Is there any point in the procedure where people just say "hell that's good enough" and go with it?

And is this why the BC hates doing repechage?

-p

[edew]

That could not have happened in the DEs. If Lars fenced Will and Walt, then either Lars is out already, or Will or Walt won't be in the Win-Lose bracket.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by edew

(I'm doing just four, but the point is the same for repechage with 8 fencers. Also, I can't come up with 8 male names starting with "W".)

In the spirit of cooperation and threadjacking....

WADE
WAITE
WALDEMAR
WALDEN
WALDO
WALDRON
WALKER
WALLACE
WALLIS
WALLY
WALT
WALTER
WARD
WARNER
WARREN
WARRICK
WARWICK
WASAKI
WASEEM
And a whole bunch more available at hundreds of sites easily discoverable by Googling for "baby names." :)

-B :)

[Inquartata]

I still have all my old issues of AF ( I am a pack rat ). If you still want it, I'll see if I can find that one...but the downside of being a pack rat is that there're a LOT of boxes to look through. It may take some time.

[edew]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

In the spirit of cooperation and threadjacking....

WADE
WAITE
WALDEMAR
WALDEN
WALDO
WALDRON
WALKER
WALLACE
WALLIS
WALLY
WALT
WALTER
WARD
WARNER
WARREN
WARRICK
WARWICK
WASAKI
WASEEM
And a whole bunch more available at hundreds of sites easily discoverable by Googling for "baby names."

-B

Let's be realistic here. No one with such names would ever make it to repechage. Ok, maybe Ward, Wade and those I've used.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by edew

Let's be realistic here. No one with such names would ever make it to repechage. Ok, maybe Ward, Wade and those I've used.

Well, if the SYC events used repechage as announced.... :)

-B :)

[KD5MDK]

Then we'll have Wynstonn Smythh against Wait Philllips

There's a very funny site where a woman takes posts on a baby naming board and mocks the parents mercilessly.

Warrens can be very dangerous...