I'm going to give myself a 'B' ranking.

[Bugaboo]

Rather than wait for the right competition to roll around to "prove" I'm a B-level fencer, I've decided to just declare it for myself and be done with it.

I'm not sure which route to take, though. Give me your opinions:

1. I simply send a letter to the appropriate USFA representatives asking them to update their records accordingly. If they fail to do so, I repeat the action until they get tired of hearing from me and give the B just to shut me up.

2. I register a bunch of imaginary fencers, establish my home residence as fencing club headquarters, hold a series of "tournaments" for my imaginary fencing troupe, and submit those results to the USFA until I've got enough falsely ranked opponents on record to support my own B.

The first ploy is cheaper, but requires that I have more patience than the USFA. The second ploy looks more successful, but it would involve a large investment of fees to support a decent number of false identities.

What say you?

[Azrael]

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.
Teach a man/woman to fence, and he/she will sit around all day thinking up imaginative ways to "beat" an otherwise inexact system.

Is there some monetary reward for being an 'A', 'B', or other rating? Does it somehow reflect on your resume? Enhance your linguistic skills? Enable you to divide by Zero? Have any useful impact on your life at all?

I suggest you just keep on fencing, and don't worry about the rating--unless you are of the school that believes that one's true worth as a human being is measurable (and therefore comparable) according to such trifling criteria.

If so, by all means launch your campaign. And good luck.

[ 10-16-2001: Message edited by: Azrael ]

[scarlet_woman156k]

Well put, Azrael.

[oiuyt]

While you're at it, hire a pair of A's for 4 tournaments and generate a ton of A's. With 15 newbie fencers, and by running 23 events (with 4 of those tournaments using the friendly hired A's) you can turn out 15 A's who don't know how to hold the weapon. Additional A's can be made by adding 1 extra tournament per additional fencer.
Registering 64 virtual fencers is a tad expensive and that still only gets you the B.... use a couple of compliant A's and you can get an A for yourself and all your friends. And it takes $2000 less in membership fees.

-B

[MattyCam]

OK,

Number one will take too long. I say number two works well. Try the Chicago-esque election style: read the obits from the last week or so and allocate ratings to those individuals. That usually produces a great volume of canidates for you to beat on your way to earning your B.

Matt

[MHS Fencer]

Try the Kansas City div II, it's easy enough if you don't mind having to stay overnight in Kansas, and it's cheaper than all of those membership fees.

BTW, since become a B I've gotten better at english, (even though it is my native language, then again, I attend public school). On the math front i cannot divide by zero, but i can do a bunch of other hard things (albeit not impossible). Other than that i've become smarter and gorgeous, as well as attaining perfection in all other aspects of my life (not including fencing - I still have that B).

In other words, my life is grand and I owe it all to my B.

-Ian

[oiuyt]

Mattycam- any made up names will do. You still need to register them all and them make up the results. Making up ratings won't be sufficient, the national office would detect that these ratings aren't actually assigned to the people in question. So you need to hold enough tournaments to build the required ratings. In this case, 4 tournaments to make 4 D's, another 24 tournaments to make 24 C's (and incidently the 12 needed D's), and 1 more tournament to make the B.

Ian- With 72 (or so depending on the weapon) people and only 4 B's there's a slight chance that there might actually be 4 deserving people already in the field. While your method obviously works for some, inventing people (or just taking a TON of new fencers) and holding a large number of well-planned tournaments would work for anyone.

-B
(who's just waiting for someone to come along and think that this discussion is actually serious and get offended.....)

[Bugaboo]

Ouch. I've got to invent 64 people and move them into a B4 event, as well as holding earlier competitions to get some of them to the required C-level. It might be cheaper to find two legitimate Bs and Cs who will let me pay them to use their names in a B1 event.

The letter-writing campaign sounds better all the time. I could supplement my plan with several midnight phone calls, too -- "So, have you given me a B yet? Huh? Have ya? Huh? How about that B? Give me a B and I'll let you go back to sleep. Eh? How about it? ..."

[MikeHarm]

From martial arts I've seen a lot of ways to get inflated credentials. One of the most amusing that I heard of was a place in Brazil where the fellow gave himself
'authentic' lineage by saying he learned after a meditation session he was reincarnated from a grandmaster of the style he wanted to claim knowledge of. You could go the same route by finding someone of the appropriate rating and simply have their ghost posess you, or be reincarnated from them and I think you're covered.

Mike

[oiuyt]

Bugaboo- don't forget you'll also need to hire 2 D's for that B1 event... and you're still inventing/registering another 8 people (in addition to yourself). I still say as long as you're willing to hire people, hire a pair of A's and get a better rating out of it. How much more expensive could it really be? And isn't an A worth at least that much more than a B? Just think, once YOU have it you might be able to recoup some of the investment by hiring yourself out for the same purpose.

-B

[BarryTice]

Um, y'know, it might be easier (and more fun) to go this route:

<Open cheek, insert tongue...>

Rather than hiring B's and C's to take dives in non-existent tournaments, hire B's and C's to come to a real tournament that is otherwise unadvertised (or underadvertised). Hold the event over two days, and host a party on Saturday night (before Sunday's finals).

I've heard of people fencing well a bit drunk, but I have yet to meet anyone who fences their best hung over. With the right mix of libations, and a shortage of anything healthy to drink being available, you can end up with a bunch of fencers in pretty sorry shape.

If you happen to be in Nevada, the addition of paid "companionship" for the night could keep the better fencers from getting any sleep at all. Hung-over, exhausted, sleep-deprived B's are the easiest kind to beat.

And remember, after the round of pools is done, if a fencer has to withdraw for health reasons it is equivalent to them losing their bout in the DEs. (Unlike if they have to withdraw during the pools, where it must be treated as though they never participated at all.)

So, if you can slip something into the food or drink to give everyone (except yourself, of course) a horrendous case of Montezuma's Revenge, nobody will be able to stand on the strip long enough to finish a DE bout (excepting you). There won't be a single bout fenced all of Sunday, but as the one fencer who hasn't withdrawn, you'll win (and the remaining places will be determined by people's order out of the pools, which should meet the other requirements for the B1, if you plan it correctly).

Note that this option also takes care of those who are unwilling to partake in the beer and hookers.

Of course this would also work for an A1 tournament, though it's harder to find A's who are willing to get schnockered the night before competing.

<open cheek, remove tongue>

-- b.r.t.

[Bugaboo]

An associate suggested an option I hadn't considered yet:

I could draw up false legal documents showing I had changed "my" original name from, say, Eric Hansen or Nathaniel Burke to my "new" name of B.U. Gaboo. And then I send a copy of that paperwork to the USFA (nowhere else) so they can revise their data to accurately reflect my identity. Instant A!

Alternately, I could break into the USFA office and change the records myself. But that seems somewhat dishonest, ya know?

[Buttercup]

LOL!!

[HilandDoug]

I am unrated, but if you go with the beer and hookers plan, count me in!

[MHS Fencer]

Hmm, ya know, you could just go to FCLI, they're already drunk while fencing and they have A tournaments... (then again, that's my plan for an A)

Apologies to those at FCLI who read this, but I know this has happened

-Ian

[Pommel]

Hmmmm..... Maybe I should stop by there as Justin has encouraged me to afterall....

[lochinvar]

I'm with you Doug!
Beer and Hookers...hmmm...could be a club theme there, somewhere...

[Bugaboo]

Delightful idea, guys, but the important thing is getting a higher ranking without actually "winning" it at a "competition."

Has anyone had any luck with usurping the identities of recently deceased fencers?

[veeco]

They would have to die young unfortunately. I don't know a lot of 70-80 year old Bs...

[Inquartata]

"Oh, B-have!"