How does your approach to Direct Elimination bouts differ from Pools?

[chefencer]

Obviously different, describe your adjustments.

[downunder]

I dunno, that being at least one hit ahead by the end of time is pretty consistent across the board, heh.

[little_old_me]

Pool bouts are much shorter, thus the element of surprise is much more effective. 3 surprise touches in a pool bout is major, where in a DE it is insignifigant. During pools, I tend to just react. I'll usually be more aggressive and try some unusual things. In DE bouts, I tend to be more defensive. I know there is more time so I will be more patient.

Now, the wisdom and viability of this strategy has yet to be proven. Take this as you will.

[Mr Epee]

Obviously, this isn't the only difference, but it just occured to me

It may seem strange...

In a pool match - I'm generally working on scoring 5 touches.

In a DE - I'm generally trying to be ahead when the time runs out.

[chefencer]

Obviously, this isn't the only difference, but it just occured to me

It may seem strange...

In a pool match - I'm generally working on scoring 5 touches.

In a DE - I'm generally trying to be ahead when the time runs out.

I think that is a perfectly distilled description of the strategy of epee, actually...

[akaiyuki]

During pools, I tend to just react. I'll usually be more aggressive and try some unusual things. In DE bouts, I tend to be more defensive. I know there is more time so I will be more patient.

I'm the opposite. I tend to be more defensive and stick to what I do best in pools knowing that I don't have much room for mistakes. In DEs, I can try more unusual things as a few mistakes won't hurt me as much in DEs compared to pools.

In a DE - I'm generally trying to be ahead when the time runs out.

I'm evil and I do that for both pools and DEs anyway.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

In a pool bout, I am trying my hardest to assert my strongest qualities over my opponent. This means that during a pool, I'm often only using a couple of different actions (the ones I do best). Since its only a few points, I'm counting on my opponent to not be able to get crafty.

In a DE bout, I have to carefully plan when to use my good actions (so that my opponent does not catch on) and when to use my secondary actions (this is where they often score alot of points on me, but what is important is that when I need to, I can open up with my good actions to finish the bout in my favor. I only need to be ahead by a point when time runs out.)

[HDG]

Pool: I want to either win by a large margin or lose by a small margin; I'm thinking about seeding.

DE: I don't care if I win by 1 or by 15; I will play for time, and be more willing to run out the clock than I would normally be in a pool bout.

[Peach]

Pool: Trying to win all my bouts by as big a margin as possible, so I'm seeded high.
DE: Depends on where it is in the table. If I did my job in the pool, I'm trying not to work too hard or get too complicated if it's a first DE. I try to ramp up the intensity as I go. Sometimes I'm unsuccessful at this, as in Atlanta. Sometimes it works. Later DE: concentrate on setting up successful actions and score a majority of the points. If I have to give up a touch to gain three, I will.

[dramamine]

Good question! Very interesting.

Generally speaking in regards to pools I agree with some of the things people have said already. I try to work my strengths and not analyse too much; often a failed analysis can result in a lost touch but lead to several more later but in poules you don't really have that much time. I try to be clever and surprising but not complicated - say start with a really fast broken time attack and then suck them into counter time the next hit. Not the world's most brilliant plan but like I said, it's clever not complicated.

DE's I REALLY take my time, and instead of taking a lot of risks I just try and feel stuff out. It's not at all uncommon for the scores in my bouts at the one minute break to be like 3-3 or somewhere around there (foil).

Depends on the person I'm fencing too. If I'm fencing a crazy ass fencer who isn't that good but is squirmy or something I'll throw the gameplan above out the window and stick to super simple actions and be seriously patient, pool or not. If I'm fencing some dude who is insanely smart or analytical I might try to get it finished before the break kicks in during a DE.

[WhipLash]

agreed... interesting thread.

pools: have a plan before going in, based on your opponent's previous bouts. score 5 points on him while preventing him from scoring. keep things simple.

DE: formulate a plan while fencing the first few touches (unless you know the guy and how he fences). score enough for 2 or 3 points lead...then go defensive with some unexpected offense mixed in.

all the above applies for me, though i've seen others do the exact opposite. well... whatever rocks your boat i guess...

[purpzeyFCLI]

Personally I try to treat them in a similar fashion. I treat every touch as if it were the most important.

Pool or DE. Yes, in a DE I try to pace myself a bit better, but I don't forget that if I am in a pool the likelihood is that I'll be fencing several DEs.

I may change strategy more often in a DE, but, no matter what I treat every single touch individually so my approach is not vastly different. In a pool one touch can change your indicators and change your seeding

In a DE the same touch can cost you the bout. I consider these almost equally important. Patience is a virute to me in my fencing -- I must exhibit it constantly.

[epeeisky]

Pool: I am more defensive, and usually stick to the moves/parries that I am most comfortable doing.

DE bout: I am still defensive, but much more aggresive. I have a little room to make mistakes, which also lets me try to feel out my opponent. Certain moves that I either just learned or are not solid on come out into my game as well.

[Inquartata]

Exactly the same in both. In fact, I often treat the second half of a DE as a separate bout; in Veteran events, this works out to fencing 2 5-touch bouts.

There's no special strategy beyond "Hit without being hit until the bout is over".

[telkanuru]

I'm going to sorta go with DFP here.

In pools there's no time to parse my opponent's weaknesses, so I have to rely on doing what I do best, while in DEs I must do what I do best but also endevour to prohibit my opponent from doing what he does best. The latter occurs in pools as well, but not nearly to the same extent due to having more time to work out what my opponent does best (and how to remove it).

[tbryan]

Obviously different, describe your adjustments.

I'm more willing to try something or to experiment a bit in DEs. In a DE, the final score doesn't matter as long as I win. In pools, I don't have a lot of score to play with. Trying something that doesn't quite work might lose me a touch. If the score was 1-1, I'm now losing 1-2. Now, I have to decide whether I think that I can get it working right now. If not, I really just have to give it up. It might have been a good idea against this opponent, but I don't need to put the score up to 1-3 or 2-4. By the same token, at the level I fence, I see less adjustment from my opponents in pools. I generally see at most one major change in their game (generally, if nothing in their primary game is working).

In DEs, I feel a bit more free to play with different ideas. I don't needlessly give up touches, but I'm more willing to try things that I'm not totally comfortable doing. For example, my coach comes up and says, "In this next DE, I think that X would work well." Um...I'm not very good at doing X, and I don't really enjoy it. Coach shrugs, "Well, maybe try it for the first couple of touches. If it's working, great. If not, move on to something else." Often X is not a specific action but a whole approach to the bout. For example, if I prefer to be on the attack, my coach may have suggested that I play the game on ripostes or that I don't attack until I let my opponent push me all the way to my warning zone or something strange like that. In a pool, I'd be unwilling to play too far outside my comfort zone and risk ending up 1-3. In a DE, a score like 1-3 doesn't bother me as much if it helps me find a big hole in my opponent's game.

I also expect to see more profound changes in my opponent's game. Like someone else said, pools feels like throwing my best actions against my opponent's best actions. DEs feel more like a constant back and forth, trying to adapt constantly to the changes each fencer is making. Of course, having just fenced in Div IA and Div II Foil at Nationals, one of the biggest differences in pools is how quickly some of the fencers in Div IA can adjust. They get down 1-3, and suddenly they've tweaked their action to counteract their opponent's defense, or they've completely changed tactics. In Div II, my opponent generally shows me a much smaller technical and tactical range.

Fencers who crash and burn in DEs often simply seem to fail to adjust quickly enough. They come out with strong actions and take and early 5-1 lead. Then their opponent figures out what to change and it's suddenly 6-5. Now, the same fencer is in the lead, but he had better start adjusting. He's dealing with different actions, and he's also fighting a big shift in the momentum of the bout. In a pool bout, it would have been over already.

While working with a solid foilist, I recently realized how difficult some adjustments are to see. If he was hitting on nice simple ripostes, he could readily see when I started to attempt and find counter-ripostes. He would switch to second intention. So, he's now hitting nice compound ripostes, and I change the distance slightly. I'm making a shallower lunge and recovering more quickly. I'm now forcing the distance a tiny bit farther out, and it changes the timing of the action a bit. Now, I have just enough room to catch the compound riposte and parry it. In fact, I can often catch the attack before starts his disengage. (He probably feels that that he's two far out to make the disengage and hit, so he holds the initial feint a bit longer.) With this adjustment, he just feels that "it stopped working." The action looks much the same to him, but for some reason, my parry is much harder to avoid. With some subtle adjustments in distance or timing, sometimes he couldn't feel what adjustment I had made.

In a DE, that's a deadly spot to be in. In a pool bout, he might just be able to switch actions completely (switch to fleches, for example) to try to close out the bout. Just decide, "We're not playing that game anymore." Make a big change, get a few touches, and he's done. In a DE, your opponent may have time to adjust to that, too. In this situation, sometimes the best idea is to play for time and make it to the break. Perhaps that will help you find the right distance and timing in the next period (starting "from scratch" instead of evolving from a distance that was good to a distance that was bad) or buy you time to talk to a coach who might have seen what you're not.

[Craig]

In pools there are fewer opportunities for mid-bout adjustments, so each fencer typically makes one major adjustment to their opponents. In DE's you have much more time and more touches to work with, so there are more opportunties for you and your opponent to change the game around.

I'm like Peach in pools; I want to finish my opponents off quickly and with a high margin to help seeding.

In DE bouts I can 'rest' and play for time a bit if I'm comfortably ahead though I'll usually try to finish out the bout so that (1) my next opponent doesn't get much time to scout me and (2) I don't leave the door open for a comeback or tough end to the bout.

In a DE if I'm behind, there's usually time for me to make adjustments to give me a shot.

Craig

[tbryan]

DE: Depends on where it is in the table. If I did my job in the pool, I'm trying not to work too hard or get too complicated if it's a first DE. I try to ramp up the intensity as I go.

Absolutely!

Constant source of amusement - inexperienced fencer talking about the top seed who knocked them out. "Well, he didn't seem that good." Getting these fencers to wait around for the finals to see that same fencer at his highest intensity is useful.

Repeated problem with fencers as they improve - "I used to feel more in the bout when I hit that person in DEs." Sure, you used to hit them in the round of 16 when they were hoping to conserve energy, and you were giving it everything you've got. They'd "barely" knock you out 15-11. Now, you're hitting them in the semi-finals. They're used to ramping up to a higher intensity that they haven't showed you in the past when you saw them in earlier rounds. At the same time, you're used to expending more energy and intensity earlier in the day, so you don't have anything left when you hit the semi-final. So, you get knocked out 15-6. Give it a few more tournaments, and you'll learn to manage DEs differently. I never thought much about how the character of DEs change when you expect to be knocked out by your second round versus when you expect to make it into the finals. Then one of our fencers suddenly made it over a plateau and hit this problem. I realized that fencers who make a big quantum advance in their fencing in a short period of time need to get more tournament experience to relearn how to manage their DE bouts. It seems to be less of a problem with fencers who make many small, incremental improvements in their fencing. With a fencer who suddenly starts making it two or three rounds further into DEs, there can be a big adjustment for them to make.

[Inquartata]

How does that comport with the theory, previously advanced by Achilleus and others, that "good" fencers tend to coast in the pools, not trying harder than they have to do, so as to conserve their energy for the DEs?

[Peach]

How does that comport with the theory, previously advanced by Achilleus and others, that "good" fencers tend to coast in the pools, not trying harder than they have to do, so as to conserve their energy for the DEs?

Depends on the event and how good you are, and what "not trying harder than they have to do" means. If you know you are better than, say, 80% of your opponents, a touch here or there (or even a single bout) will not make that much difference as long as you advance without an awful seed, and if you are a very strong fencer even the awful seed may not make a big difference. As long as you have not used up too much energy battling it out in the pool, you are in good shape. The difference in intensity between rounds of pools in Division I is marked, for instance, and people who later end up in the medal rounds don't seem particularly perturbed if they lose to me in the first pool (whereas I am putting in considerable effort and am delighted )

For me, I don't work any harder than I have to in the pools of the Vet-50 WS, but that doesn't mean I'm not trying to win all my bouts as decisively as possible.