Final seeding after DEs

[Greg_D]

Originally Posted by H Man

I have seen confusion between the USFA's Division Operating Guide (Edwin "Buzz" Hurst) directive for tournament management and that of the NACs. The guide explains that, during DEs, you pick up the pool seeding of a fencer you defeat, to wit, fencer A with a pool seeding of 10 defeats Fencer B who pooled 4, A advances with the 4 and B sits with a 4 at his last DE for ranking purposes. The guide fails to provide citation to the orginazational rules with specificity.

I had a fencer at a NAC who pooled something around 75 defeat a fencer in the round of 64 who pooled 16th. My fencer lost in the round of 32 so one could sumise that the worst he could have finished was 48 (the 32 ahead of him and the theroritical fencers seeded 1 through 15 who also lost in the round of 32). He finished 67th(?).

I'll have to speak with Buxx.

I believe what Buzz was trying to impart is that you don't reseed in each round as you continue to move through the DE table.

Example: Assume the 64th seed defeats the 1st seed in the table of 64. All other higher seeds win their bouts. In the table of 32 the 64th seed stays at the top of the bracket, fencing the 32nd seed. You wouldn't reseed this individual and the entire table, placing him/her at the bottom of the entire list and forcing the 64th seed to then fence the 2nd seed.

This does not hold true in any repecharge table (including the final round of 8) in which reseeding occurs based on original seed out of pooles.

However, once eliminated, you return to your original seed for final placing. If the 64th seed in the example above lost to the 32nd seed he or she would have a final placing of 32 (since he or she was the lowest remaining original seed in the tournament).

Greg

[cbcarey]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

Here's my issue:
Fencer A in a pool of five scores 5/4, 5/4, 5/4, 5/4. This gives him an indicator of +5 with 4 wins and no losses.

Do you know what they give the fencer who wins all their bouts by a close 5/4 score? The gold.

[H Man]

Have you read the text to which I reffer? It states that you carry the seed...uh, so to speak.

H

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

Here's my issue:

Fencer A in a pool of five scores 5/4, 5/4, 5/4, 5/4. This gives him an indicator of +5 with 4 wins and no losses.

Fencer B in the same pool scores 5/0, 5/0, 5/0, 4/5. This gives her an indicator of +14 with 3 wins and one loss.

Under the current system, Fencer A is seeded higher than Fencer B, but since they all fenced the same people, who really performed better in this pool? And, who should be seeded higher?

I think that indicators should be given more weight than wins/losses in the pools.

Originally, the object of this game was stated as de-fense - now we are more in the business of scoring touches, either way, the game is structured on the set limit of 5 touches, time permitting...It's possible you'd be happier with results if people were to fence a full, albeit shorter time period, thus ensuring that all were required to effectively defend themselves for equal amounts of time, (of course, you shouldn't hold your breath for this to be implemented!)
While this would result in some scores being run up , maybe 20 to 0, all the better measure of the skill difference...

This would also have an affect on the 5/4 bouts, as they might continue,and end up 8-5 the other way...

Not likely, though!

[Chris]

Sorry! Carry on!

[annacattiva]

Originally Posted by H Man

I had a fencer at a NAC who pooled something around 75 defeat a fencer in the round of 64 who pooled 16th. My fencer lost in the round of 32 so one could sumise that the worst he could have finished was 48 (the 32 ahead of him and the theroritical fencers seeded 1 through 15 who also lost in the round of 32). He finished 67th(?).

Wait. He won his round of 64 bout, lost his round of 32 bout, and finished in the 128?

I think the rest of your logic isn't correct (if he's seeded 75, he shouldn't be fencing the 16th seed in the 128, and if he does manage an upset in his first round, which I believe should be against the... 54th seed if I'm doing this right, and then loses the second, I would expect him to be towards the bottom of the 64 assuming a not-unreasonable number of upsets). However, if he somehow did manage to get into the 64, he shouldn't be finishing out of the 64. I think something is wrong here other than how pool seeding is used to do final DE seedings within each group.

Anna

P.S. You should listen to Greg_D because he knows what he's talking about.

I think the "carrying the seed" of the person you beat means that you follow what would have been "their" DE progression, not that you get their seed. So if in the 16, the 15 seed beats the 2 seed, he doesn't GET the 2 seed, but his next bout is against the 7 seed, just as the 2's was predicted to be, if no upset had happened. When you get to the end, though, and you have a bunch of fencers in the 8, a bunch in the 16, a bunch in the 32, etc, each group is ranked within that (5-8, 9-16, 17-32) by their seed from pools.

[Greg_D]

Originally Posted by H Man

Have you read the text to which I reffer? It states that you carry the seed...uh, so to speak.

H

Actually I hadn't, trusting that Buzz would get it correct.

After you asked, I went and found it. I assume that you're looking at page 29, first new paragraph. Buzz doesn't address the final placing of the #15 seed in his example, only the final placing of the #2 seed who lost in the rd of 16. He also addresses how the #15 seed should be placed into the rd of 8 bracket. Were he to have gone on to describe the final placement of the #15 seed he would have given the same answer that I gave above in my slightly different example.

Should you need further evidence, take a look at the rule book. Specifically o.28 (page 40 of the 2007 edition). After describing how to place 1st-3rd (or 4th) it goes on to state, "The remainder are placed, within each round of the direct elimination, in accordance with their classification for the composition of the direct elimination table." Parsing this out a bit, "classification for the composition..." is your original seed.

Hope this clears things up...

Greg

[Rockstar44]

Originally Posted by cbcarey

Do you know what they give the fencer who wins all their bouts by a close 5/4 score? The gold.

Only in the DEs, friend....

I don't recall ever seeing anybody get a gold for a pool bout, do you?

[garyhayenga]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

Only in the DEs, friend....
I don't recall ever seeing anybody get a gold for a pool bout, do you?

Many times. I've done it myself. In fact, I earned my first B classification in 1989 by going undefeated in a final pool of 6, at a tournament with 48 competitors.

I was sweating out that last bout big time too after I got down 0-3. But I pulled it together and scored the last five touches to win 5-3. Only after the bout, when I sat down and looked at the score sheet, did I realize that all the B's in the pool had beaten up on each other and everyone else already had two losses. So I could have lost that last bout and still won the tournament.

Back in pre-historic times (the 80's), most small competitions were strictly pools all the way through.

This was practically a requirement due to the rules at the time where you had to have a minimum of two rounds of pools that all had the same number of people in them before you could have a direct elimination of any kind. So a tournament with 36 fencers was ideal, because you could take 4 up out of 6 pools of 6 and then 4 up out of 4 pools of 6 and then do a repechage of 16, but for any tournament with less than 36 fencers it wouldn't work very well.

They even had a system for a repechage of 16 to produce a final pool of 6 for the championship round. Admittedly I only ever saw this used once.

gary hayenga

[edew]

So Gary, when you were done with the 2 pools -> DE with repechage at 16 -> final pool of 6, was it 2AM or 3AM? Did you drive home or slept in the gym?

[garyhayenga]

Originally Posted by edew

So Gary, when you were done with the 2 pools -> DE with repechage at 16 -> final pool of 6, was it 2AM or 3AM? Did you drive home or slept in the gym?

Hah. It wasn't that bad. I think we finished around 7:00 p.m. that day. Joe Biebel might remember as he was in that pool.

Sadly I finished 7th that day, and then to add insult to injury they made me referee the final pool.

No, the really long (single weapon) day was when the Omaha Challenge decided to have the 60+ fencers fence pools all the way. And then they did a final pool of *8* instead of 6.

I fenced 33 bouts that day, and in my final bout of the day I lost a 4-0 lead because I was too tired to recover from a lunge anymore. It didn't make a difference to the final standings, I would still have finished second anyway.

gary hayenga

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by garyhayenga

I fenced 33 bouts that day, and in my final bout of the day I lost a 4-0 lead because I was too tired to recover from a lunge anymore. It didn't make a difference to the final standings, I would still have finished second anyway.

I like the PdF Memorial Day Weekend Round Robins. Gets you up into a triple-digit number of bouts across the three days.

At a fairly high standard.

Even without counting the DE's for the top performers.

-B

[Chris]

Originally Posted by garyhayenga

Many times. I've done it myself. In fact, I earned my first B classification in 1989 by going undefeated in a final pool of 6, at a tournament with 48 competitors.

I was sweating out that last bout big time too after I got down 0-3. But <snip> everyone else already had two losses. So I could have lost that last bout and still won the tournament.

Like Gary, my first classification came from a pool final: before D's and E's, the rule was 18 unclassified (or classified) fencers would be a 'C' tournament; at the time, there was an additional provision to award additional C's for every additional 16 fencers (although, I expect few people knew this at the time).

My event started with 32, so only 1 'C' would be awarded; for some reason, they decided on a final pool of 8. I was unable to sweep the pool, as Gary did, but still won on a 6-1 record versus 5-2 for 2nd: A first place tie on bouts resulted in a barrage, or fence-off amongst those tied fencers.

Originally Posted by garyhayenga

Back in pre-historic times (the 80's), most small competitions were strictly pools all the way through.

My first Nationals, in '80, all events were done this way, both Open, and Junior as well as the Midwest Sectionals (and, I imagine, most other sectionals, but I don't know...). It made things sort of tricky, as you were usually guaranteed to fence 2 people twice, from the semi-final pool, into the final pool, plus you could get re-matches from the quarter-final pool, too!

You competed directly against those people in your pool for promotion. The minimum promotion was 50%, generally, the first round cut was a little more generous, since 'seeding' was fairly close to guess work, and they were trying to manipulate the number to some 'even' number, like 48, 24, or 12...

Originally Posted by garyhayenga

This was practically a requirement due to the rules at the time where you had to have a minimum of two rounds of pools that all had the same number of people in them before you could have a direct elimination of any kind. <snip>
They even had a system for a repechage of 16 to produce a final pool of 6 for the championship round. Admittedly I only ever saw this used once.

gary hayenga

This was the standard format for the National Junior Olympic Championships for many years in the late 70's and early 80's - in larger events they started DE at 32, with repechage to a final pool of 6.

Even though the DE bouts were only 10 touches, the 2 people who fenced repechage to make the final were often more tired, which made a pretty big difference, since the final pool was 5-touch bouts, again!

My experience was that, just as with the current format, there was a big difference in the capabilities of various tournament organizers (or DISorganizers, as the case may be!)

Part of the reason tournaments sometimes took longer, was that the regulation time was 6 minutes, and people often felt comfortable taking a whole minute, or more, to assess their opponent's skills and reactions, and this still gave them plenty of time to develop, and execute a plan. NOW, you have to really compress that process into half the time, and people often seem to want to accelerate things even when they DO have the time, such as in 9 minute DE's...

C'est la Vie!

[Rockstar44]

Originally Posted by garyhayenga

Many times. I've done it myself. In fact, I earned my first B classification in 1989 by going undefeated in a final pool of 6, at a tournament with 48 competitors.

I was sweating out that last bout big time too after I got down 0-3. But I pulled it together and scored the last five touches to win 5-3. Only after the bout, when I sat down and looked at the score sheet, did I realize that all the B's in the pool had beaten up on each other and everyone else already had two losses. So I could have lost that last bout and still won the tournament.

Back in pre-historic times (the 80's), most small competitions were strictly pools all the way through.

This was practically a requirement due to the rules at the time where you had to have a minimum of two rounds of pools that all had the same number of people in them before you could have a direct elimination of any kind. So a tournament with 36 fencers was ideal, because you could take 4 up out of 6 pools of 6 and then 4 up out of 4 pools of 6 and then do a repechage of 16, but for any tournament with less than 36 fencers it wouldn't work very well.

They even had a system for a repechage of 16 to produce a final pool of 6 for the championship round. Admittedly I only ever saw this used once.

gary hayenga

Well, okay, but that's in the past. Let's limit this to the here and now please.

[Inquartata]

Meh, you specifically asked if he'd ever seen it happen. You can't unring a bell!

[garyhayenga]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

Well, okay, but that's in the past. Let's limit this to the here and now please.

Well, today being New Years Day, the New York Athletic Club is scheduled to be holding it's Hangover Open.

Which has always been a round robin of everyone who shows up, 5 touch bouts.

Win all those 5-4 and you will be the champion.

Is that "Here and Now" enough for ya?

gary hayenga

[Rockstar44]

Inquartata and Garyhayenga: Touche!

However, what I am talking about is the standard and usual format for a tournament. Initial seeding, pools, reseed, and DEs. In your example, Gary, the pools are not fenced to determine seeding. And, the other examples from the 1980s, while of interest, don't really apply to the discussion here.

Go to a NAC and in your DE when you have scored 5 touches tell the Director that you have won the bout. See what happens.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by Rockstar44

Go to a NAC and in your DE when you have scored 5 touches tell the Director that you have won the bout. See what happens.

Win all of your DE bouts 5-4 and they'll still give you a gold medal, even at NACs.

-B

[ViewtifulMisho]

Does anyone know why the FIE/USFA use absolute numbers for indicators, instead of percentage of touches?

This is a stupidly technical and minute point:

A fencer in a 7-person pool with all victories has the potential for a minimum of one more indicator than a fencer in a 6-person pool with all victories, but it's not reflective of their relative success.

To be more correct, the formula for indicators should be:

touches scored - touches received
---------------------------------
        touches possible

where touches possible is 5*number of fencers in pool.

Maybe this wasn't done in the past because of cumbersome pencil-and-paper work, but with most things computerized today, it should be no problem.

EDIT: \/\/\/ Good point. Meant to say 5 * number of opponents