Yet again, my son's initial seeding was altered by the fact that his 2009 rating (earned 3 times over already) was not reflected on the USFA website, meaning that he was seeded by 2008 rating, which placed him in a much harder pool, which resulted in missing a much easier table placement by 1 indicator point. While I realize that he can, and should, fence his way past the ratings issues, it is frustrating that the problems are with the adults, not the kids.
The fencers are already at risk for every mistake made by anyone else in the room. It's always their job to undo everyone else's mistake. But the USFA Rep was there the week before when he renewed his 2009 rating for the third time, and still he wouldn't do anything because the USFA website didn't reflect the change. He did, however, promise to look into it. Wow.
My son has already lost a higher rating because a club administrator screwed up and refused to correct her mistake (she just didn't care enough as it wasn't here child. But this last rating problem affected the outcome of an SYC (my son is Y14) and would have changed the results by 6 places.
It's frustrating to continue to hear the grown-ups make excuses, and point the finger at each other as the tournament organizers blame the USFA and the USFA rep blames the organizers. Plenty of blame, but the children are still the ones left to suffer.
We are left to argue with organizers and the USFA, which no one wants to do, and rarely helps. They are always very sorry, but... there's nothing they can do about it. They were busy. It takes time. These things happens. There are a million excuses.
I apologize for the rant, but I am sick a tired of excuses. My son fences his heart out, and he shouldn't have to bear the consequences of adults making excuses. He earned his ratings and the only thing he should think about is fencing his best.
the only thing he should think about is fencing his best.
That is really all it should be about. I guess I am naive about the whole points thing. I have children, but none who fence so I am not sure how I would feel, but if he is fencing his best, unless the points issue is keeping him from being placed on a national team or something, does it really matter in the long run?
My 2 cents.
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When they are competitive, it makes a huge difference. This is what distinguishes having the top fencers meet midway through the table rather than in the finals. The pools must be properly balanced so that the fencers are properly seeded, and the initial seeds for the pool are based on ratings.
In a larger, more competitive tournament, there are often many fencers with the same ratings, and every detail becomes important in how they are ultimately seeded. Tournaments are won and lost in the initial seeds. I wasn't really aware of the importance of any of this until I realized how it all fit together, and then I became painfully aware of how kids with dubious ratings faired far better than they should have.
I think you need to live through a few before you can fully realize how the ratings affect the outcome.
I haven’t been a divisional officer for quite a few years, so someone with more recent experience can correct me if I am wrong. This is how I think it’s supposed to happen: Your son fences and earns a new rating in a tournament. The tournament organizers report it to the secretary of the division where the tournament took place. The secretary reports it to the USFA. The USFA posts it for seeding in the next tournament.
Seems to me my family was once in a similar situation before an important tournament and I emailed the USFA (this was before posting.) A USFA person wrote back that the rating was changed and if notification did not go out in time for the tournament, we could use the email as proof. Now, I’m not saying this would happen now, but check online to see if his rating has been changed before you go to a tournament. If not, you could email the USFA to see if the rating change has been reported to them. If the USFA didn't get it, go backwards in the chain to find out who hasn't done his/her job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JAG
While I realize that he can, and should, fence his way past the ratings issues, it is frustrating that the problems are with the adults, not the kids.
Honestly, while your anger is understandable, you have provided an answer to your son’s problem. Your son needs to fence past the “adult errors.” If he is in Y14 and he fences another 8 years, there may be dozens, make that hundreds of times that he will be subject to bad reffing, in the hardest pool or the smallest pool. If you travel, he may be the only one in a tournament whose luggage was lost and now he has to use a new uncomfortable grip and street shoes. His hotel room may be next to a wild all-night party. Everyone else will have stripside coaching and he won’t…. and on and on and on. If his goals are to have fun, help him do that by assisting him in focusing on the here and now of the tournament he’s in. If he has bigger aspirations, you and he need to know that any problem you can think of has already plagued Olympians Keeth Smart, Seth Kelsey, Gerek Meinhardt, and just about anyone else who has ever fenced. That's fencing. Your posting looks like you may be new to this board. If you want an eye-opener, go back over the last year and read the posts of Mo and Capt. Slo-Mo as they tell of the difficulties of their daughter, Olympian Becca Ward and the W. Sabre team.
When they are competitive, it makes a huge difference. This is what distinguishes having the top fencers meet midway through the table rather than in the finals. The pools must be properly balanced so that the fencers are properly seeded, and the initial seeds for the pool are based on ratings.
In a larger, more competitive tournament, there are often many fencers with the same ratings, and every detail becomes important in how they are ultimately seeded. Tournaments are won and lost in the initial seeds. I wasn't really aware of the importance of any of this until I realized how it all fit together, and then I became painfully aware of how kids with dubious ratings faired far better than they should have.
I think you need to live through a few before you can fully realize how the ratings affect the outcome.
Please. My son has been out all year due to an injury, so he's dropping precipitously in the rankings for Nationals. But he's licking his chops, and can't wait to knock off higher seeds in early DEs in Dallas.
I comprehend your complaint. However, "Competitive", to me, is a kid who wants- and meets- all challenges. Competitive, as you describe, is a kid (and parent) who squawks excuses because he can't win past a second DE. And, if your kid fences a "kid with a dubious rating", and loses, well...
Please. My son has been out all year due to an injury, so he's dropping precipitously in the rankings for Nationals. But he's licking his chops, and can't wait to knock off higher seeds in early DEs in Dallas.
I comprehend your complaint. However, "Competitive", to me, is a kid who wants- and meets- all challenges. Competitive, as you describe, is a kid (and parent) who squawks excuses because he can't win past a second DE. And, if your kid fences a "kid with a dubious rating", and loses, well...
I'm sorry that your son was injured, but fail to see what that has to do with the issue raised here. You seem to be venting your frustration by trivializing an otherwise legitimate issue. Please don't overlay your assumptions and frustrations on the problem. This has nothing to do with a fencer being unable to win past a second DE or beat kids with dubious ratings, which I assume must be your son's issue or you wouldn't project them into this thread.
I hope your son gets better and can manage to win past the second DE in the future, but please don't inject your problems into this issue.
Honestly, while your anger is understandable, you have provided an answer to your son’s problem. Your son needs to fence past the “adult errors.” If he is in Y14 and he fences another 8 years, there may be dozens, make that hundreds of times that he will be subject to bad reffing, in the hardest pool or the smallest pool. If you travel, he may be the only one in a tournament whose luggage was lost and now he has to use a new uncomfortable grip and street shoes. His hotel room may be next to a wild all-night party. Everyone else will have stripside coaching and he won’t…. and on and on and on. If his goals are to have fun, help him do that by assisting him in focusing on the here and now of the tournament he’s in.
I agree in part and disagree in part. You are right that there will always be issues, such as the lost luggage or wild party next door the night before. But the\ose are external. Screwing up the ratings is internal, and shouldn't happen. The fact that we can't control everything doesn't excuse a problem of this type.
As it happened, we attempted to get the USFA to correct the problem, but were told that they hadn't received the tournament information. We tried to contact the organizer but he wasn't around. The div rep happened to be at the tournament, and told us he would get it corrected as soon as he could, but there was nothing he could do about the rating at the moment because they went by the USFA rating on the website, even though he knew it was wrong. He was very sorry. but he told us there was nothing he could do.
As I said in the first post, and I emphasize again, obviously this does not change the fact that any competition is about fencing his best and fencing through whatever problems happen. That much is clear, and there is no question about it. But some problems simply should not happen, and this is one of them. Let the kids fence, and let the adults who handle the back office stuff do their jobs so that the kids can fence.
We've been through a multitude of problems, like everyone else. There is simply no reason for problems like this to exist. It should be a non-problem, freeing us up to deal with the wild parties and lost luggage.
In fact, even if your rating going into a tournament is the correct one, your pool is unlikely to be "balanced". The variation in skill level, even among fencers with strong ratings, is unlikely to be equal. The pool may have that "C" that just hasn't had a good path, or the right tournament to earn his or her "B", or an "A" that had one good day last year, but will not re-earn that rating.
I remember my first NAC, many years ago. My teammate, was talking to me as I hooked up, giving me some observations about my opponent. "Isn't he an "A"?" I asked.
"Yup". said my teammate, "...but is he an "A", today?"
In fact, even if your rating going into a tournament is the correct one, your pool is unlikely to be "balanced". The variation in skill level, even among fencers with strong ratings, is unlikely to be equal. The pool may have that "C" that just hasn't had a good path, or the right tournament to earn his or her "B", or an "A" that had one good day last year, but will not re-earn that rating.
I remember my first NAC, many years ago. My teammate, was talking to me as I hooked up, giving me some observations about my opponent. "Isn't he an "A"?" I asked.
"Yup". said my teammate, "...but is he an "A", today?"
That's always true, and important for every fencer to remember. I always remind my son that on any given day, any fencer can beat any other fencer, so don't take anyone for granted and don't let anyone intimidate him.
Still, we hope to have pools as balanced as possible and avoid unecessary problems, knowing that there will always be unavoidable problem no matter how careful we are.
This has nothing to do with a fencer being unable to win past a second DE or beat kids with dubious ratings, which I assume must be your son's issue or you wouldn't project them into this thread.
I hope your son gets better and can manage to win past the second DE in the future, but please don't inject your problems into this issue.
Excuse me, but my point, which you are apparently misunderstanding, is that parental whining about ratings, that their kid was "cheated" by skewed results due to dubious ratings, etc., is just ridiculous, especially in youth fencing. Seriously, who cares.
My additional point was to show my contempt for parents who grouse about their kid's results, blaming one thing or another, such as other kids obtaining more favorable seeding due to their "dubious ratings". He wins, he wins. He loses, he loses. Period. If your kid is going to win, he has to beat whomever he fences. As for your statement that, "...Tournaments are won and lost in the initial seeds", surely you cannot be serious. Tournaments are won and lost ON THE STRIP.
I am not projecting any "problem" into this thread, other than perhaps my annoyance with those parents who constantly think Little Joey should have earned his "D" of "E", or that other kids win because of some perceived unfairness. Get over it.
And, since you want to talk smack, my kid has had no problem beating kids with dubious ratings, or getting past his 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th DE, thank you (He's done it multiple times both at Nationals and NACs- that's right, do the math- "let's see, bye to 128, 128 to 64..."). My answer to him has always been, "Hey, you want to win, you're going to have to beat anyone in your way", not, "It's not fair, you shouldn't have to fence that guy until the round of 8". Geez. "WIN" is not spelled "WHIN[E]".
Last edited by fencerwallet; 03-16-2009 at 10:16 AM..
FencingMom is absolutely correct. The USFA has verified ratings in the past by e-mail and still does, graciously. If it mattered that much to my fencer and to me, I would have made sure that I had verification of the new rating before I went to the tournament. Especially in light of the fact that you already had been confronted with this issue. Often it is a issue with the Division. If we have earned a new rating within a month of another tournament, we e-mail the Division to ascertain first whether they have submitted it and then contact the USFA. My son actually adopts the "no big deal" attitude.
I think what those of us who responded are trying to say (some more diplomatically than others, I might add) is that every pool is unfair. In the last tournament that your son fenced, how many were in his pool? A 6-man pool, perhaps? If there were an odd number of fencers in the tournament, then one or two of the pools could have been made up of 5 fencers. Those in the 5-man pool have been hit with random unfairness. Your son may have fenced 3-2, winning 3, losing 2. In the short handed pool not only would a fencer who also won 3 be seeded below your son in the DE's, but every fencer in that pool would have lower indicators than those in the other pools who won the same number of bouts. And one pool got the worst referee. One pool got the best. That's the way it is in every tournament.
Of course the rating problem should be solved, and I hope it is.
JAG - if this is a common occurence in your neck of the woods, you should be able to take some solace by realizing that rating muck-ups quite probably have affected other fencers, and in doing have given your son an advantage in that competition.
You can be proactive, and run for divsion/region/club officer, so that you can apply your own organizational skills in ensuring that all competitions results are turned into new and re-earned ratings in a quick and precise manner.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the competition format presently used in fencing is more sensitive to faulty ratings than necessary. Also, (as you pointed out) it has no in-built feature which compensates for faulty/nonexistent ratings, once a few bout results show that someone was wrongly ranked going into the competition. There are other competition formats which are much more robust with regard to nonperfect ratings information, and have compensating features built in. I have written about such competition formats at length on this forum several times; you might want to search for my previous threads on the subject.
I sincerely hope that the relevant people clear up this situation.
Thanks, Fencers Mom. Actually, my son didn't let it bother him, although he knew that he hadn't been credited for the 2009 rating earned. My issue was that it shouldn't have even been an issue. But I hadn't realized the problem in advance, as he had been credited with the rating at a competition the week before. We learned about it on Friday, which was our travel day and we were too late to deal with it that day.
As for uneven pools, I can't see how anyone can be blamed for that. If there are an uneven number of fencers, there's no choice but to have a smaller pool. Again, this is just another unavoidable issue. Referees are another story, but the human element in directing can't be avoided either. I'm trying to eliminate problems that can, so that we can reduce needless problems, even though it will still leave those problems we can't control.
I do realize that now that it's something that I can and should deal with in advance, but I believe that it shouldn't be a problem at all, and that the people charged with handling ratings will do their job and get this corrected without requiring constant oversight by parents of every detail. Yes, parents can do it. No, parents shouldn't have to.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the competition format presently used in fencing is more sensitive to faulty ratings than necessary. Also, (as you pointed out) it has no in-built feature which compensates for faulty/nonexistent ratings, once a few bout results show that someone was wrongly ranked going into the competition. There are other competition formats which are much more robust with regard to nonperfect ratings information, and have compensating features built in. I have written about such competition formats at length on this forum several times; you might want to search for my previous threads on the subject.
Thanks Peter. I will look into your alternative competition formats. It's true that those fencers with questionable ratings are just as likely to work to another fencer's advantage as detriment. If you are lucky enough to get into a pool with someone who doesn't deserve the A rating, then it's like getting a free ride. But then, I seek neither a free ride against an easy opponent nor the alternative.
So many of the comments raise the fact that it's an imperfect system, a proposition with which I don't disagree. I submit that even imperfect systems should be run in a way that minimizes needless mistakes. As noted earlier, there are problems that crop up unavoidably for everyone, and there's nothing we can do about them. I just hope to see the problems that shouldn't happen, that we can easily avoid, be addressed.
We pay for our competitions, as well as our membership, and it isn't unreasonable to expect that ratings are properly updated. After that, we can spend all our free time trying to quiet down the wild party next door the night before the competition.
...one final point, lest some people get the wrong impression (since diplomatic/PC blogging is obviously not my strong suit): those who know who I am know, if/when my kid loses, my attitude has always been, "good job, ...[shoulder shrug]...get 'em next time". And my kid has certainly never looked at any final results and said that someone else's finish was due to an undeserved initial seeding. He agrees with me, that tournaments are not won and lost in the initial seeds, they are won on the strip.
Excuse me, but my point, which you are apparently misunderstanding, is that parental whining about ratings, that their kid was "cheated" by skewed results due to dubious ratings, etc., is just ridiculous, especially in youth fencing. Seriously, who cares.
Bad things happen. Bad things shouldn't happen, but bad things happen. Gotta deal with it...
Rep given.
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"You didn't take advantage of his blade enough, so no."
just because you are seeded in the top does not mean you will finish in the top. if your kid's pool was different because he had a higher rating does not guarantee that they will have performed better. the entire point of the ratings system is that on any given day, someone who is seeded low will perform well enough so that they defeat higher rated fencers and earn a new rating.
Why do you think this other pool is easier?
Because of their ratings?
Of course not. When you've gone to many tournaments, you know who is who, and how they fence. While there are always upsets and always good and bad days, when you've fenced the same people many times you have a fairly good idea of where things should flesh out under ordinary circumstances. When the fencers who should end up first and second end up in the same pool, and other pools have nobody who is likely to be competetive, it suggests that something has gone wrong.
By the way, I'm curious about the reactions. Are people suggesting that the whole rating/seeding process getting screwed up on the USFA/Tournament end is irrelevant, and that they should be given a free pass to screw things up and it's the fencer's fault if the USFA/Tournament organizer makes a mistake?
It seems that this thread has gone way off track. Or perhaps everyone thinks that needless mistakes on the USFA side is perfectly fine, and only fencers (and their parents) can be wrong.
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