Epee commentary

[epeelion]

Abajo-Tagliariol bout is up. Really nice bout.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvvzx5_y7cM[/YOUTUBE]


[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJazNpSF0lE[/YOUTUBE]

[Darr]

I enjoyed this. Have you done any others?

[kuroutesshin]

Very cool. Abajo has a tendency to pull his arm back in circle-six and go for a strong riposte; Tagliariol picked up on this quite a few times- the fleche at the 13th touch (I think) was a prime example. Beautiful second-intention.

epeelion, did you write those annotations?

[CyrusofChaos]

I enjoyed this. Have you done any others?

yes, epee lion did this bout and he also did one more. mihail etropolski also does annotations, but for sabre bouts. you can find them all on our website: http://www.fencingvideos.net/ under the video commentary section. take a look if you are interested

[epeelion]

Very cool. Abajo has a tendency to pull his arm back in circle-six and go for a strong riposte; Tagliariol picked up on this quite a few times- the fleche at the 13th touch (I think) was a prime example. Beautiful second-intention.

I actually felt that that fleshe was first-intention;he just picked the perfect timing for it. I agree that Abajo does that, though, and Tagliariol made a few good intentional remises to take advantage of that tendency.

[erooMynohtnA]

I wish the comments were up a little longer. I like to pause to read the longer ones, but since I'm absorbed in the action I usually miss even the short ones. They're not obscuring the action, so I would put them up 3-4 times as long.

However, I particularly liked the super short and quick comments mid action like "prep: step one" that you did in the second period. I think those are something that probably wouldn't mesh with saber but fit epee really well.

[epeelion]

I wish the comments were up a little longer. I like to pause to read the longer ones, but since I'm absorbed in the action I usually miss even the short ones. They're not obscuring the action, so I would put them up 3-4 times as long.

However, I particularly liked the super short and quick comments mid action like "prep: step one" that you did in the second period. I think those are something that probably wouldn't mesh with saber but fit epee really well.

.

See, I would want to leave them up longer too, but people told me to shorten them. Hmm...

Anyway, thanks. The mid comments I do periodically when there's a really nice set-up to a touch.

[epeelion]

Bump.

Seriously, no one wants to discuss this bout? I think it's a really good one, I wanted to hear other peoples' thoughts on it.

[Craig]

I like what you are doing here. I haven't had time to go through that bout yet, however.

Craig

[Molinjir]

I really enjoyed the commentary. I'm a foilist, so quite a bit of it is sort of confusing to me, just in terms of tactics and terminology, but it is quite fascinating. I'd love to see something similar for high level foil as well. I'd imagine I sort of understand the tactical underpinnings of most bouts I watch, but I'd love to hear someone who is truly articulate and knowledgeable discuss it, in much the manner that has been done here.

[Tomas N]

This was my favorite bout from the Olympics this year. I thought you did a great job with the commentary. I was sitting at my home computer watching it when my wife walked by, and I told her that Youtube is now the best way to get "play by play" in fencing. When I first watched the bout over the summer, I thought that Abajo was running out of steam and couldn't keep up with Tagliariol as the bout progressed. But I think now that Tagliariol just took control of the timing on enough of the touches that Abajo looked slower and hesitant. Some of those early toe touches by Abajo were lovely, but Tagliariol beat him with his superior footwork.

Tomas

[K O'N]

Bump.

Seriously, no one wants to discuss this bout? I think it's a really good one, I wanted to hear other peoples' thoughts on it.

I agree with you, I think it's a lovely bout, though I was rather rooting for Abajo. I'm not sure what his world ranking was at the time of the Olympics, but he seemed to me to just be having the day of his life on exactly the right day.

A lot of what you said was what I thought when I watched the bout originally. I did think that A. was trying for a parry-riposte game that just didn't work. Early on T. makes a feint, another feint, A. stands there and dares him to attack, and T. makes the fleche and hits, the first time he uses that direct attack (T's touch 3). I didn't think A. was fooled, I think he thought he could parry it. Later at T's touch 7 he really did fool A.

Early in the second period A. gets impatient and pushes too much, you were right on about that and I didn't really see it until I watched with your comments.

One thing that I don't get was why A. was working the foot so much from out of distance. I guess he usually gets that touch? Or was he trying to provoke T. to a counter? It never went anywhere, it seemed dangerous to me, but he never got off it either.

Anyway, good job. I coach a bunch of Y14 kids at a small club. We had a week off last week, the gym was being worked on, so I made your first commented video homework for them. They really liked it, I got some good comments on it when they came back to practice.

K O'N

[epeelion]

Abajo only worked the foot initially. His length is deceptive. Most epee fencers make an attack with some reserved energy, either for a remise or a second-intention riposte. Abajo is one of the few that really, fully commits to his attack. Thus, while T would normally be able to pull away at the distance he is keeping in the first few touches, Abajo comes at him much harder and with much more reach than T expects. You'll notice that after A's fourth touch, he doesn't get any more. T knows what to expect, and A is left with little to do because his straight attacks aren't working. Sometimes when something works too many times, you get convinced that it should/will always work, and miss when your opponent adjusts. T used A's tendency to overcommit (and inability to stop/recover) for the rest of the bout.

[Kimmuriel]

I really enjoyed these videos, especially with the comments.

[telkanuru]

This was very helpful to watch. Thanks a ton, L.

I just wanted to throw in what Paul Soter said about the MEI, which was along the lines of Tagliariol won because he was the only one who showed up without a stick up his ass. In both of the final bouts he capitalizes across the board because he's significantly less tense than his opponents.

[DangerMouse]

Also thank you for the commentary. You're one of the few who actually knows what you're talking about on this board

I missed that bout when watching live (I had to finally go to sleep around 5:00am), but those are two of my current favoirtes to watch and the commentary forced me to really pay attention and analyze every action, not just watch for entertainment.

[erooMynohtnA]

For what it's worth from a non-epeeist, I liked the first bout you did better. I thought it really let me see the internal workings of the game and brought me into something previously closed to me. This one didn't seem like it needed it as much, and I don't think I got as much out of it. Of course, this could be because I don't really know much about epee and this is higher level commentary that's going over my head. In which case, I would recommend letting it continue to go over my head. I would much rather need to educate myself to enjoy this than have someone dumb it down.

The actual formatting, display, etc of of the commentary was better for this one.

[epeelion]

Fair enough. I know both the fencers from the first bout personally, so that may have had something to do with it. I do think this was a very high level bout, so it might also have had something to do with you not being an epeeist. Can you pin down exactly what would have made it better for you?

Cheers, thanks for the comments guys! I'd really like it if people discussed the actual bouts, though, not just my commentary, hehe.

[epeelion]

I just wanted to throw in what Paul Soter said about the MEI, which was along the lines of Tagliariol won because he was the only one who showed up without a stick up his ass. In both of the final bouts he capitalizes across the board because he's significantly less tense than his opponents.

Oh, absolutely. Talgiariol is able to actually use his footwork and control the bouts. Just looking at Jeannet's expression tells you how tense he was. That probably has something to do with the fact that he's come in second place 428210278310 times.

[piste off]

Oh, absolutely. Talgiariol is able to actually use his footwork and control the bouts. Just looking at Jeannet's expression tells you how tense he was. That probably has something to do with the fact that he's come in second place 428210278310 times.

Great commentary and analysis, as expected.

One of the things that impresses me about Tagliariol is how he moves. Some of it is obvious (like his ability to change direction), but he also seems to play much more with varying distance and tempo than other top epeeists.

It is layered, and he appears to use waves of movement as prep/set-up. Perhaps it also has the advantage of allowing him to be less tense, as in contrast to the other games that are out there.

R-