Self Directing Tournaments

[DanInMI]

Hey, what is the USFA stand on "self Directed" tournaments?

I know of a club that has a "self directed" tournament once a month. Most of the attendees are club members. About 15 fencers show up. 2 or three are "A" rated fencers, so often the event is a B1 event.

I know a few fencers that have picked up thier rating at these events.

[lochinvar]

You make it sound as if these are little "private" tournaments; is that the case?

Classifications can only be awarded if the event is announced to the fencing public in advance of the tournament. If they do pubicize in advance, and only the members of that club show up...well, that's how the cookie crumbles.

As for 'self-directed' tournaments, I've attended quite a few that ended up being self-directed because more attendees than expected showed up, causing more pools than directors on hand, or various other circumstances. I don't think there's any prohibition on it, but some of the other members can speak more authoritatively about that than I can.

[darius]

There is no "stand", other than that whole rule about needing a ref with 5 or greater for anything that is a national qualifier.

If I had a pool of refs to choose from for WNY events, I'd love to hire some. But, often the only people who are qualified are fencing.

I have seen other places hire "refs" who are not qualified in any manner for their local tournaments (and, yes, I'm taking into account little stylistic differences in the way people call various actions)

Despite good intentions on the organizers' and refs' part, I'd rather share duties with other fencers.

darius

[mifencer]

Are you talking about self directing as in having the people participating referee some bouts? If so, that happens all the time. Unfortunately it sounded like you were implying that there was somekind of collusion about giving out ratings. I think I know what tournament and club you're talking about. The tournament was PUBLISHED via web and via print at least a month before. So what's the problem? Are you upset that other people didn't go besides the club members? If that's the case, bring more people and don't complain. If I have the right tournament, 2 people in the final 4 came from different clubs.

AND if there's such a concentration of A's & B's, that makes it HARDER to get a rating. Think about it. The tournament your thinking about had 21 fencers. 20 of them had ratings. The only 'u' fencer has more international experience (in a different weapon) than 95% of the other fencers. How can you think that club is 'giving' away ratings?

[DanInMI]

No Aric, I am not upset about any of it.

In NO WAY was I suggesting any kind of collusion. I believe that the fencers would behave in a way that would make it as fair as possible.

Also I meant to make it clear these events ARE open to USFA members, and ARE properly advertised.

I never said anything about the club "giving" away ratings. I did not suggest that these ratings are "easier" or harder to get than anywhere else.

The reason that I asked the question was that when I mentioned this to a friend he questioned whether an event could award ratings if there is no director. I do not have any first hand knowledge of this so I thought I would ask the group.

[DanInMI]

Originally posted by mifencer
Are you talking about self directing as in having the people participating referee some bouts?

Actually, I was under the impression that the fencers were calling the touches against themselves.

I think that it is probably not difficult to do in an Epee event (which is the case event that i think you are referring to) but I can see problems in a self directed foil tournament.

[Peach]

I've been to any number of tournaments where ratings were given out even though it was self-directed.

[CarlKnoch]

There are never enough qualified referees out therer for tourneys of any decent size. I'm pleased that we had several people in my division get their ref ratings recently. It will help events in the future.

I was one of those fencers who was new, and who complained about the lack of quality referees, and when the opportunity came up to get a rating, I just couldn't pass it up.

I highly recommend it to all other divisions that have self directing going on. that way even in self directed pools you can get quality refereeing.

[Peach]

The down side is that the people who actually get their referee ratings end up doing double duty while others stand there saying, "No way I'm going to referee." I finally decided that if I cared about the outcome of a tournament, I wasn't going to ref unless nearly everybody else is pitching in. If it's just for practice, I don't mind.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

By "self-directed" are we talking one of the pool members not fencing doing the directing, or the two people on the strip making their own calls?

In either event, I would have a hard time believing there is anything like pool equity for purposes of earning ratings.

[MikeHarm]

At the duelist open they had self directing by having the A's direct the matches they weren't in, and swapping in another director for their bouts. I had Ann Marsh as a director/competitor in my seeding pool.


Was that the tourney you were thinking of or the Renaissance Open last Friday?

[MyraTrue]

I think most people have been in tournaments that have self-directed pools/bouts. Typically, they've always been epee pools. We always said a monkey could direct epee, which is the only reason I can, A) fence it, and B) direct it!

I've never heard it questioned to have another fencer directing a bout of epee for two fencers on any given piste. Although, it does suck when the person you get has been hit a few too many times in the mask and can no longer count, and both you and your oponent think the score was 3-3, so that neither could have "Won" with a single touch, but that goes with the territory.

[broncofencer]

I don't mind in epee if it is self directed but some tournaments I have been to have two or three members of the same club in each pool for foil or sabre and thats when i have a problem because there is no one to defer to to prevent bias real or percieved. I accept it as nessacary but still don't like it.

I will say however that the fencing on weekdays thing is getting a little sneaky because only fencers in the immediate area can go which is fine if your in a large city with multiple clubs but even then you weed out a large number of fencers. fridays are fine but I think i remeber seeing a tournament on a wednesday somewhere which I feel is a little ridiculus

[DanInMI]

Well, I was under the impression that we are talking about "self directed" as in the two fencers are calling touches against themselves.

However, let's answer the question both ways.

Assume the tourney has NO directors and the fencers are calling touches themselves.

OR

The tourney has NO directors and the fencers are acting as referrees for each other.

(I think that there is a BIG difference if the event does not have enough qualified directors and uses "lay" refferrees.....in that case there is a bout commitee to turn to.)

[CarlKnoch]

I've NEVER been in a tourney where the two fencers who are on the strip referee themselves. I guess that would be the ultimate self refereed bout. I wouldn't participate either. If the two of you disagree about a touch, you'll just have to throw it out. Fine in practice, but NOT in a tourney.

I've only seen this where someone who is in my pool, but who is not fencing, referees the bout in progress. Then when they are up, someone else referees.

[DanInMI]

Hmmm...I think i got mifencer and broncofencer mixed up....sorry Aric!

[azfencer]

I don't think it would be at all acceptable to have the two fencers on strip directing. Who has the final say if they disagree? I'm sure the USFA is against that, but I don't know if there is a rule about it.

Typically self-directing just means that fencers in the pool who aren't fencing direct when others are fencing. This can be fine if there are decent fencers who are willing to ref and if they do their best to be fair judges. It can also be a nightmare when the better fencers would rather rest between boughts and won't ref so you have low-intermediate fencers directing. As long as everyone tries to be cooperative and give the volunteer refs the benifit of the doubt it usually works ok.

In Arizona as far as I know I've never experienced anything BUT self-directing for both pools and DEs. In some of the smaller divisions it just isn't practical to do anything else. I myself have refereed many times when I didn't feel qualified to ref a match simply because I was begged to do it and there was no one else willing to do it. I hated doing that! Maybe things have changed (I hope) but a couple of years ago I don't think the entire state had a single ref who had taken the test and gotten a national ref rating. When you have no one to teach the classes or give the ref test, how can you expect people to pay money to travel to another state to become rated referees? Especially for such a thankless job! It's hard to turn this kind of situation around. I give a lot of credit to people who referee fencing!!! I wish more people did it!

[MikeHarm]

I'm more into the weekend tournies too. As soon as I saw the fencing schedule I went straight to my boss to schedule some vacation days so I could go to the weekday ones. I work 10-7pm, and the weekday tournies started at 7, so that was the only way I had a chance to go.

Originally posted by broncofencer
I don't mind in epee if it is self directed but some tournaments I have been to have two or three members of the same club in each pool for foil or sabre and thats when i have a problem because there is no one to defer to to prevent bias real or percieved. I accept it as nessacary but still don't like it.

I will say however that the fencing on weekdays thing is getting a little sneaky because only fencers in the immediate area can go which is fine if your in a large city with multiple clubs but even then you weed out a large number of fencers. fridays are fine but I think i remeber seeing a tournament on a wednesday somewhere which I feel is a little ridiculus

[veeco]

In general, the person who's supposed to referee your bout in pools is the person first called "in the hole", so that people on deck can prepare for their bout.

In a self-directed tournament, if everyone keeps to this rule, and people remain courteous, the situation is in general not too bad. People who are new to fencing can pick up valuable refereeing skills, and others don't get too much caught up into the refereeing thing that it lowers their fencing ability.

The other nice thing about this is that this ensures that everyone ref's as many bouts in the pool.

For the last 2 bouts, the persons refereeing should be the first one called for the first bout of the pool, and then the first one called for the second bout, of course.

Of course, this is not a rule that's written anywhere, but it's common practice and courtesy and generally widely accepted, if you can get everyone before the pool to agree to it.

[westcoastsabre]

Veeco, what what would be the courteous procedure if someone in your pool didn't sufficiently understand the rules, does someone just take their spot.