Mark presenting the trophy to, a clearly delighted, Henry.
After a few sessions of deliberation prior to the start of the competition and, with the scorer finally understanding how the DE section of this month’s competition was going to be run, we finally gathered on Tuesday 30th January 2024 (where has the time gone!) for the start of the 2024 monthly club competitions. Despite worrying about the numbers attending (Claudia and Paul were ill and with Richard still recuperating from a nasty cough, Sandy injured and Will exhausted from a busy work schedule, to name but a few) we saw the event start with 12 fencers and, with the arrival of Henry and Sofia, we were able to add each of them to a poule, to make two poules of 7 fencers. Despite the surprise of some at my ability to evenly match the poules (and Richard still complaining he’d be in the poule of death either way) we commenced.
Rob and Joe were the clear masters on the night and despite Rob’s protestations that he was the best, Joe managed to pip him to the top seed by way of a superior indicator. Despite his late arrival, the adrenaline must have been flowing because Joe was the only fencer to stand in Henry’s way, of gaining 100% of fights won. Richard, despite some breathlessness due to his ongoing recuperation, managed third spot in the poule with four out of six wins and, Stuart following hot on his heels with three out of six wins. Steve and Mark followed on respectively, but with Jake unable to complete his matches against Joe, Richard and Stuart, the older fencers were given the win and Jake is showing as zero matches won (but with his quick sword work and great ability to get the foot hit in, who knows how the poule would actually have ended).
Rob’s poule was much more evenly matched with every fencer managing to win at least one match. Dave was second in this poule, winning four of his five duels, with Sean and Sofia evenly matched at three wins apiece, father and son – Phil and Peter were level on two wins each and Rohan seemingly having a shocking night only winning one of his six bouts.
How would the DE the following week pan out? Judging by the confusion on how it was going to work, it seemed like the scoring would be a harder slog than the actual fighting!
So, the following Tuesday arrives and the rules for the DE are as follows: For the first round of the DE all fencers start with 5 lives. Each time you get a hit against you, you lose a life. The first person to lose all five of their lives loses the round and the opponent progresses. However, for the fencer who has progressed they will only progress with all of their five lives if they haven’t been hit by their opponent. So, if fencer A and fencer B compete and, fencer A wins the bout 5-3, they have been hit 3 times, so they only progress to the next round of the DE with 2 lives (as they have lost 3 lives with every hit that they have incurred in the bout). This also means that if a bout ends with a double hit and both fencers having lost all their lives, then nobody progresses and their opponent in the next round will get a Bye. It does mean that there is a possibility that we won’t even get to a grand final match and the winner will have to be determined on a back count on the number of lives s/he had in each of the previous rounds!
Back to the easy (non-explanatory) part of this report! Rob arrives and is full of confidence (you know what they say about pride and falls, Rob!), with protestations about his recent Kings School Alumni win and how he sees his opponents as nameless and faceless mannequins to hone his fencing skills. Sandy is back from injury and makes his usual understated entrance. Richard is his usual positive self and Claudia is back from illness. Jaina makes an appearance as she hasn’t got an early work start in the morning and Helen returns to the fold having had a hectic year previously that meant we hardly saw her – welcome back Helen! On the other hand, Joe, Phil, Rohan, Jake, and Sean were not in attendance and those who weren’t here the previous week were slotted in.
In the first round of DE Helen, Peter and Rob were all handed Bye’s into the quarter final stages. Claudia overcame Sofia, but lost three lives in the process, as did Richard who beat Mark and Dave who conquered Sandy. Stuart proceeded through with a single life, having had a tightly fought match against Steve (winning 5-4) and the cream of the first-round crop was Henry who advanced with four of his five lives having defeated Jaina (winning 5-1).
The quarter finals were where the limitations of the number of lives came to the fore. Richard lost both of his live to Dave, meaning Dave moved forward with both of his lives to the semi-finals. Peter and Rob, having both received byes, found themselves duelling with five lives each, and, much to the crowd’s delight (sorry Rob), Peter gained a couple of early hits, followed by a couple of double hits and with a final blow, Peter landed the shot that saw the top seed (on the night) exit the competition. Then the limitations of playing with lives and not up to a number of hits became evident. Stuart, with one life remaining, was up against Henry, who had progressed with four lives. Stuart started strong and scored an early point against Henry, however, a single hit from Henry was enough for Stuart to lose his one life and exit the competition, despite the actual shots scored being one apiece. To really add insult to injury to those who were playing well, Claudia’s match against Helen was 3-2 in Claudia’s favour, but because she had only advanced with two lives, despite being behind on shot’s landed, Helen’s two hits were enough to wipe out Claudia’s two lives and see Helen move forward into the semi-finals against Dave!
The semi-finals were a much easier affair to follow. Helen and Dave both had two lives and, with Dave having the advantage of the reach, he easily overcame Helen with just the two hits required to take out her remaining lives. Henry and Peter had both advanced with three lives each and, despite Peter obliterating one of Henry’s lives, he was unable to overcome the in-form Henry, who would continue into the final, versus Dave, with both men on two lives. The final was a quick affair, with only two hits required from either fencer to become champion. The struggle of refereeing a couple of matches and trying to remember to reduce the scoreboard for the fencer hit, rather than adding a strike for the fencer who scored, had obviously worn Dave out and Henry came out as the January champion with both of his two lives intact. Well done, Henry.
We’re not sure if this is a format that we’ll use in the future (Rob was definitely displeased – “this is ridiculous and has changed the way that I’ve done fencing for 25 years!”) but if anybody has any ideas that they’d like us to try for the future month’s competitions, please speak to Mark. We’d like to keep these competitions fun and interesting and we can only learn from the new things that we do. Well done everybody for giving it a go, for understanding and a special well done to Henry who is our January 2024 Monthly Competition winner. They’ll all be gunning for you next month!
