Oct/Nov Winner, Rob – being praised by his ‘adoring’ fans!

Having completed a week of poules at the end of October, the competition was never really finished due to the absence of a scorer, as well as fewer numbers over the half term weeks.  It was decided to relaunch the competition on the second Tuesday of November and see if we could complete it one night. 

With fourteen fencers in total, we amassed two poules of seven fighters.  The poule fights were to be held over three minutes, with a one-hit winner rule. In poule 1, Dave Mark and Paul came up top trumps, each winning five of their seven duels.  Finally trying to return to using his dominant arm after surgery, Phil put up a good showing winning three of his matches; which left Claudia, Jaina and Sofia to wallow at the bottom with one winning match each.  In poule 2 Sandy came up top trumps winning five of his six matches.  Ellora and Steve were level pegging on four wins each.  Next up were Richard and Peter with three wins each, with Jake and Rob languishing at the bottom, of a much more evenly matched poule, with a single win each.  There were numerous cries of bad sportsmanship, with many claiming that Rob was on a ‘hustle’, but as Rob put it himself, he is much more a ‘long-game strategist’ and that the one-hit win rule was detrimental to his style of fencing!  Only the final result would prove who was right!

Whilst the seeding was being determined the DE rules were explained.  They were as follows:

DE matches were to be a two-minute affair.

The winner would be determined by who scored three consecutive hits.

In the event that the leading scorer had his/her three-hit run cut short by their opponent, then the scoring would return to 0 – 0.

In the event that the two minutes finished, it would be the fencer who had the score who would win, whether that be at 1-0 or 2-0. 

Double hits would also see the score return to 0-0

Thankfully, the rules needed to be clarified a couple of times, as in the back ground, Paul had devised a seeding strategy for all those fencers who had the same percent of games won (as there was no indicator, due to it being a one-hit win).  Having received ‘the look’ from the scorer and, then a determination that Stephen Hawking couldn’t make Paul’s method work, it was decided that seeding would be determined on (1) percent of games won and (2) alphabetical first name order!

Dave and Mark found themselves in the enviable position of receiving a bye for the first round of DE.  Richard beat Phil with the full three consecutive hit quota, as did Rob against Sandy and, Steve versus Jaina.  Jake beat Ellora with a single hit in the two required minutes, Paul managed to overcome Sofia with two hits and Peter managed the same against Claudia. 

The quarter-finals saw Dave and Richard timed out, with Dave managing to land a single shot at the last, to take the win.  Rob, having warmed up, with more than a single hit, managed to land the three consecutive shots required against Jake, as did Peter versus Mark.  Steve could only land a single shot within the time to beat Paul, having seen the score reset to zero each, a number of times.

In the semi-finals, Dave, despite his reach and precision, was beaten by Rob, with the three consecutive hits required.  Peter could only manage two consecutive shots against Steve, in the two minutes allowed, to set up a final for himself against Rob. 

After a toing and froing between the two fencers, which saw the score resetting to zero more than once, Rob eventually found his mojo and managed to land the three consecutive hits that saw him crowned October/November 2024 Champion.  Well done, Rob.