"This can't be gay, there are no protoss here!"
-Dr.Zchivago
|
| The Quest for the D | | | Author: | | | IP: | pcp05314XXXX | | Date: | 07/15/04 04:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Anonymous Reporter 1: 8.0645 |   |
The Quest for the D
|
The previous report garnered such an impressive amount of positive feedback
that, hell, I decided to write another. And after all, it would be cruel of
me to leave such a story without closure, wouldn’t it?
|
If you’re confused as to what fencing is, I highly suggest that you read my
previous report, located
here.
There’s a fairly lengthy introduction, with
the rules, equipment, and list of basic actions all there. Plus, the result
of that tournament set the stage for this one.
It was one of the last tournaments in the fencing schedule this year, and it
offered the perfect opportunity for me to continue my attempts towards a D.
As an added bonus, the venue was my previous fencing school, one which I had
stopped going to after about a year of instruction. Could I go there, and
beat their best? We’ll see.
It all looked a bit too familiar, like a faint memory that you expect to be
mostly invention but really wasn’t. The floors were buffed to perfection,
and the strips, while only 3 in number, looked fully serviceable. On the
walls hung examples out of fencing’s past: Medieval broadswords, Renaissance
style rapiers, even a battleaxe. It fully embraced all of fencing’s mysterious lore
while presenting an excellent stage for the modern fencer to demonstrate his
skills.
Walking in, I looked up, recognizing a (scant) few faces. The ones I didn’t
remember looked young, neophyte even. I walked into the administrative
office to check in for the event and check out the competition. Glancing
down at the list of fencers, I noticed a fair but small number: 17 fencers,
most of them Us. I noticed 2 Ds, (One was from 2 years ago, so the fencer
hasn’t reearned it since, and will lose it at the end of this year), 3 E’s
(one of which was Yours Truly), and the rest U’s. I asked the school owner
what classifications he thought the tournament would receive, and he replied
with ‘Looks like a D1 group, unless we get a few more rated fencers, which
at this point looks unlikely.’ Fuck. D1 meant that 2nd-4th place get E’s, and only the
winner of the tournament snags a D. Seeing as how I was already an E04
(Renewed it a few tournaments ago), I’d have to finish first to justify my
coming here.
It was at that moment that I noticed the Asian guy who denied me a new
rating twice already walk in (See previous BR). Fuck. My
heart sank: I’ll have to beat him, too? He looked up at me, recognizing me
and apologizing (we’ve chatted a bit before, he knew how badly I wanted that
D last time). He was knocked out last time in the next round (right after defeating me in pools), so he didn’t
get the ‘C’ which he came extrememly close to at that tournament.
Without the chance of earning a C here, he had reason no to stay. “Hell”, he
said, “I have an Ultimate Frisbee Tournament to go to!” I silently thanked
whoever the hell invented Ultimate Frisbee for saving my ass.
The First Round consisted of pools: 3 sets of them, with 5 fencers in 2
pools and 6 fencers in the 3rd. I was slotted into the second pool, but I wasn't concerned in the slightest
with trying to fence at the peak of my abilities. Why? Well, at small
tournaments like this, everyone automatically qualifies for the Direct
Elimination round, and if I’m aiming solely for first it really doesn’t
matter whether I face the best fencer there in my first DE or in the finals.
I think I ended up with a record of 4-1 here, but again it was nearly irrelevant.
Begin DE round!
My first opponent: young girl of 13 or so. If you think it looks like a
mismatch, it was: She got maybe 3 points on me throughout the first-to-15
bout. That’s what you get for trying to defeat me!
The second round began, and I was ready. I knew my opponent; I had actually
fenced him in the last tournament I went to, the one from my previous BR.
However, I faced him in the first round of pools, so even those who’ve read
my previous BR have no clue who he is. He’s a tall, Norwegian Blond style
guy, and physically a lumbering oaf. He looked fresh-faced and somewhat athletic, but I immediately knew
from his poor on-guard stance and habit of falling forward on lunges that
his experience level wasn’t high at all. He substituted muscle for skill, a
poor exchange in something as mindful as a fencing bout.
The director calls ‘Fence!’ and I begin with my measured, slow pace towards
my opponent. He simply explodes toward me in an all-out run, something which
demands immediate response. Luckily for me, he launches the attack from
waaaay out of distance
--something like half the strip away. This gives me a few precious seconds
to act, which might as well be eternity in a fencing bout. I easily parry
aside his blade and make a quick riposte. Touch, me.
The next exchange begins much the same. He attempts to mow me down from a truly ridiculous distance, I
make a simple parry-riposte and step into his rush (no need for a lunge, his
idiotic charge had closed distance for me. Thanks). Touch, me.
I raise my arms for the next on guard with a smirk on my face. He could try
that as many times as he wants, but it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have the
distance. I decide to push forward with a fast pace, hopefully surprising
him and catching him too close. This was an excellent tactic: If your
opponent fails to keep proper track of distance, use every trick in the book
to break distance and trick him into falling into indefensible positions. He pauses, I
continue forward and accelerate, slamming home a straight attack directly
into his side. He looks flabberghasted. Wasn’t that little squirt 10 feet
away just a second ago?
Our foils threatening each other, we both advance slowly, cautious, waiting
for each other to take the initiative. I decide to feint-attack into his
weak advance, carefully studying his reaction. He pauses, confused. I press
on, only to see him rear back and prepare to flick me on the back. I
should’ve responded by simply continuing forward with the attack, but I
(stupidly) attempt to parry the flick. He hits me before I can reach his
blade, and it’s touch, him.
After this, we start trading touches for a bit. From 3-1, it goes up to 5-3,
8-6, and finally 10-8. It’s at this point that I recognize the blunder I’ve
been making, so after smacking my free hand into my mask for a bit, I start
finishing my attacks (right of way doesn't matter if I'm not hitting the sucker). My lead widens: It’s at 13-9 now, and my opponent is
growing desperate.
I push forward on the next touch, aimed at banging another nail into the
coffin. He’ll have none of it, though, and makes feint-attack-disengage on
my open flank. I’ve noticed his habit of favoring a specific type of
disengage (His final attack has been into my flank fully 90% of the time),
so I make a false parry before immediately making a circle-parry, making
sure to cover my flank. The gambit works like a charm. His utterly abysmal sense
of distance gives me all the time in the world to riposte. He looks stunned
as the foil plunges deeply into his side, and I know the victory won is
psychological as well as physical. Point, me.
One more touch to move on. I could tell that this kid’s rage is building
from that last touch, and if he’s smart he will recognize that I just
figured out his favorite move. I expect one of 3 things:
1. A resumption of his first plan: Charging from out of distance, with an
added touch of desperation. Taking his relative lack of inexperience into
account, this is what I’d imagine him to do.
2. Fencing very cautiously. Well, I’d wait for an opening: The clock was
close to running out, and if it did at this point, I’d gain the victory.
3. Continuing his favorite touch. This is the second most likely action, considering
his reaction when I figured out his first tactic, and taking into account his overly agressive nature.
With this in mind, I raise my foil, bend my knees, and prepare to end the bout. Assuming a slow, unsteady pace with a
fair amount of retreating, I hope to look unready, drawing him out and
forcing him to reveal his game plan. He responds by advancing aggressively,
aiming to attack. I step back, and false-parry, like last time. Like
clockwork, he responds with a disengage, aiming at my flank, but before he
can seal the touch, my parry comes back. I smile and riposte…only to find my
foil knocked aside! In a desperate plea, he swung his foil back, catching me
before I can evade his parry. His poor distance helps him here, as I’m
probably not going to be able to retreat far enough before he brings his
point to bear. Seizing the split-second I have before I’m skewered, I
quickly remise and then run past him. He brings his foil around, misses me,
and smacks the floor. The judge looks at the lights for a few seconds,
thinks, and then says: “Fencer on my right misses, fencer on my left’s
remise lands, fencer on my right hits floor. Bout, 15 to 9”.
I pull off my mask in order to shake hands with my opponent, but before I
can, I hear a monstrous bellow rent the air from the other side of the room. “WHAT ARE YOU
DOING?! THAT WAS NOT HIS TOUCH!” It’s the father of the boy I defeated. He
barrels past the other in-progress bouts, grabs the director on the shoulder
and screams “That was bullshit! How could you miss that off-target light?!
He hit him on the shoulder!” The son looks embarrassed and finally pulls his
dad aside. Crisis averted. Bout won.
The semi-final bout is up next, and I’m ready. My opponent: A short kid of
13 or so, firm but frightened in the face of my height, flanked by his
father and mother. You know the type, I’m sure. His father hands him his
water as we take a 5 minute break before the bout. I take the opportunity to
mentally figure him out. I’d seen him fence the rest of the day; he wasn’t
the most technically skilled, but he was fast. Not
100 meter-runner-flat-out-sprint fast, I’m talking little-kid burst fast. It
was his greatest advantage, and he had used it well: forcing people with
poor aim to miss by suddenly closing distance and counter-attacking,
charging the slow ones clear off the end of the strip, and surprising
everyone with a fast distance change. His height was both an advantage and a
disadvantage, as although it severely shortened his effective lunge range,
is also made him harder to it, forcing would-be attackers to mentally pick a target and watch
their aim. Considering that I’m not a giant myself, I
usually don’t fence against very tall nor very short fencers, and as such I’m not that well
acquainted with the tendencies of each. Gotta figure something out as I go
along.
“Break-period is over. Fencers on guard!” announced the director. I
swallowed down the lump in my throat, and forced my mind to think of the
bout ahead. I opened with a moderate pushing speed forward, planning to
explode into an advance-lunge once I gained suitable distance. I noticed
that he gained most of his points on the attack, so I figured his defense
was weaker than his offense. He’s keeping fairly good distance, so I’m
forced to mix it up a bit. I slow down for a brief period, convincing him to
slow down. As soon as he did, I exploded into a fast advance. He’s lost
track of the distance, and there’s no way he’ll accelerate in time to
counter my advance. I lunge as he counter-attacks. I look up at the box—
One light, it’s his. I missed. Damn.
Next touch went much the same way, and the score stands at 0-2.
However, that’s not the important part. See, in a 5 touch pool bout, the aim
is to make as many fast touches as possible, building a fast lead from which
to dominate. It doesn’t matter much if your opponent figures out your
strategy and devises a counter if he’s down 0-3, does it? You’ll have a few
points to blow before you’re position starts looking shaky, while his is
immediately dire.
This all goes out the window in a 15 touch DE. While it is important to gain
as many touches as possible (every touch counts, after all), it’s far, far
more important to ‘scout out’ your opponent’s game plan, mentally cycle
through your skills and counters, and precede to take it down like a 2 cent
whore. That’s why I often use my first few points as reconnaissance;
something that’s especially vital if you’re entering the bout completely
ignorant as to your opponent’s tactics. Forcing your opponent to completely
abandon their favorite move after two touches will usually mentally shake
them up, distracting them from the on-going mind game. That’s why the best
fencers are so infuriating to fence. Even though they have their favorite
moves, they’re able to instantly reform their tactics into anything else in
their expansive reperortoire. It’s as if you can immediately change strats in
a game of Starcraft as soon as you’re losing the unit matchup, without regard to
tech or economic disadvantage. How do you counter that?
The main factor I decided to use against my opponent, simply put, was his
height and lack of range. My game plan is as follows:
1. Frustrate him by keeping spot-on distance. Eventually, he’ll grow
irritated and attack. Younger kids with short attention spans are especially
vulnerable to this tactic.
2. Parry him, using my distance advantage to make sure I’m never in any
danger, and then use my superior range to execute a riposte.
-Or-
3. Hit and step back— Essentially, fake a distance error (false action), hit
him with a quick sword arm extension (no lunge), and get the fuck out of
there to make sure his attack misses. Think of it as microing a fast ranged
unit against a slow melee one: Fire, Run, Fire, Run, etc.
4. Occasionally mix it up with a few accelerated attacks, mainly to keep him
guessing as to my next move.
After a few touches, I realize just how well this is working out. His short
attention span denies him the opportunity to set up any complex,
distance-stealing actions to deal with my refusal to engage, while he’s left
nearly completely defenseless against my own response to his failed attacks.
The odd attack I launch catches him nearly completely by surprise. The only
times I’m losing points is when I either screw up distance and get hit by
him (rarely), he catches me with a parry-riposte when I attack (very
rarely), or I miss (uncomfortably often).
Why am I missing? I’m getting really damn tired. Fencing this long in a
hot, humid room without much in the way of breaks gets to you, and fast.
Every time a “Halt!” is called, I quickly take off my mask to wipe off the
sweat, and breathe. This kid seems unaffected—what the hell is it with
little kids and energy? The score stands at 8-4, but he’s slowly gaining
ground. We appear to be trading touches, but he’s eroding my advantages with
unanswered touches of his own. The score now stands at 11-9, with the first
break called (first 3 minutes elapsed).
The ball was in my court. He still hadn’t adapted much to my strategy, so as
long as I still fenced decently, the bout (and the chance to fence in the
finals) was mine. I downed ½ a bottle of Gatorade as I breathed deeply,
relaxing my muscles. It would help, but probably not enough for a long bout.
I needed to win this one fast.
I resumed my classical fencing pose while my enemy struck a mirrored
version. I saluted, tested my weapon again (Thank God it didn’t break this
time), was tested on, and put my mask back on. “Fence!”, yelled the
director. And fence we did.
I start off this time slowly and unassuming, occasionally advancing into
lunge-range. It’s a subtle change from my strategy, but I need to probe him
out a bit. Has he formulated a response to my strategy yet?
Nope. His response is simply to attack from out of distance, recover, chase
me down the strip, and attempt the same thing. Easy enough: Parry, riposte,
thanks for the touch.
I convince him with cutting-edge distance to keep up his futile attempts. Parry-ripostes win me
yet another touch. The way that I’m setting up this touch now, I’m shortening the
distance a bit so that I don’t have to lunge. It makes his attacks
quite a bit more risky: I can essentially see his steel hover inches from my
exposed chest. However, if he’s that close, I can riposte faster, plus I
won’t have to lunge. Lunging becomes extremely tiring on the legs if you’re
already tired, and I needed all my energy for fast retreats and sudden
advances.
For the next touch, he yet again fails to keep track of distance, and falls
straight into my parry. The lucky bastard unfortunately takes it back,
forcing me to retreat as he pressed the advantage. If I wasn’t exhausted
already, I’d easily beat a hasty retreat, half-retreat beat
attack-advance-lunge (A fast distance change while I whack his foil aside),
hit and step back or wait for the parry riposte. My low energy reserves
woefully permit me little movement, and I watch helplessly as I’m late with
the parry. 13-10, me in the lead.
I’m going to surprise the shrimp on the next touch. Drawing upon all of my
reserves of energy, I suddenly explode from a very tentative motion into an
all-out charge, ending with an advance lunge. I evade the parry, and stab
his chest. The blade bends as I look up to the scoring machine. It’s one
light, and mine. I can taste victory.
Unfortunately, while that last touch might have looked flashly, it was
precisely the worst thing I could’ve done when my tank was empty and I still
had to finish the bout. I whiff on the next touch, and am too slow for the
parry-riposte on the other (My stiff, sore arm muscles make it difficult to
maintain a steady point, so I missed on the counter-attack for that touch,
too). The score is maddeningly close. Halp.
 Ok then. I can deal with this. I’m still up by 2, he’s desperate, I have the
psychological advantage, I have one point to win. All of these reasons
pointed in my favor, but the pathetic amount of juice I have to draw on is
immediately apparent. He goes forward, I retreat. I counter-attack and hit
him on his unguarded left side, before I retreat. But he pours on the speed,
closes range, and lunges nearly instantaneously after I counter attack. I
lose on the call, and it’s 14-13.
This was one of those epic moments. When the blood’s pounding reaches a
crescendo, and everything seemingly hits Matrix-speed while you travel the
convoluted pathways of your mind, searching out…anything. Finally, I
discover all that I’ve been looking for: An Ominous Voice. “Voice,” I ask,
“What do I do? I’m one touch away from the finals, I have no energy left,
and I can’t lose to this kid!” After an eternity, I hear the deeply
resonating Voice fill the chamber with his mighty words. And he said:
“Badme, you must
With advice like that, how can I possibly lose?
Back to the game. The adrenaline finally kicks in. Panic threatens to rear its ugly head…before I
realize the result from last time. I slow down, and ‘accidentally’ step off
the side of the strip. This stops the action; I use the miniscule break to
take a few deep breaths. Time to finish this, cool and controlled.
I’m keeping perfect distance without much in the way of attacks, refusing to allow him any chance to get in range. His
desperation and frustration is building, as in the back of his mind he knows
that a couple more minutes of this and he’s lost on time. Finally, after
what seems like an eternity of constant bait-and-run, the kid attacks from a
distance where he doesn’t have a prayer in heaven to land. I parry, step in
and pull off a snap lunge. He realizes the danger, but…too late. The tip of
my foil connects with valid target, and it’s bout, me. I rip off my mask in
jubilation before the final salute, and yell ‘Dedmaked!’ to no one in
particular. Hell, this was the probably the biggest bout of my fencing
career up to now, and one of the closest, too.
Wiped out, I breathlessly ask the club owner about the length of time
permitted between bouts as I down some more Gatorade. “Well, we can start
now...or we can wait 15 minutes or so.” Thank you, ma’am, that’s all the
time in the world to me.
Unfortunately, there’s isn’t much to tell about the final bout. The other
fencer, while athletic and strong, had a major lack of experience compared
to me, and it showed, costing him dearly. I’d simply feint at the left side
of his chest, he’d freeze. After the uncontrolled parry came, I’d almost calmly
disengage and lunge, ushering in major stabbity action. The bout ended 15-6 in my favor, but I was nearly
certain as to the outcome halfway through the round.
So I’d won my D! They had a cheesy little reward ceremony, where they
revealed that everyone in the final 4 either earned a new rating (I jumped
from E to D, my opponent in the final went from U to E, and a friend of
mine, Mike, who lost to him in the semi-final snagged his first E) or
renewed their older one (the kid who gave me the scare in the semi-final
upgraded from an E03 to an E04.) The other D in the tournament didn’t even
place. I received a rather large ‘Gold Medal’ from the event, which I wore
for 2 days straight, without taking it off (that’s right, _never_ taking it
off) the entire time. Oh, but I can enjoy the fruits of sweet victory,
can’t I?
Pictures were taken from fencing.net, the header was made on flamingtext.com.
Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed! Comment Here
|
| |
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
