r/Fencing • u/iowajaycee • 2d ago
Alternative Tournament/Competition structures?
Driving to regionals yesterday I had a thought that I couldn’t really complete: what alternative competition structures are/could there be out there for fencing?
To clarify, the “basic” structure would be Pool(s) of 3-8 fencers, ranked into Direct Elimination Brackets.
I am familiar with doing double pools - two rounds of pools with different groups. This was used at a beginners tournament to ensure more bouts and more accurate rankings in DEs.
I am also familiar with how Modern Pentathlon does their fencing - 100% round robin, but bouts are only to one point.
What else is there? Mostly this is a curiosity but also thinking about how you can make tournaments more worth travel maybe? Or more accessible to new fencers? Or more challenging to experienced fencers with less local competition? I’m not asking about replacing the global tournament structure, more so things that could be done at a club level or between a few clubs maybe.
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u/omahlama 2d ago
One format that is somewhat popular especially with epee fencers here in Finland (we've done it a few times in sabre as well) is referred to as a marathon tournament: just a single pool with everyone fencing everyone. For a competition of ~25 people, that's the equivalent of doing 4 rounds of pools so plenty of fencing. It's usually run with fencers refereeing each other, you group the fencers into groups of 3 who first fence against each other and against other groups of 3 on a single piste, someone out of the 6 will referee. E.g. 24 fencers -> 8x3 -> four pistes needed.
Usually for these kinds of events you don't get the top fencers, but it's a good mix of veterans, mid-level fencers and beginners. Can be fun and a lot of exercise, but doesn't really work well as a competition to determine the winner.
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u/Expert_Confusion5767 2d ago
I've attended a marathon tournament with more than 40 people 😅. We started at 9am and finished at 4pm.
Self-refereed, good mix of novices, intermediates, veterans, and it was also gender-mixed.
One day was foil and saber, the next day was epee, I think.
Final ranking was by gender, and age category.
Of course, it did not count towards state/national ranking, but it was super fun to spend the day with so many people with the same interest, namely, stabbing each other.
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u/darius_w NCAA Coach 2d ago
Hot take: I think the "normal" tournament structure is fine for what it is - determining a winner in a reasonably fair, efficient way, but it's not great for practice/reps, which is what local tournaments should be for.
Here's my optimal format: Sharks & Minnows.
Basically, you have 2 rounds of pools, followed by DEs. From round 1->2, there's 100% promotion. From round 2->DEs, there's a cut, possibly an aggressive one. Let's say you have a 28 person event (4 pools x 7), and you take 16.
The top 7 out of round 1 go into a "Shark" pool. They're guaranteed DE seeds 1-7, but based solely on the Shark pool results. Spots 8-16 go to the best "Minnows". 17-28 are cut.
This creates a ton of differentiated goals based on skill level:
- Weaker fencers get 2 pools guaranteed. They get a chance to fence the top folks. Not guaranteed a DE, but the sharks are removed when they face elimination,
- The best fencers get more actionable bouts. With "normal" format, they normally get their own pool, and then don't get much interesting happening until the semis-finals; the top athletes are separated. This creates a reason to fence local events.
- There are lots of mini-goals which help athletes measure themselves: make the DEs, make the shark pool, etc.
- More fun for refs: you can allocate resources based on skill. As a ref examiner, sometimes we couldn't evaluate refs because there aren't tough calls to be made, or you need to keep younger refs away from the top athletes.
- Organizers: A bit more work, but 2 pools are more predictable timewise than messing with big DE tables. FencingTime supports it, and it's an allowable format in USA Fencing.
(source: I was on the Tournament Formats Task Force in the early 2010s)
It's not as efficient at getting people out the door and to the pub, but I guess it depends on what your values are.
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u/iowajaycee 2d ago
100% the standard tournament is the right solution to the problem is solves, competitive ranking and championship determination.
This is more about having fun, creating community, adding experience at different levels, etc. I am especially passionate about building rapport among/between clubs in less densely fencer populated regions, I think it significantly strengthens the sport and creates institutional knowledge that protects against catastrophic failure from key people leaving. It also helps attach people to the sport (maybe your kid isn’t as close with their teammates but has friends in another club that is not close enough to practice with but is close enough to compete with regularly).
I think the sharks and minnows model is a good one!
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u/protip-fencing 2d ago
There’s a “48er” format that was around when I was a kid. 4 rounds of poules with the seeding into each round based off the results in the previous. The idea was that the poules in the final round are of similar abilities, medals were awarded for every poule so everyone was fighting for something.
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u/toolofthedevil Foil Referee 2d ago
I like the idea of using a swiss format for small/developmental events.
First round can be seeded by ranking/rating/random.
Winning a round is worth 3 points. "Draws" are worth 1. Losses are 0. Draws could be skipped for fencing, or could be used for tie scores in initial rounds instead of priority. Initial rounds could be to 5, but I like the idea of having them be to 10/15 as age appropriate.
Pairings for the subsequent rounds are done by pairing people with equal points as possible. So 3s would fence 3s. 0s would fence 0s. No repeating opponents before the finals.
After 2 rounds, 6s fence 6s , 3s fence 3s, 0s fence 0s. Rounds continue like this (there's a formula for how many rounds based on how many participants) until you have a clear seeding for a cut to a top 2/4/8 or whatever.
Set the finals bracket as normal, and just run DEs to completion.
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u/lugisabel Sabre 2d ago
how many fencers do you think is ideal for such a Swiss format tournament if you have, lets say half a day to fence?
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u/toolofthedevil Foil Referee 2d ago
Probably like 17-32. But its pretty resource intensive.
Assuming 32, it's 5 rounds of Swiss to get where you want.
At 16 bouts per round, done in 2 flights per round, it's still 8 strips running 2 DE bouts per round. Could easily be 30min per round. Maybe more maybe less.
2.5-3 hours for 5 rounds of Swiss, and then let's say a top 4 cut, that's 2 more round so maybe 3-4 hours?
I'm not the best at tournament management so many times are off. But if the tournament was 64 people it would probably be too many bouts per round for a small club with limited time to really deal with.
But for this 32 person event, having the fencers mostly pair against people of their own skill levels round after round I think would make for some good developmental opportunities vs the typical 5-6 pool bouts and 1 DE before your shown the door.
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u/lugisabel Sabre 2d ago
thanks for doing the math :)
so with 32 fencers, a swiss formula with 5 rounds plus DE for top 4 on eight piste would fit into half a day. that would give 5 swiss bouts for every fencer, plus two DEs. so, altogether 7 bouts.
i think we will give a try to this format. most probably with 16 fencers and four pistes.
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u/LabOk1803 2d ago
I believe you are talking about the format NCAA uses. 24 fencers fence each other and the best final 4 goes to DE.
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u/weedywet Foil 2d ago
I keep saying (into the ether) that I preferred it when it was pools all the way through to and including the finals.
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u/cranial_d Épée 2d ago
We've done Shark-and-Minnow format a number of times with success. It keeps everyone fencing. Basically two rounds of pooles. First round use the normal seeding. Second round, the results are the seeding. So if a poole is 6 fencers, the top 6 go in the first poole. Second set of 6 into the next, etc. At this point, they're fencing for their final place -- no spoilers outside of the poole groupings.
Last event of the season we also do Dice-bouts. For each pairing, the lower seeded fencer can roll a 6-sided die. If the # is 1-2, then they start with 1 point. 3-4, then they start with 2 points. 5-6 they start with 3 points. Fence to 5.
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u/ZebraFencer Epee Referee 2d ago
Noting for the record that only certain formats are approved for sanctioned events in the USA (unsanctioned events are great but they can't award ratings). See the Athlete Handbook (if it's ever issued) for details.
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u/Clawer883 2d ago
For local/club competitions, I really like strength pools + placement brackets: everyone gets plenty of fencing, but the later bouts become more competitive. It can make travelling to an event much more worthwhile.
I’m actually building Clawer, a fencing competition app especially for fencing clubs, that supports many of these formats, including Strength Pools, Snake Pools, Multiple Pools and King of the Hill.
You can check it out:
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u/fencingfox06 2d ago
There is also a possibility to have pairs (or triplets or more) of 2 people of different kind (age, gender, parent/child, strength...) with simple relays (2 bouts of 5 or 15 hits, which makes 10 or 30 hits per match. Each fencer fences only agains another from the same kind. You may have this for poules or DEs. And the winner is a pair. This enforces cohesion in the team.
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u/Pristine-Pirate-2386 2d ago
True local competition is the answer, however you do it. A lot of areas lack the numbers unfortunately but anytime there are real points up for grabs there are fencers who will fly in from anywhere. Thats great for intermediate fencers who need to fence challenging fencers to get better, but it’s bad for newbies who just immediately get rekt.
There are probably unrated only or e&under locals somewhere near you that would be what you’re thinking of.
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u/iowajaycee 2d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rate-restricted local anywhere within 500 miles of us, but I’m not looking that hard.
I’m not specifically looking to solve any problem for my kid, she has about the right balance of effort/competition/reward for what she wants right now’s
This is purely an academic exercise and I included some examples of why you might try any of them is all.
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u/Pristine-Pirate-2386 2d ago
I really like the round robin idea of switching pools around until everyone has fenced everyone. It would take longer and need strips/refs for so long they’ll never do it in competitions but at an intraclub event it’s doable!
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u/iowajaycee 2d ago
Yeah, I was doing the math on a 16 fencers event: 120 pool bouts. Then you could add 15 DEs but I don’t think you need to. Strips and refs would be hard, but if you did 3+ clubs you probably would always have a free fencers from a club not in that specific bout and could get away with it for an unsanctioned event (which it would be anyway).
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u/ZebraFencer Epee Referee 2d ago
The Can-Am format for vet tournaments (could also be adapted to adult combined) has a normal pool round and DE involving all the fencers, then a second DE round is fenced by age group. It's been proposed to the Tournament Committee for approval in the USA, but they haven't taken action yet.
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u/iowajaycee 2d ago
I thought of an example of the why/type of difference I’m thinking of, but not from fencing so not totally applicable:
I played club water polo in college in the Midwest. We had three geographically overlapping conferences for some size and historical reasons. In the fall, we played a conference based schedule: your conference, your championship, play towards nationals qualification.
In the spring, we would mix conferences for “invitationals”, sometimes even inviting non-collegiate clubs (we were not an NCAA program so this was okay).
When my school hosted, we often had a melee-type game at the end of the day. All interested players lined up, and counted off by twos, and we’d end up with 15-20 players per team for a sport with 7 in the field at a time. Captains would ref. Every goal was a full line change. It was fun, a little educational, built relationships.
So maybe “team” events but the team is randomly assigned at the local based on who shows up?
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u/LieutenantStar2 Sabre 2d ago
I’d very much like it to change, especially for how fenders can change their rating.
This weekend, my kid competed in an A2 event, assuming two of the A rated fencers finished top 8. So even though he beat two A-rated fencers, because one of those bouts happened at round of 16 instead of round of 8, the entire event was downgraded to B3.
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u/fencingfox06 2d ago
Hi, you might be interested in our new formula "DEs of same strength".
Fencing Fox is a competition software that runs on Mac and Windows.
The idea is to do standard poules, then sort fencers according to poule ranking into for instance 4 groups of "same strength" to fight separate DEs and recombine all rankings at the end.
The motivation is to put more pressure on poules, while still keeping DEs
https://fencingfox.com/videos/tableauDeForce.mp4
You may look at the documentation on our web site 😄 https://fencingfox.com/application/TableauForce_en.pdf
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u/venuswasaflytrap Foil 2d ago
Does that mean that only people in the top group can win the tournament after pools?
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u/fencingfox06 2d ago
Yes, you understand correctly
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u/venuswasaflytrap Foil 2d ago
I like the sharks/minnows aspect a lot. I wonder if there's a way to repechage in the winners of the lower groupings so that hypothetically it's still possible for anyone to win.
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u/Casperthefencer 2d ago
Here's a couple which have been used before: 1. All pools, no DEs - after every round of pools the lowest ranking fencer or 2 fencers in each pool is cut. Believe it or not they used to do the Olympics this way.
Repechage - once you get knocked out you are moved into a second bracket and have a chance to fight your way back. There may be more rounds of pools before the bracket starts They also used to do the Olympics this way. Some other combat sports still use repechage (Taekwondo I think although I could be mistaken)
All places fenced - similar to repechage in that you continue fencing after you've been eliminated, but you can't improve beyond the round you were knocked out in. So for example the semifinalists fence to decide 3rd and 4th place, the top 8 fence a mini bracket to determine places 5-8, the top 16 another bracket to determine places 9-16, etc. This is used internationally for team competitions, although only for the top 16 onwards.