Survive the Pools and Fence the Finals?
Many people perceive that pool fighting is uglier and leads to more double hits than elimination bracket fights. But is this really the case?
Rule Sets
Case Study – SoCal 2018 Singlestick
Even if you don’t like singlestick, there is a lot to learn about how the afterblow affects both the attacker and the defender independently.
Does Bracket Seeding Mean Anything?
Does the best fighter usually win? Is silver different from bronze? Is a seeded bracket better than a random one? Can I write something that makes this sound exciting?
HEMA Ratings – Does it actually mean anything?
“Damn those stupid numbers, no HEMA Rating’s going to tell me what my odds of winning are!” While on an individual level there are a ton of other factors that the rating doesn’t capture, does it do a good job overall?
Data Mining – CombatCon Longsword
How has the CombatCon Longsword tournament changed year over year? We crunch the numbers and see.
Data Mining – SoCal Swordfight Longsword
How has the SoCal Longsword tournament changed year over year? We crunch the numbers and see.
Case Study: SoCal 2018 Sword and Buckler
I’ve always been a big advocate of evaluating tournaments in as objective a manner as possible, so I’m going to take a crack at it. […]
Scalability: Why bugs are small and tournament rulesets are hard
I bet you never imagined a connection between why bugs are small and why large tournaments are run a certain way. But here we are.
Is It Important To Weigh Target Values?
Tournament organizers gave different point values for different targets, and you’ll never guess what happened next!
Non Zero-Sum Concepts in Tournament Rulesets
The more I think about tournament rules, the more it becomes apparent to me that a zero-sum solution to scoring will never get us the results we want. Also: lemon pie.