Articles by Kari Baker

About Kari Baker

Kari is a HEMA student at Mordhau Historical Combat. She began going to HEMA classes after seeing a demonstration at a Comic Con in 2014. After a multi-year hiatus, she returned to HEMA in 2021 and has hit the tournament scene heavily, competing in any and every weapon. Kari has earned degrees in data science, mathematics, and linguistics, with her professional life focusing on healthcare data science and analytics. Kari is also a Eurovision fan, a video game and board game connoisseur, an award-winning trophy guide writer, and loves wearing pretty dresses.

Weapon Specialization: A Help or A Hinderance?

October 24, 2023 Kari Baker 0

Does specializing in a weapon make you better at it? Or does diversification improve performance? Can you use data mining to justify buying even more swords?

Do Swords Make You Look Cool?

July 25, 2023 Kari Baker 0

We all dream of looking as cool as Aragorn, Xena, Cloud, or Guts when it comes to wielding swords, but does that dream become reality when outsiders look at the HEMAverse?

Geo-Mapping US Top Fencers Over Time

June 30, 2023 Kari Baker 0

I saw some graphics floating around Facebook a while ago showing the geographical location of top-rated HEMA fencers. These graphics, created by J.J. Conlon, showed […]

Do Fighters Game Rule Sets?

May 30, 2023 Kari Baker 0

Do competitors try to hand snipe their way to victory all the time? Or do they only do so when the rules don’t favor deep targets?

Can I Hit That?

March 21, 2023 Kari Baker 0

Have you ever wondered what your chance was of winning an exchange against Sean Franklin? Look no further than “Can I Hit That?”, a fun new tool for looking at your probability of winning exchanges against your HEMA friends!

WTF: Women’s Tournament Forecasting

December 19, 2022 Kari Baker 0

Sean told me one day “I want a ‘Should you run a women’s tournament?’ calculator.” Being the people pleaser I am, of course I’m going to try my hand at it.

What Is A Normal HEMA Rating?

November 23, 2022 Kari Baker 0

This is an article about populations and distributions, but to be honest you’re going to read to see if you’re above or below the average rating.

Combat Con 2022: Why Sample Size Matters

August 22, 2022 Kari Baker 0

Combat Con 2022 had a hot take on how to run a longsword tournament: eliminate self-selection of skill level and, instead, have people fight in preliminary pools to get placed into different tiers based on their performance. Let’s see if that worked out the way it was intended.