Results of all fights in a poule are recorded in a poule sheet that will look similar to the one below.
At the end of each poule referee will ask you to check the results and sign the poule sheet to confirm all your results are recorded correctly.
Once you signed the poule sheet as correct, you will stand very little chance of arguing later on that there was an error in the poule sheet.
For this reason it is extremely important to understand how the poule sheet works. On top of that it is a good practice to keep record of all your poule results yourself, in the simplest possible form. It can be as simple as writing down the result of each fight on a sheet of paper. After all you will need that information when checking if the poule sheet has been filled in correctly by the referee.
So, how exactly does the poule sheet work?
Let’s suppose we want to record the result of the fight Collins (3) – Hughes (6). The numbers next to their names are just the order in which they are recorded on the poule sheet, Collins is 3rd while Hughes 6th. In our case Collins won 5-2.
At the intersection of row 3 (Collins) and column 6 (Hughes) we will record Collins’ result as V5 (Victory, 5 touches scored).
Then Hughes’ result will be recorded as D2 (Defeat, 2 touches scored) at the intersection of row 6 (Hughes) and column 3 (Collins).
All the other results are recorded in the same way. For confirmation let’s see below the result of the fight Bennett – Turner, won by Turner 3-1, recorded in the poule sheet:
The good news is, this is all you need to know to be able to check if your results have been recorded correctly on a poule sheet, or indeed to record results correctly if you find yourself refereeing.
The rest of the poule sheet
Let’s have a quick look at the rest of the columns in the poule sheet. You will not be checking these at the end of the poule as they will still be empty at that stage.
V number of Victories particular fencer had
V/M ratio of number of Victories to number of Matches
TS number of touches (points) scored in all Matches
TR number of touches (points) received in all Matches
Ind Indicator. TS-TR
After the poule all fencers are seeded into the Direct Elimination (DE) round according to their V/M.
If more than one fencer have the same V/M then they are seeded according to their Ind.
Example
Let’s have a look at an actual poule sheet taken from Fencing Time Live
Three fencers won two matches each and all have the same V/M 0.50
Therefore for the DE round they will be seeded according to their Ind:
O’Brien Ind +4
Hawthorne Ind +1
Talbot Ind -1