Hi all! You may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything about fencing in almost a year. Last year, I graduated from high school, and since going to college, I haven’t had much time to fence. This makes me sad, but at the same time,…
Read more about The Touche Stats Data is Now PublicShould voters need to bring identification (ID) to vote? On the one hand, one could argue that verifying the identity of every voter prevents election fraud. It ensures that noncitizens don’t vote and that each citizen can’t cast their vote more than once. On the…
Read more about When Voter ID Laws Decrease Turnout—and When They Don’tLast summer, I found out that MIT offers advanced standing exams (ASEs), which are a way to test out of introductory STEM classes. Since MIT has a pretty large set of STEM graduation requirements (two semesters each of physics and calculus, one semester each of…
Read more about Why I Love Anki: 10K+ Reviews and 100 Days LaterUnfortunately, many archaeologists discover ancient Latin texts in damaged condition, with words missing throughout. To solve this problem, Latin experts usually emend the texts and try to fill in these missing words. However, this process is often difficult and time-consuming. In 2020, researchers at UC…
Read more about Edging Out Latin BERT at Text Infilling With Fine-Tuned GPT-4oMost of the analyses on this blog have been based on data from the USA Fencing tournament results website. However, there are many questions that cannot be answered from this type of data, especially those trying to gauge the opinions of the fencing community. In…
Read more about 90% of Youth Fencers Want to Practice More FootworkThis was the day that nobody was looking forward to: the day when we would have to leave. Still, we had one more activity planned for us in the morning: breakfast with the Society for Science Board of Trustees. I sat at a table with…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 7Today was probably the most exciting day of Regeneron STS because we did so many things! First, we woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the Capitol Building and take the historic photo that finalists from every year have taken. The building…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 6There was no judging today, which was a relief for everyone. Instead, we would be splitting up and going on field trips to various research/science-related destinations. I went to the Janelia Research Center, which is particularly focused on neuroscience research. Janelia is located about an…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 5Today was the final day of judging, which was a relief. It was different today, however, because it was project judging instead of panel judging, which meant that we were now talking about the subject we were experts in. When we got to the second…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 4This post is going to be a bit shorter because it’s daylight savings tomorrow and I need to get to bed soon, but like posts before, I’m never going to fully be able to convey the excitement of Finals Week. Not just because so much…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 3After getting to know each other a bit, we finally had our first day of judging! I woke up a bit before my alarm yet again and went down to breakfast to eat with the other finalists. The food was amazing again; the Conrad Hotel…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 2Today was the first actual day of the event, which was exciting! I woke up at 8:11 am, shortly before my alarm went off. It’s always nice when that happens because I feel less groggy when I wake up naturally. I took my time to…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 1I was honored to be selected as a finalist in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, which includes a weeklong trip in March where they do the final judging and select the top 10 scientists in the country. I’ve heard from others that Finals Week is…
Read more about Regeneron STS Finals Week: Day 0A similar version of this was presented at the UConn Sports Analytics Symposium and is published in the Wharton Sports Analytics Journal. I wrote this article in June for a more general audience than my usual readership, so it has a slightly different tone. “The…
Read more about A Statistical Stab at Referee BiasFencers frequently switch clubs, either because their current club isn’t meeting their needs, or to train with certain fencers or coaches at another club. But does switching clubs actually lead to better competitive outcomes? To answer this, I analyzed data from over 600 fencers who…
Read more about Joining a Top Club Won’t Necessarily Make You BetterPost-conference update: This poster won 2nd place! 🥈 This post is a continuation from my previous post Can Fencers Bounce Back From Being Cut After Pools?. As I prepared that work to be presented at the CMU Sports Analytics Conference and the Midwest Sports Analytics…
Read more about Can Fencers Bounce Back From Being Cut After Pools? (Pt. 2)This research will be presented at the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference and Midwest Sports Analytics Meeting. Getting cut after pools is probably one of the worst feelings at a national tournament. It hurts to travel hundreds of miles to an event and only get…
Read more about Can Fencers Bounce Back From Being Cut After Pools?In the olden days (sometime around the 5th century BCE), it was commonly believed that all numbers were rational and could be expressed as fractions with integer numerators and denominators. When Hippasus of Metapontum demonstrated that the square root of 2 is irrational, it challenged…
Read more about Statistical Significance Might Be Less Significant in the FutureMany parents, fencers, and coaches have expressed frustration on social media that East Coast North American Cups (NACs) are problematic for West Coast fencers. Morning events on the East Coast translate to 5:00 AM on West Coast time, and fencers often have to wake up…
Read more about Surprise! East Coast NACs Do Not Harm PerformanceGetting better at fencing can be complex and unpredictable. Some days, I feel like I’m not making any progress at all, then one week later everything clicks. Like most sports, progression in fencing isn’t linear, and everyone has ups, downs, and plateaus. In comparison to…
Read more about At What Age Do Fencers Make the Most Improvement?Have you ever wondered if a policy change actually has the intended effect? A few months ago, I stumbled upon a paper by Meehan & Stephenson (2024) that examined the effects of the name change of the Washington Bullets to the Wizards in 1997. At…
Read more about Synthetic Controls: A Powerful Way To Measure Policy ImpactThe question of “rating inflation” in different regions or divisions has been a topic of debate. Some argue that places like New York and New Jersey have higher rating inflation because they have numerous tournaments with highly rated fencers. On the flip side, others believe…
Read more about Do Some Regions Have Inflated Ratings?National points hold significant value for fencers in the United States. These points serve multiple purposes: not only do they secure a fencer’s qualification for National Championships, but they also offer them a seeding advantage over lower ranked competitors in tournaments. Furthermore, accumulating a substantial…
Read more about What Is the Best Way to Get National Points?A reader recently proposed an idea that struck my curiosity: “How does a fencer’s performance in their pools correlate with their overall performance in a tournament?” Sometimes, people’s performance after pools goes as expected, beating opponents lower in the pool results in DEs before finally…
Read more about How Are Pools Correlated With Performance?Experiencing a wrong call from a referee can be quite disappointing, especially during those nail-biting moments when the score is 14-14. There’s often a sinking feeling that the bout could have ended in victory if not for the referee’s blunder. Luckily, USA Fencing has adopted…
Read more about Are Lower Rated Referees Associated With More Upsets?Are A-rated fencers more consistent than E-rated fencers? They should be, but how can we know? Luckily, I have tens of thousands of bouts in my dataset, and I can answer this question (and answering such questions is the basis of the blog)! In this…
Read more about Are A-Rated Fencers More Consistent?Pools are a critical part of fencing. When you don’t perform well in pools, you often have a hard path in DEs and lose earlier than you would expect. In cases where the total number of competitors is not divisible by 7, it’s common to…
Read more about Uneven Pool Sizes are UnfairYou are standing on the unforgiving piste, the weight of your weapon in hand. Your breath quickens, heart pounding, as you face your opponent. The score is tied, 14-14. Every move feels like a dance on the edge of victory and defeat. Each step, each…
Read more about Why Fencing Is Often So Disappointing: 12% of Bouts Are Lost by One PointCan past performance predict future results? This is a question of many fencers, who wonder if the place they currently are is the place they are always going to be, or if one day they will be able to get an A rating or win…
Read more about Do Past Performances Predict Future Results?In my post When Can Youth and Cadet Fencers Make a Breakthrough? I talk about the small changes that occur year by year, but I don’t talk about the large changes that can happen over a large period of time. I didn’t think that this…
Read more about Y-12 Performance Predicts Cadet Performance Surprisingly WellEveryone thinks their weapon is the best. This is not hyperbole. If you don’t think your weapon is the best, then why are you doing it? Switch to the weapon that you think is the best. We also all believe that our weapon is the…
Read more about Is Epee Easier Than Foil?Sometimes in youth fencing, fencers make huge improvements, going from getting cut during pools to medalling at NACs, or from an E rating to an A rating. However, when do most of these breakthroughs happen? I have heard some coaches say that it can happen…
Read more about When Can Youth and Cadet Fencers Make a Breakthrough?Most of the time when someone gets top 8 at a NAC, they get an A! This is cool; however, how often are people upgrading their ratings rather than just renewing? I analyzed the number of fencers from each rating who got into the top…
Read more about How Often Can Low Rated Fencers Advance to the Later Rounds?For my first post, I want to look at the win probability between certain ratings. Ratings are a bit strange in fencing because everybody cares about earning a higher rating, but at the same time people also say that they don’t matter. It’s also commonly…
Read more about Unveiling Fencing’s Winning Odds by Rating
