How it works

Twelve fencers and three nations. Four fencers per weapon (épée, foil, sabre), men or women in any mix, and one nation per weapon. All fifteen picks come out of one budget of €100M. Four world number ones do not fit in one weapon; a strong four does, with some money left.

The pool is the top 32 of the FIE ranking in each of the six categories, and grows on request.

Every weekend you order each weapon team like a real relay: opener, middle, anchor, reserve. The opener counts once, the middle ×1.25, the anchor ×1.5, on good weekends and on bad ones. That is the bet you place.

The reserve scores only when that fencer finishes above their seed. If a starter is not on the piste, the reserve takes that slot with full points.

The order locks when the first pool of the weekend starts. Entry lists come out the week before, so you can see who is actually fencing before you set it.

Two parts. Placement: points for the round reached, from the last 64 up to the win. Places 17 to 32 all count as a last-32 exit, as in the FIE ranking. Expectation: how far the fencer went compared with their seed. A top seed out in the first bout loses points; a number 25 who reaches the final earns far more than the placement alone.

Small bonuses on top: coming through day one, each table win, an upset, beating the top seed.

Grand Prix count ×1.5, World Cups ×1, zonal championships ×1.5, the World Championships ×2.5.

The nation you pick per weapon scores from that weapon's team events: 20 points for a win down to 3 for the top 16, times the event coefficient. Every starter of your nation in your relay counts ×1.1 on top.

Prices move after every weekend: a fencer who beats their seed gets dearer, one who misses it gets cheaper, one who stops entering slowly loses value. You sell at the current price. Two transfers per weapon are free between weekends; after that each costs a rising fee, and the season allows twelve in total. Taking out a fencer who is not on the entry list never costs a thing: no fee, no free transfer, nothing off the twelve. You should not pay for someone who is not fencing. Two Wildcards open the whole squad outside the cap.

The season runs October to July. Each weapon has three Grand Prix (men and women in one city) and eight World Cup weekends (the men in one city, the women in another, on the same weekend), then the zonal championships and the World Championships. One weapon weekend is one round for your relay.

An individual event takes two days: pools and a preliminary table on day one, the table of 64 on day two, bouts to 15, no bronze match, both semi-final losers third. A team match is a relay to 45 touches in nine bouts; the third fencer closes. That is where the anchor comes from.

Seven plays you can put on a weekend before the lock, each a limited number of times per season:

• Flèche: ×2 on one fencer, gains and losses.
• Parade-riposte: one fencer cannot go below zero.
• Contre-attaque: double overperformance for an outsider.
• Priorité: the anchor counts ×2.
• Reserve in: the reserve scores in full.
• Golden weekend: one whole weapon team counts double.
• Wildcard: unlimited transfers in one window, outside the season cap.

Cards (yellow, red, black) come later as opt-in calls: predictions you make before the lock, with the referee's own escalation logic.

Results, seeds, tables and entry lists are the FIE's public results. Points are computed by an open scoring engine you can read in the repository. Fencers appear as initials in their nation's colours, never as photographs.

Photographs of the sport on this site are from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licences:

• Apithy v Beaudry 2013 Fencing WCH SMS-IN t140751.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Stone v Balzer 2014 Orleans Sabre Grand Prix t120421.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Kovalev v Szilagyi 2013 Fencing WCH SMS-IN t194135.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Final 2013 Fencing WCH FMS-IN t200907.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Final 2013 Fencing WCH FMS-EQ t194733.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Women's Individual Epee.jpg by martin_vmorris, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Fencing at the 2012 Summer Olympics 5557.jpg by Steve Fair from UK, CC BY 2.0
• Russian fans 2013 Fencing WCH SMS-IN t210340.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY 3.0
• Hall A 2013 World Fencing Championships n1.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen , CC BY-SA 3.0
• Korea v France Challenge RFF team t095058.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 2.5
• Final Challenge international de Paris 2013-01-26 193155.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 2.5
• Final 2013 Fencing WCH FMS-EQ t194733.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 3.0
• Lee v Lembach 2014 Orleans Sabre Grand Prix t135524.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 3.0
• Hall A 2013 World Fencing Championships n3.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Interior da Arena Carioca 3, Barra.jpg by Mariana Pires23, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Refereeing 2014 Orleans Sabre Grand Prix t121425.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 3.0
• Final Trophee Monal 2012 n08.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 2.5

The skylines of the venue cities behind each banner, also from Wikimedia Commons:

• Delhi skyline. 01 by Fredericknoronha, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Vancouver Skyline 04 by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Panorama Shot from the resort room by Dhaval Surana, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Budapest skyline from Gellért Hill (1) by Elekes Andor, CC BY 4.0
• Valley of Medellín- skyline by User: (WT-shared) CONOCER at wts wikivoyage, Public domain
• Hong Kong Skyline Restitch - Dec 2007 by Diliff, CC BY 3.0
• Lima, Urban Skyline--Ciudad de Lima, Skyline urbano by Joshua87, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Istanbul skyline 02 by SegLig, CC BY 4.0
• Busan, South Korea - Night skyline, 2024-09-20 by Sharon Hahn Darlin, CC BY 2.0
• Palma de Mallorca Cathedral by HJ.Phillips94, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Cairo skyline, Panoramic view, Egypt by Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0
• Turin skyline from Monte dei Cappuccini Turin by Peter Glyn, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Fukuoka Skyline of Seaside Momochi by Nryate, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Paris Night by Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Skyline of Tunis by IssamBarhoumi, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Pudong Shanghai November 2017 panorama by King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Modern Tashkent. Skyline by Citiguide, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Salt Lake City skyline (2020) from Ensign Peak by Iansmh98, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Athens Skyline by acediscovery, CC BY 4.0
• Bern Skyline by Anudeepvarada, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Doha Skyline 10 by Zairon, CC BY 4.0
• Heidenheim widok z zamku 3 by Andrzej Otrębski, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Plateau Abidjan de nuit by abdallahh, CC BY 2.0
• Bay of Algiers by night by toufik Lerari from Nice, France, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Orléans - cathédrale, extérieur (16) by Fab5669, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Prato della Valle in Padua by AnatolyPm, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Songdo Convensia and Central Park View by Ken Eckert, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Astana-Ishim-River-embankment-7797 by Vmenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Taihu Yuantouzhu (North Gate) 太湖遊覧船 - panoramio by ktanaka, CC BY 3.0