Submission Series results

So I competed in my first BJJ tournament today. Submission Series was a submission only event meaning that no points were given for position only advantages for sub attempts. I competed in both the Gi and no-gi events. I had some weight issues though. Because of how I understood the tournament to be run, I chose weights I knew I would have no problem making. I fought 194 gi and 200 no-gi. They ran the no-gi event first and I weighed in at 187, 13 pounds below the limit. I fought a guy considerablly larger then me. I stepped on the mat and prepared to work my wrestling to my advantage. I did get a chance though because the dude sat down on his ass and refused to stand up. I made my disgust of his buttscoot strategy known by stepping back, shaking my head and then jump right into a cartwheel guard pass. It didn't really work. I worked in his guard for a bit then he attacked with a triangle which I defended. He switched to a omaplata and I spun out of it to side control. We wrestled around abit, with me trying to pass his guard and sometimes ending up standing with him sliding around on his butt. He locked in another triangle, which was tighter. I picked him up until he let it go. Shortly after that I passed to half guard then took mount. I worked a few ezikal choke attempts which were unsuccessful then tried to set up a kimura variant from the mount I like but time ran out. Here is where it is weird. In a regular match I would have score 3 points for side mount x 2 and 5 points for mount giving me 11 points and a win but due to the nature of the tounament he scored 2 submission advantages for the trianlges to my nothing. He won on those advantages. As I said before, I lost due to the nature of the event because of my style, so be it. Because there were only 2 of us, I got a silver out of the deal. I don't really care but it worked for team points.

I had a bit of a wait for the gi event which was nice because I was tired. I fought 194 for gi so I was still light but not as much. The first guy I fought, bent over and pushed hard so I threw him with a tomoe nage and rolled to mount. I played around in mount for a bit but got rolled. The rest of the fight, I attempted collar chokes (and came close to finishing a couple of times) as well as attempting a few armbars which didn't come close at all. He kept trying a sliding choke from inside my guard so his arm was there a lot just not enough for me to get it. I won't lie by the end I was tired and my grip was shot so I sneeked a peek at the clock and rode out the last 20 seconds. I won 3 advantages to none. My grip was so shot by the end I could barely hold my water bottle.

The next guy I fought was way bigger. I think he was one of the guys that came in a few pounds over (they were pretty lenient). I attempted a few foot sweeps but nothing came of them. He was bent over alot as well but since I had just thrown his team mate with tomoe nage, I didn't want to chance it again. He was stiff arming me, so I figured flying armbar? Why not, I have never practiced it before but who cares. I didn't catch it but I did turn it in to a sweep as we came down. I got mount for a bit but got rolled again ( I got to work on that). He used that same choke from inside my guard that his teammate used but this guy was bigger so it was a little more effective and I had to open my guard. We scrambled and I ended up turtling. He grabbed a a body lock and I used a sit out into an omaplata/kimura type lock. He rolled, we scrambled and I ended up turtled again. He attempted an anaconda but nothing came of it. We stayed there for a while because I was gassed to be honest and he got back mount for a while before I regained guard. I attempted an armbar and that pretty much finished it. I lost 0-0 with a ref decision. I had a shot at fighting for 3rd but I forfeited to a teammate for reasons I will get into later.

The major problem I had with this type of tournament was that some of the score seemed very arbitrary. Even worse was the "decision" if it finished 0-0. For example in my first match, he had two triangles and one could argue an omaplata but scored 2 not three points. I had 2 ezkial chokes but scored 0. Another example is why I forfeit my 3rd place match. The fight before mine, a teammate of mine dominated this guy from start to finish. The only offense the other guy offered was a weak attempt at a triangle that just got his guard passed. The match ended 0-0 and the other guy was awarded the win. My coaches were pretty furious. The ref came over and explained that position meant nothing only submission attempts. So up comes my fight where I had 3 attempts to his 1 but he wins. Why? I think position. Now, I don't feel I won my fight so that is cool but according to the instruction the ref gave I should have. So either I or my teammate got screwed. Because I felt it was him (and I was really tired to boot) I forfeited the match to him. This is actually pretty common in BJJ.