the-fight: the panel goes up at a blade, not at a man
The last source of the losing line. A guard was still being offered to an
opponent standing at guard - by the weighted choice and by the old 'close the
line' rule, which existed because a 0.22 s tell used to be unanswerable. It is
answerable now that the read is latched, and a pre-emptive guard is strictly
worse than a read one: the opponent chooses when to start, so the window closes
before he does, and he attacks into a panel that has already come down. That is
'lunge vs parry/recover -> touch', which was 12 of 23 exchanges in the last
measured bout.
The panel now goes up only at a blade already on its way. Against a man who
does nothing but attack, the neighbour holds the edge of his measure and waits
for the wind-up.
Measured after the change, one-button lunge bot vs skill 0.5: lost 0-5, nine
exchanges, four lunges turned aside and four ripostes taken off them. No
occurrence of a guard being beaten in its wind-up or its recovery.