%0 Journal Article %T Plane sextics via dessins d'enfants %A Alex Degtyarev %J Mathematics %D 2008 %I arXiv %R 10.2140/gt.2010.14.393 %X We develop a geometric approach to the study of plane sextics with a triple singular point. As an application, we give an explicit geometric description of all irreducible maximal sextics with a type $\bold E_7$ singular point and compute their fundamental groups. All groups found are finite; one of them is nonabelian. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.3258v2