I have to jump in and agree with Laura - even if there's little question who will take the top spots, tournaments can still be plenty of fun.  Had I seeded in the Expert bracket at PADMISS, I may well have entered rather than dropping down to the standard bracket, since it doesn't matter that much who wins, but I had improved noticeably and wanted to see how I'd hold up against the top players.  I don't like formats that allow (or encourage) stamina players to rely purely on their stamina - Expert only is a horrifically unfair rule in that capacity - but I also don't want to see players blocked from playing to their own preferences, since that denies them their fun.

This format was less fair than a fully open format, but the top three spots still went to players who are strong overall, so even though some players, like Laura, were advantaged, the format wasn't that unfair.  Furthermore, it's worth noting that Laura's upsets against stamina players consistently went to a tiebreaker - even with the cap in place, players weren't so restricted that they couldn't pick something that they would decisively win - usually a CZ 9, which happens to be what most of tiebreakers were, so in order to pull through that many matches, she had to be able to win on the majority of easier CZ charts, the same pool of charts which were seen as the surest way to beat her.  I personally measure the degree of unfairness by how much the outcome breaks from what people who expect to see, and having the big surprise be who got 4th place (out of 10) tells me that the format didn't actually change the outcome that much.

I honestly think that random seeding had a lot to do with the perceived balance - maybe more so than the caps.  Matt and I were a round one match, then I got a bye and Ben got a bye a couple rounds in - players who would have seeded high played each other early and got byes in some weird placed, and players who would have seeded low and therefore not played against each other were instead matched up immediately.  The caps definitely helped prevent matches against top players from turning into "you can't pass 13's, so I'll pick one", but the current set of tournament entrants has, in general, proven to not be complete assholes when picking charts and will pick a guaranteed win without picking something their opponent can't even play, so the main strength of the capping system was to inform players what constitutes being an asshole.

The general lightheartedness of the tournament was probably also a factor; it admittedly stemmed from the rules not being built around serious top-level competition, but the tournament was meant to be a way for us to hang out for a few hours, not a way to determine who is decisively the best player.  Personally, I hate having high entry fees (and therefore a large prize), since it encourages cutthroat play from start to finish and I go to tournaments because they are fun.   I admit that when I'm playing off for a top spot, I get pretty cutthroat myself - that intensity is fun it its own way because of how closely matched the top players are, I just don't want it to be that intense from the start, since that tends to push people away with the curbstomp matches that result, and then we get back to the '06-'07 era when good turnout for a tournament was 10 people.

I have to agree that having high entry fees only encourages cutthroat play.  I do go to tourneys mostly for the fun in them, and it's a good way to get the community together for a bit.  But it's not fun if the upper-tier players are just going to take the path of least resistance in order to get the money.

Having small entry fees (i.e. $1) or no entry fees at all like for this tournament is a good thing.  We were all still intrinsically motivated to play our best.

Tournament photos have been uploaded!

http://www.pnwbemani.net/media/?sa=album;in=32

If you have any more, upload them.