1) les was right.
we all used to chuckle at les's idea post about 'Lying'. well, it turns out that it's an even stronger strategy in tourneys. the negative to lying in normal games is that someone will pge you for awhile afterwards. well, in tourneys, you lie to someone to make sure they dont kill you early, then you kill them later in the game... and next game, when they will pge destroy you... well... they arent even at your table. there is no chance for revenge. so the downside of lying is decreased. and, no, i didnt exploit this strategy. i got exploited by Shevar. he was dead in round 2 because i wouldve destroyed him, except he said he would flag 2nd. so i left him alive, because id rather have a strong ally and an easy 1st. problem was that as soon as he built up, he never flagged 2nd, and then ended up giving me 2nd instead. i was never able to get revenge. nice lie, shev. good call, les.

2) the points system needs to be tweaked. i understand that no one wants to lose out of the tourney after one round, which is why the max loss for 7th in round 1 is -100, and you start with 150. yay, we all get to play at least twice. however, this is how my tourney went: 1st, 2nd, 2nd in the first three rounds, giving me 4th overall. in round 4, i get an unlucky start, lose a 3v2 for a connect, and then hello! if i get 7th, i am out of the tourney. from 4th overall to kicked out. but thats ok, i outsurvived someone else, so i was going to get 6th. too bad, still would lose all my points and get kicked out. but thats ok, i outsurvived someone else, so i got 5th. too bad, i still lost all of my points and got kicked out. i just dont like the idea that we protect everyone from one bad start resulting in instadeath from tourney in round 1... but then you can get 1st, 2nd, 2nd... and then 1 bad start (hell, even a slightly bad start resulting in a 5th), will instantly kick you out of the tourney. that was sad. no chance for a comeback.

3) that damn bug needs to be fixed. it seems that it happens at least once per tourney round on some random table. the invisible island bug, where all you can do is hope that the guy that has it will lag out, otherwise he holds the entire tourney at bay by not flagging, and he can easily be an ass and take 1st. mmmiiijjj did it in the tourney i was in, and it was goddamn frustrating to sit in his gallery and watch for 20 minutes while he just sat there and wouldnt flag.

4) there is a possible loophole when it gets down to 2 tables, perhaps. table #2 can all decide to take the slowest turns possible. this results in table 1's game going faster (at normal pace), and 7th - 4th at table 1 getting kicked out of the tourney before anyone at table 2, so it inflates the results of table 2 players. perhaps just change it so that results dont get tabulated for any tables until the last game finishes in each round of play. but then again, perhaps none of this matters, if points are only distributed to the top 5 players of each tourney (i dont know the specifics of how points are divided up).

anyways, thats my $0.02. great experience, i doubt i will play many regular games any more, now that tourneys are available at 8am (est). thanks for implementing this, Ryan.