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[Forge!!!]

Hey, I was the guy who came in 2nd during the tournament. I have to agree that it was really fantastically run and everyone I met was great! It was nice to see that after not having played dominion since isotropic went down, I still had some abilities. For random sets I think they worked well and we got a mixture of a few different things. I thought getting to choose 5\2 or 3\4 was nice. I'd be interested to see what people think the best strategies for those sets (as 4 player games, with the understanding that your opponents might not buy pirate ships or embassies) would be.

Your 1st place victory was well deserved and I think it was pretty clear you were the best player there. Good luck at gencon!

[A Drowned Kernel]

The board I'd be most interested to get input/advice on is the first one. The tournament allowed you to pick your opening split, and I was the only person at my table who opted to open 5/2 on that board, opening Contraband/NV. My thought is that NV provides you with enough pseudo-trashing to justify not getting Moneylender until the second shuffle, and the extra buy from Contraband lets you pick up the cards you need to get the NV/Watchtower/Monument engine going. I ended up getting second, with the player to my left getting first after gaining two Provinces and milling a third in a huge last turn with three Expands (I was third player and he was fourth).

[Polk5440]

If anyone wants tips on how to run a tournament, I'd certainly ask Voltaire. This went extremely smoothly.

I concur with this. Nicely run, Voltaire. What really made this format work was that most players were treating it as a fun event with new friends. I especially applaud keeping everything on schedule -- even though being clocked really hurt me in the first game.

I do have a couple of suggestions, though:
1)  Have one other person help. Voltaire did really well, but it would have made me feel a little better if there was someone else walking around counting piles and starting hands before each game began, able to answer rules questions, monitor play, etc. There were some slip ups that could have been avoided if there was just a little more help. (Estate in a Province pile, missed curse in the final game, etc.)

I felt like I had to monitor my opponents a lot more than I was expecting and would have liked to have been able to focus more on my own play. (Player tried to buy a card then play an action; another player tried to play more than one action, people forgetting to put cards back for courtyard, etc.) To a great extent this cannot be avoided in an all-cards tournament because so many people are unfamiliar with some of the cards. So them's the breaks, I guess.

2) Give an example at the start of what an acceptable shuffle is and what an unacceptable shuffle is. There were two cases at my tables where people were not really shuffling, but luckily there were enough people at each table who were able to explain what a correct shuffle was, and players were deferential, so it ended up not being a problem, but it could have been.

[liopoil]

What is an acceptable shuffle? People always make fun of me for shuffling for way too long, and I probably do. But I sometimes wonder if my opponents are shuffling enough, but I really an not sure.

[Voltaire]

I do have a couple of suggestions, though:

Thank you very much for your feedback - it is extremely helpful. I'll add these suggestions to my own notes. I definitely know that I won't run another tournament this large without an assistant next time - you make good points that having tournament eyes on the games more consistently would have helped. I was honestly a little surprised how many basic rules questions I heard at the tables (but pleased to hear other players politely answering them).

[Polk5440]

What is an acceptable shuffle? People always make fun of me for shuffling for way too long, and I probably do. But I sometimes wonder if my opponents are shuffling enough, but I really an not sure.

Well, I can tell you what is not an acceptable shuffle: Taking your discard pile, dealing piles of three or four, then stacking them.

[Polk5440]

Oh, one more thing I forgot to applaud: The curated random kingdoms selection method. Making the executive decision to edit out kingdoms that would take forever to play was absolutely the right call.