Like I said, I'm just a purist who would love to play as many random games of dominion as possible.
My personal opinion, having played competitive Super Smash Bros. for many years and enduring the whole debacle that was Brawl, is that in tournament settings where the stakes are high, you
have to forgo randomness in order to accentuate the skill-based aspects of the game. Certainly, devising strategies that start from a suboptimal opening split or a disadvantageous starting position involves skill, but it's all too often that the skill is overshadowed by luck.
And dondon, my first post was by no means a dig at your winning the US nationals!
I meant that I screwed up my third afternoon game and completely passed over the Develop/Silk Road/Estate synergy, though at that point it was largely a prisoner's dilemma. The third player (who I think was Invincible Overlord) was going Ghost Ship-BM and mostly ignoring the SRs, so I could either contest the SRs and basically leave IO free to attack and buy the Provinces, or I could contest the Provinces by getting my own Ghost Ships and help out the SR player in the process (since he didn't have any Ghost Ships).
Despite missing the combo, I think I still managed that game rather well, prolonging it for as long as possible with Duchy buys, allowing me to place 2nd. Had I won that game, I would have clinched the top spot with 3 straight victories.
(Also the fact that the one guy that I needed to not win, won, complicated matters. I'm pretty sure that before his game ended, everyone in the room except for me was convinced that I was the undisputed winner, because that guy had absolutely no control of his game.)