Okay, I played in the earlier mentioned tournament (try not to think about prizes) today and here is a short report.
Me and two friends arrived on time and got our seat assignments: We all sat close to each other, but at different tables and would stay at these tables for the other two rounds. So we already had a bit of good luck here, since we didn't want to play against each other (until the final of course).
The first round was an easy win for me and J. in a Chapel game. My left neighbor bought an Adventurer with his first $6 and my right Neighbor didn't trash his Coppers. S. was not so lucky and lost.
The second game had no Chapel and no Cellar, but had Moat and Witch (and Militia), so I went for a basic BMU+ strategy with a very nice 5/2 opening (Witch/Moat) and won this game fairly easily too, so did my friend J. S. was last yet again. He is the worst player of us three, so it wasn't a real surprise.
The third game I won with Smithy and some useful $5's like Lab and Market and was able to hold off some Remodelers by buying the last Province just in time after my neighbor had bought the 2nd to last one.
Now we were waiting for the announcement of who would be in the semis. I had three wins, so was pretty sure (although mathematically not 100%) that I would make it. My friend with two wins and one 2nd wasn't so sure, but he went through as the #8 seed. I was the #1 seed which was nice to hear, but I didn't feel any pressure since the semis is just one game and anything can happen.
And something did happen. My luck turned against me on a board with both Swindler and Saboteur after my opening buy of Swindler got Swindled into a useless Workshop immediately. GG me, I could not cope with this early blow against decent opponents and was chasing most of the game. I thought about some fancy Duke strategy and even some shenanigans with Estates, but there was nothing I could do, but sit back and play until the end.
I managed no more than 20 pts, lowest of all my games and not a single Province. Getting to $5 proved tricky, let alone making it to $8. Golds couldn't be Swindled, but I had to sacrifice them to Saboteur, so it didn't matter. I even bought some Coppers out of despair!
At least we at our table all had fun with those crappy decks and anytime someone played a useless Workshop to gain something like a Silver (which almost ran out!) or when someone couldn't buy anything we all had a good laugh.
J. didn't have much luck either and neither of us ended in the final, which was won by some Belgian unknown to us.
All in all it was a funny little gettogether and I even met a fellow Isotrooper (Akroma) and of course bought some other board games with a discount at the convention.
I was glad I did some homework beforehand, since buying Duchies with 7 Provinces left proved a good decision in almost every game and so was going Witch/Moat instead of Witch/Witch or Moat/Moat.