I was on holiday vacation visiting the Rockford, IL area and went on a trip to Beloit, WI to check out the Carom Room.
They have a fantastic tournament that was possibly the most enjoyable evening tournament I have ever played. In addition to the tournament they have a break and run which is an event itself and can turn into a huge draw if the pot gets large.
The tournament is a race to 7
single elimination and the handicaps range from 3 to 11, where each difference in handicap was a 1 ball (wild) spot. This tournament was on the tightest bar tables ive ever played.
For a tournament on big table I would shorten the race to 5. Generally on the big table the best player will win an even matchup. The break is determined by whomever is behind in the set, and in case of a tie the last person to be behind breaks. Handicaps go up if you get into the top 2 places. I was a out-of town player so they arbitrarily made me a 5 handicap after consulting another player who had watched me practice.
As far as an alternate format for loser bracket shortening the race to either 3 or 4 would speed things up nicely.
As far as payouts, unless you get a very large turnout - 40%/30%/20%/10% is about as fair as you can go. I have been to places that give the first person out their money back so they don't get discouraged, but I would personally modify that to a coupon (that they must sign to prevent giving/selling to someone else) to the next week's tournament (as opposed to any future tournament because if you get people saving them it could impact the prize pool).
The main thing about a tournament is to make sure most of the people have a good time, and feel they have a chance to be competitive. We all want to win, but can accept loosing if we had a good time
