Fish,
I believe, as you do, that changes are in order. I love the opening day round robin, as it gives lots of play, but it may have outlived its usefulness. In the first few years of this tournament, the level of play was so lopsided that it was, ironically, the most fair way to do things - the alternative of randomly throwing everyone into a double-elimination bracket could have made one bracket super tough and all the others virtual cakewalks.
This is the first year where most of the field was very strong. As such, the need for round robins (and the associated seeding) was lessened. The reason that round robins can still work well with the World Championships is because they have the time (6 day tournament) to then move all the winners into the modified double-elimination bracket. Since this Maryland tournament doesn't have that kind of time, the only alternatives for Day 2 are the second round robin (which clearly had its flaws) and the single-elimination brackets (with its associated one-and-out problems).
None of this is to say that the round robin system isn't desirable in some ways. It provides some great matchups for the fans, and in at least some cases, allows a player to have a bad match and still advance unscathed. (The flip side to that is a player can have a great match and receive no credit for it.)
Danny Barouty had suggested to me before the event that he'd rather we just had a double-elimination, matches to 150, tournament. I told him he was nuts, that you'd never be guaranteed this much play in a double-elim format. I guess I'm a believer now, though. I did the math on the ball differentials and it's possible I finished in as poorly as 9th place (we still don't have official final placings which is kind of odd).
[Edit - I just looked at azb.com and it seems I did come in 9th.]
Btw Fish, Bob outscored his opponents 766 to about 250, not 165
.
- Steve