Well, it went pretty well I think! Yes lots of lopsided games early on but that was expected. We ended up with two strong players as the qualifiers.

Also, I discussed Stalkor's comments with sweety, and in some ways it makes things simpler. We agreed that there will be 10 qualifiers instead of 11. We'll aim to get about 16 contenders, then have a set of semifinals in November, winnowing down to 4. Then have them play one final tournament in December. We're still having the finals in December, which can be hard, but with so few people I'm hoping we'll be able to arrange the final games so that they can all play. With 16-ish, it would be a nightmare to work around the time zones and hand schedule everything.

It looks like next month we'll have a single elimination, with just one winning person getting entrance to the semifinals. This tournament will also be limited to dan players only so we can arrive at the one contender more quickly. We will have another open qualifier later in the year, so if you missed this one and want to try later, don't worry!