A loose recap of the event:
10-11AM: Official sign up with the announced start of 1st Round scheduled for 11 AM. Announced 5 Swiss Rounds of 60 minutes with cut to Top 8. Lunch break scheduled after 3rd Round. So on the face of it (with estimated 15 minutes between rounds and a 45 minutes lunch break) this would be: 8 x 1 hours 6 x 15 minutes break and 45 minutes lunch = 10 hours and 15 minutes +/- 30 minutes (for unforeseen stuff) which should give an estimated end time at aroun 9:30-10:00 PM
Well, here is how it went..
11:30AM. 1st Round actual starts. This was in spite that EVERYONE was ready prior to 11 AM. Personally I asked 2-3 times if lists needed to be reviewed (getting anywhere between "NO!" to "I am not the TO" (but didn't get any directions to the TO)"
After 3 Rounds which ends up taking from 11:30 AM to aprox. 3:45 PM (just over 4 hours) we have a break until 4:30 PM. This is just about ok, but everyone has "A baaaad feeling about this!!" which unfortunately turns out to be totally justified.
4:30 PM: Everyone is ready/presentand eager to see the Round 4 pairings. After some delay (at this time Ive completely lost track/interest in the actual timing) pairings are announced. People find their seats but then it's announced that mistakes have been made with duplicate pairings. Fair enough. Everyone waits a bit until the TO (obviously out of his waters and at this point abandoned by everyone else from the shop) announces new pairings. This takes at least 20 minutes.
About 5 PM (possibly later??) new pairings are announced nut are almost immediately recalled (new duplicate pairings I guess)
By now it is nearing 5:15-20 when 4th Round actually begins (had to wait for a bottom 20 vs 21 game to be set up??). Games are carried out with slight murmurs at most tables. At this point it is getting obvious that it'll be an endurance game.
6:15'ish PM: 4th Round is done. Now follows another grueling pairing (all done by hand in combination with a (poorly??) constructed Excel sheet)
Somewhere between 6:30 and 7 PM the final 5th Swiss Round can begin and ends approximately around 8 PM. This means that (with a small munch break) 5 Swiss rounds of 60 mites each have actually taken 8,5 hours?!?!? And that is not counting the 30 minutes "take off delay"
This quite understandably causes some.....concerns of when the finals will be played since 3 Elimination Rounds (Top 8) are now waiting.
I still feel sorry for the TO who has been left behind, especially when I think back on him walking around and asking if people "would be ok with changing it to a Top 4 cut instead of the morning announced Top 8 cut (it seems like a long long time ago)
After a grueling (not checked) SoS sorting of people the Top 16/8/4 is announced and the general loot is distributed. Top 8 players are in agreement that it'll have to be a Top 8 but so quarter finals begin at approx. 9 PM. At this point almost everyone else leaves the venue. Estimated end time for quarter finals around 10:15 PM
Semifinals must have been "on schedule" since I've been informed that they were able to finish the semi's at 11:30 PM (So at this point 7 x 60 minutes rounds have taken 12 (TWELWE!!!) hours to complete!!!!
Who won the final?? I don't know, it happened in a different timezone in a very strange world. On the upside it all gave A LOT of time to small talk with some very nice people since it quite clearly wasn't a venue that were about to be rushed ;-)