Brian says: I understand what you're saying about a situation where your have the exact same players at your table by the time you hit the first race-off. That would be a strange situation to have a table short some chips when they are collected (or extras available!).

Then I don't understand where we disagree.

Brain also said: We do have a number of good players in the Ameristar tournament but we also have some players that for whatever reason don't make it to the first break.

Most all tournaments have the same balance of players. I think the difference may be in the basic initial structure of the tournament. Some tournaments have rebuys--others do not. The ones with no rebuy options are usually the ones where early elimination is prevalent.