MP gives the option of how to create groups. I think Swiss is the only way that makes sense for this format because it minimizes the odds of a few of the top players getting too deep with near-zero strikes.
The other thing that worked very well in the progressive strike tournament I ran is the 3p groups are the highest strike groups. Since there are less available strikes in progressive in the 3p group, this helps to keep people around.
I can easily flip this around if needed, though I feel like statistically it shouldnāt matter. I do load the lower groups with more strikes right now.
Edit: If you can parse this, hereās the full debug data from one of the runs I did. I couldnāt see anything wrong with it.
Players will face each other in the order theyāre listed in the ācheck for strikesā section.
Just wanted to share that the updated version worked for me! This is really cool and will help me with tournament planning in the future.
Any chance this source could be easily recompiled for other platforms?
Or maybe just shared? I imagine itās small enough that writing a JavaScript implementation wouldnāt be too much work
Ah, thatās it. Iād used ābalancedā groupings in my trial run on Match Play.
What does ābalancedā do? @haugstrup?
I said I would share it, just wanted to clean it up a little. It was stream-of-conciousness c just to get it done. 
Iād imagine tonight Iāll put it up.
Youāll face random opponents you havenāt faced before. I donāt think youāll want to spend time implementing that algorithm. Tournaments run longer than swiss tournaments ā especially large tournaments.
My apologies! I was definitely skimming this thread rather than reading it. 
These are interesting stats! I wanted to see how player skill distribution would affect things so I ran some simulations for the āTrentās Barnā scenario as well.
I generated the player pool using a normal distribution to assign each player a āskillā level that controls their chances of beating another player. With a basic normal distribution and swiss seeding, my results are pretty similar to @keeferās for progressive strikes (ie, the event typically takes about 24-25 rounds to finish). However, things get interesting if I mix in an additional variable: āNumber of āProā playersā (a āproā player is basically an outlier that has about a 75% chance of winning any given match versus non-pro players). The results really highlight how two high skill players battling it out for one strike at a time can really draw out the end of the tournament:
Strikes: 24 ~ Players: 60 ~ āProā players: 0 ~ Swiss groups: true
Average rounds: 24.9981 ~ Median rounds: 25
Probability that the event will take at least X rounds:
22 rounds: 95.0%
23 rounds: 75.0%
24 rounds: 50.0%
25 rounds: 31.0%
26 rounds: 19.0%
27 rounds: 11.0%
28 rounds: 7.0%
Strikes: 24 ~ Players: 60 ~ āProā players: 2 ~ Swiss groups: true
Average rounds: 29.1298 ~ Median rounds: 29
Probability that the event will take at least X rounds:
23 rounds: 90.0%
24 rounds: 81.0%
25 rounds: 73.0%
26 rounds: 65.0%
27 rounds: 58.0%
28 rounds: 50.0%
29 rounds: 43.0%
30 rounds: 36.0%
31 rounds: 29.0%
32 rounds: 24.0%
33 rounds: 18.0%
34 rounds: 14.0%
35 rounds: 10.0%
36 rounds: 7.0%
Strikes: 24 ~ Players: 60 ~ āProā players: 4 ~ Swiss groups: true
Average rounds: 26.2505 ~ Median rounds: 26
Probability that the event will take at least X rounds:
23 rounds: 89.0%
24 rounds: 70.0%
25 rounds: 51.0%
26 rounds: 37.0%
27 rounds: 26.0%
28 rounds: 18.0%
29 rounds: 12.0%
30 rounds: 8.0%
You are correct about that!
So, code.
pastebin: //// FairStrikeSim: Simulate matches of elimination strike play.//// End - Pastebin.com
drive: FairStrikeSim.cpp - Google Drive
Really really late edit: This should work without issue as-is on both win64 and linux (tested same file on both). For win64 make sure you start a console project.
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Worth reading for the comments alone 
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Ran the tournament the other day, a real one!
33 people. 5 strikes.
Went for 10 roundsā¦ Had a couple of players that had really good runs, running the sims shows that it should be 8/9 almost all the time.
Lasted about 4 hours 15 minutesā¦
think it would be done in 3.5 hours if I took some long players out (Spiderman/Hobbit games went forever)
Lots of great feedback from players about the format.
I added player David Johnston NZ after the first round, as he was late, and gave him 2 strikes. Apparently there is a bug in Matchplay as he lasted longer in the comp than some others but matchplay ranked him as 26th.
Thanks again to Keith and Andreas.
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Based on tonightās warm up tournament at Trentās barn, the rounds lasted about 40 minutes each. Figure that into the forecasts for tomorrowās 24 strike main event and itās going to be a very long day.
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Confirmed. Tilts are now in Simpsonās, both walking deads, and monster bash.
I hope that helps. Haha. Nice playing with you John!
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Trentās 24 strike dealio lasted 23 rounds and took 14 hours.
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At least 4 hours of that consisted of Rosa delays.
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Careful what you wish/ask for!
So Josh basically asked if I could help with this project, so weāre about to turn x-strikes on its head.
Iāve updated the simulator to generate a lot of data easily. Itāll be up to IFPA what to do with it, but Iām publishing my work here for transparencyās sake. Just the program for now, if Josh agrees Iāll put up the data generated as well. There were definitely some wacky/unexpected findings, however.
The program runs differently now, it uses command line switches so you can put arguments in any order. New additions include being able to set the number of strikes from command line (instead of having to compile), being able to limit group sizes (when possible; 3p groups are split into 1 or 2 2p if necessary and 2p groups are 1 3p if necessary), being able to specify a range of players to simulate at once, and the ability to summarize into an excel-friendly format. All of this was extremely necessary to provide the IFPA with the data they require to accurately judge event TGP.
Ultimately, this is probably not extremely useful to a large number of people, but if anyone wants to audit my work, they can. Iām 99.94% confident. Same terms as before, public domain, attribution nice.
google drive code: FairStrikeSimV2.cpp - Google Drive
google drive exe: FairStrikeSimV2.exe - Google Drive
pastebin code: //// FairStrikeSim: Simulate matches of elimination strike play.//// End - Pastebin.com
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Thanks to Keithās help . . . itās coming 
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Do not know if you need anymore info but at circuit event we did a classics 9 strike tourney at OBX Flippers, here is link
Drew had a huge lead on everyone and got down to final two where Jason had to win five games in a row to win but drew prevailed