Quoted from pins4life33:

I was in a tourney this weekend in Abbotsford, Canada with an excellent format you paid $35 bucks got to play three rounds of 10 machines to qualify. Everyone got the same amount of entries and this was a PAPA circuit santioned event. One of the best and fairest I have seen format wise. Everyone is limited to three chances at each machine to qualify top 16, so you do not get the ole pump and dump. First prize was $5000 too just an awesome well run event, wish there were more that were this format. Pinburgh is the only other one that come to mind where you just pay your entry and everyone plays the same amount of times to achieve final ranking...