I would want to do either the bracket OR the calcutta. Both seems a little crazy, especially considering this is the first tournament.
In response to Zy's comment about the people who go w/out bidders, what you do is auction off "blocks" of people. This frequently happens at pool tournaments.
Say, for example, there are 7 people who aren't bid on. Group those 7 into "one" and start the bidding. Shit, I'll throw $1 or $3 on a group like that just for odds sake. Play progresses as normal. If there is an unusual number of players who are not bid on (half or MORE than half the field) then we can group the players into 2-3 blocks, w/ 5-6 people in each.
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