As Mr. Smith appears to know the TD in question, I can not help but wonder why the direct path of mentioning to this TD (in a polite and non-confrontational manner) that time-odds games are not ratable would not settle the matter.
I was actually thinking of coaxing a director to run this sort of tournament as well as the one where you play four games in two rounds. Sometimes good ideas come from jest.
The second idea (5 players in 2 double rounds with a ceiling-fan table arrangement) was not in jest. I did this many times at the old Lunt Avenue club, whenever we had 5 players for a weeknight event. I also did it with 3 or 7 players. (With an even number of players, of course, there’s no point.)
Sometimes, though, if a spectator walked in during the event and saw the table arrangement, he would think some kind of joke was in progress. 
Bill Smythe
This topic is a spin-off from Not Shown in Tiebreak Order.
Splitting this off serves what purpose? It was a joke tangent. All of these splits can make things more confusing.
Yes, it started as a joke, but some people took it seriously and discussed various issues that would arise from running a tournament that way. It was an interesting discussion but it was off topic to the original post. If a year from now someone wants to look up the discussion I think it will be easier to find in a topic titled “Knockout format (was Not Shown in Tiebreak)” than in a topic titled “Not Shown in Tiebreak Order”.
I like the idea of splitting threads when appropriate – and it certainly was appropriate in this case. If a thread goes off-topic, but the “off” topic is interesting too, splitting the threads performs a nice service to both topics, keeping both alive and reducing clutter.
Bill Smythe