[emphasis above is mine]
In light of recent discussion, this made me smile 
WZIM, it seems to me that you have a well-organized fun championship. I would certainly be interested in participating if I lived in the area. Out of curiosity, what time controls do you use for the championship?
Yes, we do have funâŚ
Ben, it has been a time getting people to play in this championship. We have a couple of people in the area rated well above 2000, but have a hard time convincing them to play in our championship.
We do have the qualifier tournaments as Wayne has mentioned along with the champion from last year. This year we convinced a fellow that has been on his floor of 2000 to play. We are conducting this championship on Monday nights beginning on May 3 and going well into June. Of course we are not playing tonight as it is Memorial Day and the Museum is closed.
Some of the games have been played beforehand and some will need to be made up.
I drive 70 miles after getting done with work to play as does another fellow. We are having a good time of it though. I find that I am a bit tired and need to actually get oriented when sitting at the board after doing eye exams all day and driving in.
We are playing the 2 sections of round robins, and I just say I am dismayed that Wayne wouldnât let me take a 1/2 point bye when I was to play last yearâs champion 
The games are interesting as well and we are all having a good time playing. Eric, weâd let you come and play if you really wantedâŚ
Due to the time constraits of the meeting location the time control is Game 75 with the 5 second delay.
At one time they would have been game 80, and going back farther in time they would have been Game 90.
We would look for alternate playing locations before reducing the time again.
I realize that I am going with the topic drift here, but for anyone that is interested, here are the games that have been played so far.
gpcf.net/City08/peoria%20cit ⌠onship.htm
To get back to the topic of group division when we are finished this year we will discuss if should keep the same setup for next year or perhaps go to 1 group of 8.
Based upon your posting of the games the ratings as of the last supplement are
2000,1886,1834,1803,1786,1706,1659,1649,1632,1551,1329
You indicate that youâre interested in a method of splitting these that is competitive and âfairâ. Obviously putting 1-6 in one group and 7-12 in another gives the most competitive sections, and gives #1 the toughest possible schedule. However, thatâs obviously manifestly unfair to player #6. Letâs start with the first âruleâ
- The expected scores of the players must be a non-decreasing function of rating.
This would rule out something like 1-6 and 7-12 since 6 would have an lower e-score than 7.
Given rule #1, what is the method of grouping which makes player #1âs schedule as difficult as possible? That turns out to be the groupings
1-3-4-5-10-12 and 2-6-7-8-9-11
This gives player #1 an expected score of 4.125, player #2 an expected score of 3.992.
Obviously, the âbestâ grouping under this scheme depends upon the ratings. 1-3-5-7-9-11 fails rule #1 because the even players benefit from the large drops between players 1 and 2, 5 and 6 and 11 and 12. Player 8 has almost 0.5 points higher expectation than player 7. The other proposal based solely upon seeding is 1-4-5-8-9-12, which does have the proper monotonicity, but has an expected score of 4.277 for player #1.
We used the March Supplement ratings as our cutoff point.
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2000
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1880
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1871
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1801
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1763
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1679
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1659
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1648
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1569
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1553
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1511
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1428
Despite the previous indications that I am biased against the higher rated players, the goal here isnât to make it harder for number 1 to win, but to make it so that once someone has won they know that they worked to win it and didnât just stumble into it.
Really kind of vague isnât it?
At least this year the playoff between the two groups is not just one game.
If it were one day, might I recommend Fischer Random blindfold armageddon with one hand tied behind your back?