Micah, I don’t know either, because any of them are defensible. I suggest you would be best served by picking one, adding a deadline at which the requests or lack thereof become irrevocable, and go.
Waiting for the nonexistent perfect only delays implementation of the OK to good.
Micah, Bill responded to your question in length, is the above quote all you were able to see? 
You seem to be determined to give last round byes. (1) is OK, though even that’s rather generous. (For five round tournaments, my usual is two byes are permitted for 1 and 2 only, you can have one for any round, but none after you’re done playing). Do not do (2) unless you want some very unhappy customers—it won’t take very long before you have to mail out checks to people who didn’t play Sunday. They will be happy, it’s the people who get paired up both rounds on Sunday and don’t win money as a result who won’t be. (Note that, given a choice, the ones who play both days are the ones that you want to keep.)
Given that (1) is traditional, I would recommend sticking with it, though it seems that your heck-bent on doing something different. (3) is borderline OK—it’s still optimal strategy for an U1200 player to take you up on the bye for round 5, but at least if someone wins U1200 with the bye, they will likely have had to do something meritorious in the first four rounds to get into that position. (There’s also a big difference between losing money to someone who didn’t even show on Sunday than to someone who played in the morning but not the afternoon).
If it’s 4 rounds, would a blitz side event on the first night make it feel like a bigger tournament and attract more players?
All honesty, I’ve forgotten everything that was discussed in this topic since the last post was about 2 months ago…
That being said, I would have more games (5 rounds) than 4 rounds + side blitz event since you did say you had the “perfect scores” issues.
Anyways, there’s no right or perfect tournament format that will satisfy everyone. As an organizer, you try your best to accommodate as many players as possible. And that’s the fun part - go crazy and see what the players in your area want to play.
Best,
~Acerook
P.S. My bye policy is 1 half-point bye is available in any round (1-5) but must be requested before the start of the tournament.
The “perfect score” issue was with one of our one section tournaments, not this one which has five sections.
In the Way-Back Machine, this type of tournament use to be called an ‘Oddity’.
If only you could get rid of the chess players…
One of the main points behind this tournament was to have only two rounds each day. All of the other 2-day tournaments at the Portland Chess Club have three rounds on the first day and the time control is usually 40/90,SD/30;d5. A lot of players take a half point bye for the third round. Some people have asked us to try having only two rounds each day.
To try and compensate for it not feeling like a bigger tournament, we used a slightly longer time control (G/120;d10) for the tournament this year but that time control isn’t much longer I want to use a longer time control in future years. We don’t currently use any time controls with increment at the Portland Chess Club. Thirty second increment was pretty popular with our local players based on the feedback we got. I am considering using G/120+30 or 40/90;SD/30+30. Which of these two would you recommend?
If you want 3 rounds a day with a long time control, and you want to discourage 3rd-round bye requests, here’s an idea you might want to try:
Posted partly in jest, but not entirely.
One thing I like about this idea is that it will surely add fodder to that ridiculous thread that worries about the prohibition of time-odds games being misinterpreted to apply to late-arriving players, simultaneous games, and time penalties assessed for rules violations. That thread might as well be steered onto an even more ludicrous path.
Bill Smythe
I strongly prefer the latter. Many players will use up all their time on the first 25 moves, and, if using the former time control, be forced to play the remainder of the game on the increment. It is nice to get a “reset” at move 40.
Alex Relyea