[1eyedjack]

It would be helpful if the user could configure a customised preference for the minimum number of players in a tourney in which he registers to participate. If by the time that the tourney starts this minimum number is not reached, then the user is refunded the entry fee and never joins the tourney.

Currently BBO sets its own blanket criteria for the minimum number of participants, below which the tourney is cancelled. I recently played in a MP Robot tourney with just 3 tables. Personally I would rather not have participated (for which I paid a fee), but at the time of registering I could not know that there would be only 3 contestants at start time. Under my suggestion, I could pre-configure my user preferences to join a tourney only if the player count exceeded (say) 8.

I appreciate that the programming could get a wee bit involved, with the potential for a cascade effect: Say there are 5 registered players, one of whom has set a minimum of 6, another has set a minimum of 5, another 4 and so on. The player who has set 6 as the minimum bows out, leaving just 4 players, whereupon the player who set 5 as the minimum is also ejected, and so on. I don't see this effect as particularly problematic.

[1eyedjack]

An alternative to the above might be automatically to refund a discount on the entry fee in proportion to the reduction in total masterpoints at stake arising from reduced entry field

[1eyedjack]

Well at least I have just found out what the minimum table entry count is: 2!

I have just today played in a 2-table IMP robot tourney. And yes, that is not the number of finishers, but the number of starters.
Thankfully I came second last, so managed to bank a grand total of 0.08 masterpoints for my $0.25 entry fee

[barmar]

A 2-entry IMP tourney is essentially a team game, where each of you is on a team with 3 robots. And MP is like Board-A-Match.