Polo Tournament: The Draw?

yo.
I'm working really hard to make this a great tournament. I am doing the play of the day like most bracketed tournaments, best vs. worst (see the World Cup or Wimbeldon for reference). However, I have also taken into consideration that I don't know every team and that some are coming from out of town.

here's what I've done:

1. rated all the teams I know as a 1, 2, or 3 (one being best, 2 being middle-skill, 3 being worst/newest)

2. then I've starred all out of town teams and then numbered those as well if I know them.

3. all teams that I don't know got a 2.

4. Next I put all out-of-town teams vs. london-based 3-rated teams. I think it would be crap to have all these out-of town teams come to London and only get one game in.
   *there is an exception to this if I've seen the team play

5. I placed all 1-rated London teams vs. 2-rated teams.

6. Currently, due to a team canceling (Sweet Thunder), there is an odd amount of teams, so one team will get a pass through to round two. However, this obviously changes if another team drops out and so on.

Reasons:
-This is the totally normal way to do a tournament.
-if we draw out of a hat, we'll get some worst vs. worst games which means that a bad team will get through and best vs. best game which means one of the best teams playing will have to be out. This does not lead to a "fair" tournament it leads to the teams with the best luck winning, not the best skills
-We are very limited in time, I don't want to take the time that we could be otherwise be playing, drawing teams. Plus, having worst vs worst games going for 12 minutes and having them end at 1-0 is crap.

The whole point of a tournament is that the best teams progress, not the worst.
If I had a week I would have every team play every team, we have one day. Currently we have 8 hours to play 10 hours of polo (though I'm working on that).

Anyone who wants to offer suggestions as to whom should play whom, is welcome to come over tonight or tomorrow before polo for a cuppa and a butcher's and check out my current line up.

I think this is reasonable way to proceed. It seems fair to give the out of towners a chance to get more than one game, as opposed to risking them coming up against one of the better London teams, and getting knocked out.

It's true that no one has seen all of the teams play, but must of us have seen most of the regular London players at some point in the last couple of weeks, and I don't think it's that hard to work out who the better players are. Nor do I think it is unjust to assume that if none of us have seen, for instance, anyone from Pedalphiles play, that they are only in it for the saddles and the chance to cause a little mayhem, and will go out with bang, and perhaps a whimper.

I agree with Aidan and Hops that it's not perfect, but the alternative seems less fair on the out of town teams, and less fair on those of us who have been practising our polo 3 times a week for the last couple of months. Imagine if Pedalphiles got drawn against bikefix, and BAD got drawn against RMY. I am pretty sure that bf have hardly played at all, and I am certain that pp have only seen bike polo on youtube. Say pp don't show, and bf get a bye. Then one of BAD and RMY get knocked out. That would not be fair in my view.

After this tournament, there is another quite soon, so the results from this one can be used to seed the next.