There's also the whole thing about not needing to run every Single Elim round, where in the past they needed to run EVERY Swiss round to determine the Worlds Qualifiers. If you have between 512 and 1024 players in an age group (a fairly reasonable estimate for the Masters this year), you'd have to run 10 rounds to get to a winner. 3 fewer to get a Top 8, and 4 fewer to get to a top 16.
Plus, as stated above, once you get to round 5 or so, you can let Judges go for the evening, bring in Volunteer Judges (like myself and others) or use other means to staff out the event as there are much, much fewer players.
Table Judging is far easier and less stressful than Floor Judging. From the round of 32 onwards, they should have enough Judges available for that style, and that significantly cuts down on Judge Fatigue.
Best solution ever:
512 masters
256 seniors
256 juniors
MASTERS SRs/JRs
256 1-0 128 1-0
256 0-1 128 0-1
No.left: 512 No.left: 256
128 2-0 64 2-0
256 1-1 128 1-1
128 0-2 DROP 64 0-2 DROP
No.left: 384 No.left: 192
64 3-0 32 3-0
192 2-1 96 2-1
128 1-2 DROP 64 1-2 DROP
No.left: 256 No left: 128
32 4-0 16 4-0
128 3-1 64 3-1
96 2-2 DROP 48 2-2 DROP
No.left: 160 No.left: 80
16 5-0 8 5-0
80 4-1 40 4-1
64 3-2 DROP 32 3-2 DROP
No.left: 96 No.left: 48
8 6-0 4 6-0
48 5-1 24 5-1
40 4-2 DROP 20 4-2 DROP
No.left: 56 No.left: 28
4 7-0 2 7-0
28 6-1 14 6-1
24 5-2 12 5-2
No.left: 56 No.left: 28
2 8-0 1 8-0
16 7-1 8 7-1
26 6-2 13 6-2
12 5-3 6 5-3
No,left: 56 No.left: 28
//end //end
Gino, it's already been stated by Pete what's going to happen in the LCQ.
The first round will give byes to exactly the number of people necessary to get down to the next power of two. And from there, power of twos happen exactly until you get down to 8 players.
In your first example, 512 is the highest power of two below 600. So there will be 88 matches (176 players), and the rest of the players get byes (424).
In your second, 256 is the highest power of 2 below 300. So there will be 44 matches (88 players), and the rest of the players get byes (212).