The tactics of Round 12 and that ID mess:

3 people were T8 locked

There were 3 matches of 7-4s (Allen v Patrick, Gab v Raph, Emma v Ken) and a 7-4 paired down (Aaron) competing for 5 slots.

Ken v Emma are low breakers and have to play, so make that 4 slots for draws.

Aaron's spot is also clear. Win and in, lose and out with another spot for a 7-5.

If everyone plays, there are 1-2 open slots for 7-5s, so one or both top 7-4 matches should draw.

Pairings are split a bit bc Gab played Patrick, who have way better breakers, played.

So Patrick plays Allen, Gab plays Raph. Patrick and Gab will draw at any point if offered.

If Allen or Raph draws, they T8 if Aaron loses or if they win a breaker flip vs the other or if the other match resolves in not a draw.

What are the odds of that?

Allen is up 1% breaks on Raph as of Round 11, or about 1 opponent match win. Thats maybe a 5-10% odds edge... But even then only if Aaron wins.

In all scenarios where a draw is dubious, losing puts Allen or Aaron in 9th.

All things even, both Allen and Raph should draw. They are 50% to cleanly T8 (Aaron loses) and another 40-60% of the other 50% to T8 (Aaron wins + breakers decide it), so 70-80% total.

To play, Allen/Raph needs to feel favored enough in a mirror and/or Aaron is favored enough in his match to offset a 20-30% swing.

Things get more complicated if you can rapidly parse the R12 pairings and all of Allen/Raph's prior matches, but someone IDing to 9th was expected.

Unsure why the Nassif match started and kept going the way it did, but weird later decisions happena without a lot of time to process before the round starts, and sometimes you freeroll an old friend.

Also unsure why we are running events with digital chess clocks to resolve end of round time procedures using IDs, but that's like 20 issues down the line with OP right now

Also bonus trivia: due to the weird small field, multiple matches vs some opponents thing the Emma v Ken match also decided a huge amount of the Allen-Raph tiebreaker war.