>So if a player wants to optimize for ranking, its actually in their best interest to throw round one of a tournament, play more games, and have their skill upd

>So if a player wants to optimize for ranking, its actually in their best interest to throw round one of a tournament, play more games, and have their skill update more times. That's only the case if you believe your current ELO underestimates your real ability respective to the opponents you'll meet in the lower bracket. Also if you lose your first game against a low-ranked player, you'll immediately lose a lot of points; then the wins against other low-rank players will not give you many points back. If you're within a calibrated ELO system, your expected change in rating should be 0 for a match, and then having more matches doesn't actually help you.