Well, I watched a lot of the games broadcast by 11th Company on table one this weekend and a few things I noticed:
1) I should have gone now that I've seen how the system is set up to group players of similar skill levels into brackets.
2) Even on the top table with undefeated players, including the final game to determine the championship, I saw what are supposed to be top caliber tournament players making the exact same mistakes I have in tournament play, although not in the same magnitude.  The GK player in round two playing the eventual second place GK player (Blackmoore) with his Draigo wing pushed too hard and then Blackmoore in his game vs Tony's Wolves, dropped the ball on defending objectives and being too tentative about assaulting instead of just shooting.

Oh well, more hope for me I guess.

I got a collection of B. Kliban books a few decades back and while they are all funny, this is one of two that have stuck in my memory even after the books are long gone.  The other was "Intellectual" with a typical pipe smoking professor type naked on his hands and knees with a tube stuck up his arse leading to his brain.

Minor rant here after reading several posts where everyone is trying to justify the GW line that building GW models, painted with GW paints, setting up GW terrain to play a GW game is all one big hobby.

Well, not the best performance for the Black Templars, but the only thing I can say for sure is that at least I don't keep repeating the same mistakes.  I've read more than one GT winner say that it takes about a year for a newb to quit stumbling and become competitive and they may just be right.  Well, I do have a few more months to go before the year hits.