Tournament Styles

     The style of tournament that most people are familiar with is the "freeze-out". Players buy chips at the start, and that's all the chips you can buy. Either win more from your opponenets, or lose what you have. Once your chip total goes down to zero, you are out of the game.

     One unfortunate side-effect of this style of play is that when KK goes al-in against AA early in the game, someone is sitting out for a while. In order to keep everyone involved in poker night for a while, you can consider running tournaments that feature re-buys.

     In these tournaments, players are allowed to purchase more chips once they run out. Usually the re-buy period is limited to the first several rounds. Sometimes conditions are placed on when you can rebuy. Perhaps players can only rebuy when they are out of chips completely. Perhaps the tournament will allow players who have less than the starting total to rebuy.

     The number of rebuys may also be set. Some tournaments may allow an unlimited amount of rebuys for the first several rounds. Other tournaments may allow players a single rebuy opportunity.

     Besides rebuys, tournaments can offer Add-Ons. Usually when the rebuy period of a tournament comes to a close, those eligible for a rebuy make one. Those ineligible for a rebuy are offered an add-on. An add-on is also an opportunity for players to make a chip purchase during the tournament.

     In tournaments featuring re-buys and add-ons the prize money isn't set in dollar amounts until the re-buys and add-ons are counted up and added to the buy-ins to complete the prize pool.

     Another style of tournament, and this is only applicable to multi-table tournaments, is the "shootout" or "shotgun" tournament. Instead of going through the rigors of combining players from various tables to keep the tables balanced, simply let the tables play down to the final table winner. Once all the tables have a winner, put those winners together at the final table. Everyone will be entering the final table with the same chip count (or nearly the same at least).

     The latest style tournament to catch on is the Heads Up style of play. A traditional tournament bracket is created depending upon the number of players involved. The bracket would mimic that of the NCAA basketball tournament where players play single elimination rounds and either advance or fall out of the tournament.

     Play continues as players play against each other, one on one, until all but two players are eliminated. In the final battle between the last two players, the National Heads Up Championship is played as a best of three mini-series. You may or may not wish to do this as well. For our tournaments, it's a one and done deal. Win or go home, all the way through until the last man is standing.