What is a Freezeouts Poker tournament?
The simple definition of a freezeout poker tournament is one in which each player starts with a set amount of poker chips that represents all the money they are allowed to play with. In other words, once a player's chips are all gone, they're out of the game. A freezeout is the standard poker tournament format.
A tournament of this type will usually have lots of players playing poker on many different tables. As players lose their chips and leave the game, those tables are merged together so that everyone is playing with roughly the same number of players at all times.
In order to keep the game moving (and to help reduce the number of players by eliminating more and more of them), the blinds and antes in a freezeout poker tournament are gradually raised throughout the duration of the games. So, what may start as a $5 or $10 blind will rise at regular intervals (anywhere from every 30 minutes to every two hours), and in regular increments, until all players, except the winner, are forced out of the game.
A freezeout tournament pays out its winnings in percentages according to the order in which players are eliminated from the game. So, for example, the last player standing might walk away with 30% of the money available, while the most recently eliminated player gets 15%, the next most recently eliminated player gets 10% and so on and so on, until the money runs out!
Although, as mentioned, freezeout poker tournaments are the most common form of tournament, there are several others, including rebuy, add-in and shootout tournaments. The latter, 'shootout', is most similar to a freezeout, usually only differing in the breakdown of the tables. In a shootout, each table of, for example, 12 players, plays down to the last player who is then moved onto the finalists' table for the last round of the game.
Some tournaments are a hybrid of the above and will start out with a non-freezeout format, allowing players to rebuy into the game or add extra funds to their chips for a set amount of time. However, after a while, these kinds of tournaments usually kick into the freezeout format.
