A lot of people have been looking for information on No Limit Hold’em 4X Shootouts, so, I thought I’d dedicate today’s post to that.
What is a shootout tournament?
A shootout tournament is a multi-table tournament – without the load balancing. In a regular No Limit Hold’em tournament, throughout the tournament, players are moved from table to table in order to keep the number of players per table in balance (load balancing). In a shootout tournament, players remain at their original table until all tables have completed each round. For example,
Sample 4X Shootout Tournament
Assume that there are 10,000 registrants for our 4x shootout tournament, and that 10 are being seated at a table. There would be 1,000 tables to start.
Round 1
The winner of each table remains at his/her table until all 1,000 tables have a winner.
Round 2
Those 1,000 winners, are seated at 100 tables for this second round. Again, each table winner remains at his/her table until all 100 tables have completed the round.
Round 3
The winner of those 100 tables, are seated at 10 tables, and each table winner remains at his/her table until all tables have completed this round.
Round 4 = Final Table for our 4x Shootout Tournament
The 10 winners from the previous round meet at a single table – the final table, and the winner of that table wins the tournament.
So, in order to win the 4x shootout, you need to have won 4 tables, which in our example equates to having outplayed 39 other players.
2X Shootouts and 3X Shootouts
Using our easy number scheme, 2x and 3x shootout tournaments would work the same way, only the number of tournament players for each would be capped at a lower number. A 3x shootout would start with 1,000 entrants, and a 2x shootout would start with 100 entrants.
There can be anywhere from 4 – 10 players at a table in a shootout tournament; it’s up to the poker room. Also, prize money is given out along the way depending on the initial number of entrants and the tournament structure defined by the poker room.
Tip: At PokerStars, I found the WSOP 4X Freeroll Shootout tournament by clicking on Tourney, then Freeroll on the submenu. Cash shootouts are listed under Tourney, Satelite on the submenu, then Cash.