Shoot Out Tournament
While most poker tournaments as structured as freeze out events, there is another form of tournament called a shoot out. In the shoot out format, each starting table plays like a single table tournament, which is to say that each table plays to a single winner. Strategies for winning a shoot out can be very different than in a freeze out format. In a 300 player freeze out tournament you know you will have to place in the top 27, let’s say, to actually make the money. And in the top three to win a really substantial amount of money. So you are playing for a long term goal of placing high among the 300 entrants.
In a shoot out tournament you can only make the money by winning your first table, you must defeat the first 8 or 9 players you sit down with to move on. And you know to do that you are going to need to play some good short-handed poker very quickly because your table is going to have 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3-handed play and finally heads up poker.
The number of players is also critical in a shoot out tournament. The math of a shoot out format is calculated in reverse. If tournament organizers plan to have 9 players at the final table, then they need 9 tables in the prior round; one table winner for each seat at the final table. If those tables are also playing nine handed then the next prior round needs 81 tables. This is why you will often see shoot events played six handed. Six players at the final table, require 6 tables or 36 players in round two (6 X 6) and 36 tables and 216 (36 X 6) players in round one.
We often find players who are well practiced with single table satellites applying those skill to shoot out tournaments, which really is a series of 2 or 3 or 4 single table tournaments.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #93
