Tournament Types

Bovada offers most types of tournaments, from Poker Point Freerolls to Guarantees, Rebuys, Beginner, and short-handed for starters.  

Multi-Table Tournaments

Each player sits down with the same number of chips. Blinds and antes increase as you go, and as players are eliminated, players move to new tables, until there’s one final table left. The total of all buy-ins make up the prize pool, paid out according to the tournament payout structure.

Freerolls

A Freeroll tournament is a Multi-Table tournament with no entry fee. Prize pools come in all kinds: cash, player points, or entries to other tournaments. The number of seats is often limited, so register early. 

Poker Point Tournaments

Use Poker Points to buy in to featured tournaments that offer cash and other prizes. Find them in the Lobby and look for ‘PTS’ next to the buy-in amount. This tells you the number of points needed to buy in. If you see a ‘$’ you can buy in with real money too, and yes, cash buy-ins are added to the pool. 

Qualifiers

These tournaments make it easy for players to play their way to bigger tournaments at a fraction of the buy-in. Qualifiers usually pay out Tournament Tickets that can be used to buy in to the next level of a tournament series. 

Multi-Table Sit-and-Go (MSGs)

This mini-tournament starts the moment all the seats are filled and hosts 10 to 45 players at 2 to 5 tables. Blinds increase in time increments, most commonly every 12 minutes. Turbo MSG blinds go up every 6 minutes, Super Turbo MSG blinds every 3 minutes. There are many different by-ins, so check the Lobby for more information.

Short Handed Sit-and-Go 

Try some mega-clutch action with just a few players. Payouts go to 2 players in a 6-handed game. 

Re-Buy Tournaments

Re-buy tournaments let you buy more chips when you run out or fall below a set amount. Some limit when you can re-buy, others the number of times. They can offer an ‘add-on’ or last buy-in, for all players no matter their stack size. The amount of a re-buy or add-on is usually the original buy-in amount. After the re-buy and add-ons are over, prize pool and payouts are posted.

Beginner Sit-and-Go Tournaments

As soon as 9 players are at the table, the game starts. Find them running 24/7, listed under ‘Sit-and-Go Tournaments’ in the Lobby. Buy in. Open a table. Then click on an empty seat to play. Half the players walk away a winner. 

Beginner Scheduled Tournaments

Pick your time and find it listed under ‘Scheduled Tournaments’ in the Lobby. You can register 2 hours before the tournament starts, when you see ‘Registering’ posted alongside the game. Stay logged into your Poker software and 2 minutes before the start you’ll be given a random seat among the other players. Beginner tournaments pay out a larger percentage of the field than standard tournaments.

Shootout Tournaments

Shootout Tournaments are applicable for Hold’em and Omaha 6-Handed and 9-Handed table games where the winner from each table advances to the next round. Shootouts can only be applied to scheduled multi-table tournaments.

Shootout Tournaments can be a Double Shootout or a Triple Shootout depending on the set number of seats per table and max players allowed in the tournament, Double if the total round is 2, and Triple if total round is 3. Each of the games/tables progresses until there is a winner and the winners from each table will be seated to the next round randomly. Note that if a shootout is not filled to capacity when it begins, some of the tables in Round 1 could have more players than others.

• Double Shootout: If the number of seats per table is 6 and the max player is 36, there will be 6 tables of 6 players to start and each table’s winner advances to the final table of 6 players.

• Triple Shootout: If the number of seats per table is 9 and the max player is 729, there will be 81 tables of 9 players to start and each table’s winner goes to the second round. In the second round there will be 9 tables of 9 players, and the winner of each table advances to the final table of 9 players.

The unregistration time for shootout tournaments is 10 minutes before the tournament starts. Shootout tournaments also have late registration which will usually be set to 65 minutes for guaranteed shootout tournaments and 30 minutes for non-guaranteed shootout tournaments. The only exception to this rule is when a player gets eliminated from the tournament, late registration will close on the very next hand.

The blinds intervals settings are synced with the blind level setting for each round. Each round will have its own blinds which are displayed in the tournament lobby by clicking on Tourney Info.

The starting chips for every player will change each round depending on the number of seats per table in the previous round. For example, in a 6-handed double shootout tournament, if players started round 1 with 2,000 chips, they will start round 2 with 12,000 chips (6 players X 2,000). This equation will be used regardless if the table is full or has fewer than 6 players.

Shootout Tournaments do not have hand for hand feature and breaks will occur after every 60 minutes of play.

The rankings are determined by a system that groups the same ranks from each table, except the ranks are determined by the end time within the group as in the examples below:

• Example 1: for 6 tables of 6 seats, the sixth rank of each table will be grouped to 31st–36th rank in order of knock out. First to get knocked out will be 36th and so forth.

• Example 2: for 6 tables of 6 seats, when there are no knock out players in other tables but 3 got knocked out in one table, then ranking of those 3 players will be as follows: first knocked out player is 36th, second knocked out player is 30th, and third knocked out player is 24th. If those 3 players get knocked out in the same hand, the system will do a chip count. The player who had the most chips at the start of that knock out hand will be ranked higher.

Heads Up Tournaments

Another form of a shootout tournament is a Heads Up tournament. This is a tournament where players are matched up against one another on a one-on-one basis, and play a bracket tournament, similar to March Madness, until there is only one player left. 

Contrary to other shootout tournaments, late registration is not allowed in Heads Up tournaments.

The total of participants in a Heads-Up tournament may not always be a number divisible by the power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64) which is a must to fill a bracket. When this happens, not all players will play the first round and this will result in some players receiving a bye to the second round. First round byes will be randomly allocated.

The blinds intervals work exactly how they do for shootout tournaments. Each round will have its own blinds which are displayed in the tournament lobby. 

The starting chips stacks will double each round that a player moves on to.

Quadruple Up Tournaments

In a quadruple-up tournament, one player for every four will receive a payout which will be equal to four times the buy-in. For example, if there are 18 players in a $10 + $1 Quadruple Up tournament, the total prize pool will be $180, paid out as follow: 1st to 4th will win $40 ($160) and there will be a remainder payout of $20 that will be awarded to 5th place which will total $180.

Single Rebuy Tournaments

In a single rebuy tournament, players may only do one rebuy before the break. Their stack must be equal to or less than their original starting stack. No add-ons allowed.

Ante-Up Tournaments

In an Ante-Up tournament, the small blind in each level will be the amount of the level number. The big blinds will be double that amount, while the ante will be 5X of the big blind every level. For example, in level 5 of an Ante-Up tournament, the small blind will be 5, the big blind will be 10, and the ante will be set to 50.

Add-On Only Tournaments

In an Add-On Only tournament, players making it to the first break will have the opportunity to add-on chips to their stacks. Generally, players will be able to add 3 times the starting stack for the same price as the buy-in. For example, in a $10 + $1 Add-On Only tournament with a starting stack of 2,000 chips, players will be able to add-on 6,000 chips during the first break for $10.

Knock-Out Tournaments

In a knock-out tournament, the same rules apply as standard tournaments, except that the buy-in will be split between contributing to the prize pool and creating a bounty on each player. For example, a Knockout tournament with a buy-in of $15 + $1.50 will have $10 going to the prize pool and $5 going to the player that eliminates you. When you knock a player out of a tournament, the money for knocking out a player will be immediately credited to your account.