How do I run a shootout or heads-up tournament?

In a shootout, every table plays down to a single winner instead of breaking and balancing as players bust. The winners advance to a fresh seat draw in the next round, and the last table standing crowns the champion. Set the table size to 2 and the same format becomes a heads-up bracket: a series of one-on-one matches.

Setting one up

Create a tournament and choose Shootout as the format. It needs a Club plan or higher, and it tracks players individually, because a bracket can't run on a head count. Everything else follows from your table size: with 27 players at 9-handed you get three tables, then a 3-handed final. The dialog spells out the shape before you create it, so you can try a size and see how many rounds it produces.

Shootouts are freezeouts. Rebuys, add-ons and re-entries aren't available. Once a player is out, they're out.

Table size is the whole shape of the event. Nine-handed tables mean fewer, longer rounds; six-handed means more rounds that finish faster; two means a heads-up bracket.

Heads-up tournaments

With a table size of 2, each match is one-on-one and the winner moves on. Round 1 is dealt into the largest bracket size that fits your field, so every bye lands in the first round and every round after it pairs off exactly. A player with a bye simply advances. The final is always a match between the last two players, whatever your final-table setting says.

Late players can only take an empty bye seat. Once those are filled the bracket is full and no one else can join.

Running the night

Drawing seats closes self-registration. Staff can still add late players during round 1; after that the field is locked.

Tables never break or balance, and players can't be moved between tables mid-round, because each table's job is to produce one winner. When a table is decided, its winner is shown on the clock while the other tables finish. Once every table has a winner, an Advance round action appears in seating. Confirming it redraws seats for the survivors and pauses a running clock so players can find their seats.

Payouts and leagues

Finishing positions come from elimination order exactly as in any other tournament, so your payout structure works unchanged: the players knocked out in round 1 fill the bottom places, and the champion takes first. League scoring works normally too, and league formulas can reward how many rounds a player survived, not just where they finished.