How tournaments work

A Dream Games tournament is a field of players, one entry fee each, and a prize pool that the top three share. Everybody pays the same to enter, everybody plays under the same rules, and nothing in any of our games is left to chance, so the players who play best are the ones who finish on top.

This article covers how a tournament fills its seats, what happens when it does not fill, how the games are played, and exactly how the pool is shared out.

Two kinds of tournament

Most tournaments are run by us. Some are hosted by affiliates we have approved, and a hosted tournament says who hosts it at the top of its page. The games, the clock and the payouts work the same way in both. The differences are about seats and refunds, and they are covered below.

Every tournament is listed on the tournaments page with its game, its entry fee, its number of seats, its prize split and the exact time it begins. Some are free to enter, with their prizes put up in advance and shown on the page. Most have an entry fee that goes into the pool.

Entering, and when entries close

You enter by paying the fee from your balance, and you are asked to confirm the tournament's terms before you do. The fee is the only money involved: the games inside a tournament carry no stake of their own, so however far you go, you never pay again.

Entries close 15 minutes before the start time. Nobody can join after that, however many seats are free.

One seat per player. If you withdraw, you cannot come back in.

Seats, and what happens if they do not fill

Every tournament has a fixed number of seats, shown on its page. What happens when not every seat is taken depends on who runs it.

Our tournaments run as long as at least four people have entered. If fewer than four have entered when entries close, entries stay open a few minutes longer, and if the field still falls short the tournament is cancelled and every entry is refunded in full.

Hosted tournaments are fill or kill. They run only if every seat is taken. If a single seat is empty when entries close, the tournament is cancelled and every entry is refunded in full. It is a simple rule, and it means a hosted tournament always plays out with the field it advertised.

Pulling out

In one of our tournaments you can withdraw and get your full fee back at any point until the draw is made.

In a hosted tournament, pull-outs close 1 hour before entries close. Up to then your fee comes back in full; after that it comes back only if the tournament is cancelled.

Once the draw is made, the pool is the prize and the tournament plays out to a result. The only exception is a tournament that is called off, in which case everybody is refunded in full.

How the games are played

The group stage. At the draw, the field is split into groups of three or four. Everybody in a group plays everybody else in it once. A win is three points, a draw is one and a loss is none. The top two in each group go through; in a tournament with only one group, the top four go through. A tie on points is settled first by the game between the tied players and then by their results, never by chance.

The knockout. From there it is straight elimination. Win and you continue, lose and you are out. Group winners are seeded above runners up. There is a third place match at the end, because third place is paid.

The clock. Tournament games give each player 5 minutes for the whole game, with no time added per move. A normal match in the lobby gives each player 10 minutes, so the pace here is quick.

Three rules catch people out in their first tournament:

• Not turning up is a loss. Your clock starts when your game starts, whether you are there or not.
• Draws cannot be offered in the knockout. If a knockout game is drawn anyway, by repetition for example, the higher seed goes through.
• While you are still in a tournament, you cannot watch its other games. Once you are out, or it is over, every game is open to watch.

The prize split

Every entry fee goes into one pool, and when the tournament finishes the pool is shared out by finishing position. Each tournament's page shows its own split. The split for tournaments we create now is:

• First place · 50% of the pool
• Second place · 25% of the pool
• Third place · 15% of the pool

Together the top three receive 90% of the pool. The remaining 10% is our fee for running the tournament, and it is the only one: nothing is taken from your entry when you join and nothing is taken from the games inside it. In a hosted tournament, the host's share comes out of that 10%, never out of the prizes.

Here is what that looks like for a full thirty two seat tournament with a 10 USDC entry. The pool is 320 USDC. First place receives 160 USDC, second receives 80 USDC and third receives 48 USDC. The remaining 32 USDC is the fee.

Fourth place and below receive nothing back. That is the honest shape of a tournament: you pay a fixed amount for a chance at a larger one, and most players in any field will not reach the top three. Enter tournaments whose fee you would be comfortable losing.

XP and the leaderboard

Tournaments are also the biggest source of XP. You earn it for group wins, for qualifying, for each knockout win and most of all for winning the tournament. XP is a score, not money: it ranks you on the leaderboard and it helps in tie-breaks.

Before your first one

Check the tournament's game, its start time and its split, and make sure you can be there for the whole of it, because a missed game is a lost one. If the game is new to you, play it in practice first. Practice is free, against a bot or a friend. Its games use the clock of a normal match, 10 minutes each, so try finishing them with half your time left; 5 minutes will feel a lot less daunting after that.