How tournaments work

A tournament is one entry fee, a field of players, and a single pool of money that three of them go home with. Everybody pays the same to enter, everybody plays the same games, and at the end the top three take the pool between them. It is the only place here where you can win considerably more than you put in.

If you have never played a game for money before, here is the whole idea in a sentence: everybody puts up the same entry fee, all of it is set aside in one pool, and at the end it is shared out by how far each player got. Nothing is left to chance. There are no dice and no shuffled cards in any of our games, so whoever plays better wins.

Where tournaments come from

We create them. There is no button for starting your own, and no way to invite people to one. Tournaments appear on the tournaments page with their game, their entry fee, how many seats there are, and the exact time they begin.

You enter by paying the fee, which comes out of your balance and goes into the tournament's pool. That is the only money involved: the games inside a tournament carry no stake of their own, so once you are in, you never pay again however far you go.

If you have given us an email address, we send you a reminder shortly before each of your games.

How one runs

Tournaments come in four sizes: eight, sixteen, thirty two, or sixty four seats.

At the advertised start time, whoever has entered is drawn into groups of four. If at least four people have entered, the tournament begins. If fewer than four have entered, we wait a few minutes in case somebody is late, and then cancel it and refund everybody in full.

The group stage. Everybody in your group plays everybody else in it, once each. A win is three points, a draw is one, a loss is none. The top two from each group go through. In a small tournament with only one group, the top four go through.

The knockout. From there it is straight elimination: win and you continue, lose and you are out. Group winners are seeded above runners up, so finishing first in your group earns you an easier route. There is a third place match at the end, because third place is worth real money.

Games are scheduled rather than played back to back. Rounds run about half an hour apart, so you have time between games, and in a large tournament the last group starts a little after the first. Your fixtures appear on the tournament page when they are due.

The money

Every entry fee goes into one pool. When the tournament finishes, the pool is shared out like this:

• First place · 40% of the pool
• Second place · 30% of the pool
• Third place · 20% of the pool

What is left over stays with us. That is how we are paid for running the tournament, and it is the only fee involved: there is nothing taken from your entry when you join, and nothing taken from the games you play inside it.

Fourth place and below get nothing back, which is the honest shape of a tournament. You are paying a small amount for a shot at considerably more, and most people will not reach the top three. It is worth entering one you can afford to lose the fee on.

The rules that matter

The clock is shorter than usual. Tournament games give each player five minutes in total, not the ten minutes a normal match gives you. Play accordingly.

Not showing up is a loss. Your clock starts at the scheduled time whether you are there or not. Miss a game and you will lose it on time.

A drawn knockout game goes to the higher seed. Knockout games have to produce somebody who continues, so if the game is drawn, the better seeded player goes through. Nothing is replayed.

A tie in the group is never a coin flip. If two players finish level on points, we look first at the game between them. If that does not settle it, we look at wins against losses, then at XP, and finally at who registered first. Every one of those is something a player earned.

You cannot enter twice. One seat per player, and if you withdraw you cannot come back in.

Refunds

Before it starts, you can withdraw and get your fee back in full. Change your mind at any point up to the start time and you pay nothing.

If a tournament is cancelled, everybody is refunded in full. That happens if too few people enter, or if we cancel it before the draw for any other reason.

Once the draw has been made, there are no refunds. From that moment the pool is the prize and the tournament plays out to a result.

Watching

Tournament games can be watched. Anybody signed in can open a live fixture and follow it move by move, with both clocks running, and there is a chat room for spectators.

One exception, and it is deliberate: while you are still in a tournament, you cannot watch any of its games, including the ones you are not playing in. Otherwise you could sit and study your next opponent while they play, which is not a fair way to reach a final. Once you are out, or once it is over, everything is open to you.

XP

Tournaments are the biggest source of XP here. You earn it for winning group games, for qualifying out of your group, for each knockout win, for reaching the final, and most of all for winning the thing.

XP is a score, not money. It ranks you on the leaderboard, and it is one of the tie-breaks above, which is why it is worth having before you need it.

Try it

If you have never played for a stake, start in practice. It is free: pick a bot on easy, medium or hard, or send a friend a link. Nothing is staked and nothing is recorded.

When you are ready, look at the tournaments page and find one whose game you like and whose entry fee you would not mind losing. Enter it, turn up on time, and see how far you get.