The freezeout tournament is the parent of all other kinds of poker tournament. It is the kind of tournament that you usually see on TV, the one that is used to crown WSOP champions and WPT champions every year, and the one you have probably played if you have just played one or two poker tournaments.
Elimination is definite
The main characteristic of a freezeout tournament is this: When your chips are gone, so are you. The tournament continues until one player has won all the chips from all the other players. That is, until all players have run out of chips, except one.
Freezeout tournaments start with all participants buying equal stacks of chips for equal amounts of money, called the “buy-in”. Players are randomly seated around the table, or tables if there are more than ten players, after which the game starts out just as a regular poker game (cash game).