PokerStars proudly announced the release of “PokerStars Knockout Poker” on Friday, a new tournament variation that really is not all that new.
Knockout Poker is what it sounds like: a twist on…um…knockout poker tournaments? And by twist, I mean it’s an extremely minor tweak. In Knockout Poker (excuse me, PokerStars Knockout Poker), half of a player’s buy-in is earmarked for the normal prize pool and the other half is immediately put in place as a bounty on the player’s head. Should a player be eliminated, the person who does the knocking out receives half of the bounty, while the remaining half gets added to his own bounty.
Let me illustrate. Currently, there is a $44 No-Limit Hold’em Knockout Poker tournament running on PokerStars. $20 is for the prize pool, $20 is for the player’s bounty, and $4 is the fee that goes to Stars. Let’s say I get crazy lucky and cooler Daniel Negreanu on the opening hand, my Aces beating his Kings, all-in pre-flop. I will instantly win $10 of his bounty – it will go straight to my account no matter how far I go in the tournament. The other $10 of Negreanu’s bounty will be put on my head, so now everyone will see that my bounty has increased to $30. And yes, everyone’s bounty is advertised at the table.
This really doesn’t differ from PokerStars’ other knockout and bounty tournaments in any significant way. In “bounty” tournaments, typically only select players have bounties assigned to them, often PokerStars Team Pros. In “knockout” tournaments, everybody has a bounty. Sometimes players pay an extra fee to be used as the buy-in and bounties are awarded in full with every elimination. Then there are progressive knockout tournaments, which are exactly what these “new” Knockout Poker tournaments are. Everybody has a bounty and part of each player’s bounty is added to the hand victor’s bounty. The only difference is the split isn’t always 50/50.
Confused? Yeah. Like I said, Knockout Poker really isn’t a new thing. It’s just being branded as such. The idea behind it is almost certainly to further court recreational players. Bounties add an extra element of fun and excitement to a poker tournament and what better way to bring in casual players than to offer poker that is actually fun? Many years ago, when this site was owned by an online poker affiliate, I used to run promotional online tournaments from time to time and would install myself and my colleagues as bounties. It was a ton of fun for the players and surprisingly fun for me, even though I was a target. Knockout Poker also allows players to win money without actually “cashing” in the event, something that can make bubbling out much easier to swallow.
Initially, Knockout Poker Sit-and-Go’s will be offered at low buy-ins: $1 and $5 36-player Sit-and-Go’s, $10 24-player Sit-and-Go’s, and $1.50, $3.50, and $7 6-player Sit-and-Go’s. All of the hyper-turbo variety. There are loads of multi-table Knockout Poker tournaments, as well.
