Texas No Limit Hold’em is the most popular poker game in the world. But when you think of poker’s favorite format, what do you think of when you read the term ‘freezeout’?
From buying in to winning at them, we’ll look at what freezeout events are, how you play them and why they are some of the most popular poker tournaments on the planet.
What is a ‘Freezeout’ Poker Tournament?
In the simplest terms, a freezeout poker tournament is an event where there is a set buy-in amount that each player puts down before starting play and that money is converted into poker chips. From there on in the tournament, you cannot rebuy, re-enter or add to those chips by any means other than winning your opponents’ chips, with the blinds escalating and chips eventually all being in front of one player, who is pronounced the winner.
In poker, a freezeout event is almost always a tournament, because in general, cash games allow for players to add to their stack during gameplay, topping up existing chips with additional funds or rebuying if they lose all their chips. The only way a cash game would be a freezeout would be if everyone had to buy in for the same amount at the start of play but players could cash out before there was a winner, as there always is at the close of a poker tournament.
A freezeout poker tournament is the purest form of poker, because once a player is committed to entering, they have the same starting chips as everyone else and no players can rebuy or re-enter. Once you’ve entered, you will either win the tournament or lose all your chips. Once you’ve lost them, you’re out of the freezeout tournament.
How Popular are Freezeouts?
Freezeout poker tournaments used to be the only ones in town. The idea of players rebuying unless they were playing a cash game was unheard of. But in the last quarter of a century in particular, the landscape of poker tournaments has changed.
Over the past few years, the proliferation of rebuy or re-entry tournaments has significantly altered how poker players must approach tournament poker, both as a hobby and in some cases, as a career. Rebuy events allow you to rebuy at the table, reloading as in a cash game up to the tournament buy-in amount, but sometimes as a double amount. Then there’s an ‘add-on’ period, where you can add on more chips for another amount of money. Re-entry events are similar, but you will need to fully re-enter, meaning you’ll bust out, re-register then be seated at a random table rather than the one you lost your stack at.
Because of the ‘rise of rebuys’ in tournament poker, many poker players are rejecting the new format and calling for more traditional freezeout events. Often, these freezeout fans will reference the World Series of Poker Main Event, which of course has been a freezeout since its introduction half a century ago and remains the most popular poker tournament in the world.
The Future of Freezeout Events
Whether it’s the WSOP Main Event or simply your local casino event, freezeouts are always going to be poker’s truest tournament format and therefore it is almost impossible to see rebuy events becoming dominant to the extent where you can’t find a freezeout poker game.
While rebuys and re-entries are part and parcel of the game, it is a fact that players enjoy knowing that if they have knocked a player out of a tournament and that person can’t buy back in. This is especially the case in bigger events, where you might knock out a big name.
The best poker to watch is played when both players know that everything is on the line, rather than simply rebuying for players who can afford to enter on multiple occasions having an unfair advantage over those who cannot. That’s why Freezeout poker tournaments have always been popular and they are likely to remain so, both in online poker and live in tournaments such as the World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour.
