Rummy tournaments are competitions between many more players than the standard game calls for. Instead of 4 players at one table, you may have 64 players at 16 tables. The winner of each table moves on to compete against the winners of the other tables, consolidating down to 16 players at 4 tables, and finally 4 players at the final table, until an ultimate winner is crowned.

Rummy tournaments are very popular online, where a large group of rummy players gather 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For true rummy enthusiasts, playing online rummy tournaments holds the exceptional advantage of playing for real money, or just for fun.

Types of Rummy Tournaments

There are two basic types of rummy tournaments, known as Sit’n’Gos and Scheduled events. The major difference between these two tournaments is when the event begins, and how early you must register.

In a schedule rummy tournament, there will be a specific date and time listed for the tourney to begin. At an online rummy room, it will be listed in the tournament lobby at least a few days, if not weeks, before the rummy tournament is scheduled to start. Registration is generally required no later than 1 hour before the start of the event.

Sit’n’Go rummy tournaments are different. These events pop up in the SNG tournament lobby of an online rummy room constantly, and do not have a scheduled start time. There will be so many seats available, and as soon as enough players register to play, the tournament will begin. SNG rummy tournaments generally have a much smaller field to keep the tournaments moving and starting quickly; the number-one thing most online rummy players most appreciate about SNG style tournaments.

If we delve deeper into the different types of online rummy tournaments, you’ll find that there are many more types of tourneys that falls into these categories. They include Guaranteed Tournaments, Turbo Tournaments, Rebuys, Qualifiers, Freerolls and Payments.

Guaranteed Tournament: this tournament carries a guaranteed prize pool. This means that no matter how many players enter, the prize pool will have a minimum, but no maximum. So if the buy-in is $5, and the guarantee is $500, it would take 100 entries to cover the prize pool. If only 50 players enter, instead of having a $250 prize pool, the rummy site will add the other $250 to meet the guarantee (known as an “overlay”). If, however, 150 players enter, the buy-ins would increase the prize to $750, exceeding the guarantee.

Turbo Tournament: Turbo tournaments are designed to keep the action going at a much faster pace than normal. Players may be given much shorter times to act than in a normal game, and if a session does not end within a preset amount of time, the current table leaders will be declared the winners and progress to the next round.

Rebuy Tournament: A Rebuy tournament is one where players are given the option to buy back into a tournament after having been eliminated. The rebuy cost is generally lower than the original buy-in.

Qualifier Tournament: This tournament carries a prize pool, but also awards the top finisher(s) a seat in a bigger, more expensive rummy tournament. For instance, there may be a $100 buy-in tournament, and a $5 qualifier. Wining the qualifier would award a seat in the $100 tourney, instead of shelling out the direct $100 buy-in.

Freeroll Tournament: Considered one of the best types of online rummy tournaments in the business, a freeroll tournament has no cash buy-in. As the name implies, it is free to enter. Some freerolls have no entry conditions at all aside from registering before the seat cap is full. Others may require points or “stars” to enter. Online rummy sites have points systems where players earn points just for playing. The player can use those points to enter point-freerolls. Not everyone calls them points, though. Rummy Royal, for instance, calls the Royal Stars.

Payment Tournaments: This type of rummy tournament can be very attractive because you don’t have to win the event, or even in the prize bubble, to win some cash. Players are able to make side wagers against just the opponents at their current table. The winner of the table wins these wagers, but the payments may vary by how the player wins. For instance, Going Gin, or Going Kaluki, will cost each losing player more than if the winner just Goes Out.