Edit: Apparently I misunderstood how these tournies work. Unfortunately a lot of what I wrote here is irrelevant in that format, so I’ve deleted it. Sorry for the confusion.
Here’s more from PokerStars about how Time Tourneys work:
Tournaments last for a set amount of time (min: 15 minutes, max: 180 minutes)
When the running time expires, finishing positions and prizes are awarded based on stack
size
Available around the clock across a huge range of buy-ins, starting from only $1.
You can find Time Tourneys in the PokerStars software by going to the ‘Tourney’ tab and looking for
tournaments marked with a stopwatch icon. You can also search for them by entering ‘Time’ into the
Tourney Filter.
Deposit Bonus: Get a free $5.50 Time Tourney Ticket!
PokerStars wants everyone to try Time Tourneys, which is why we are giving you a free tournament
ticket worth $5.50! Simply make a deposit of $30 or more with the code ‘TIME’ between now and
October 21 and you’ll be rewarded with the free ticket*, which you can then use to play a Time
Tourney.
New Major Saturday Time Tourney
The launch of Time Tourneys is also being celebrated with a new addition to the Saturday Line-Up.
The Saturday Countdown is a two-hour Time Tourney with a $22 buy-in that runs every week at
13:00 ET from October 15, with a guaranteed prize pool of $10,000.
*The free ticket must be used before 23:59 ET on October 21 or it will expire. Players are only eligible
for one free ticket.
It’s not quite true that “No one has ever played a Time Tourney before.” Just recently I read in Ante Up magazine about a poker room in Minnesota (where no-limit cash games are disallowed by law) that has come up with a clever way of running “tournaments” that makes them simulate cash games. Something very close to what you describe here from Stars is what they do. See: http://www.anteupmagazine.com/issue/ante-up-magazine-october-2011.htm (forward to page 44).
Grump, while you are correct that canterbury in minnesota has what they call survivor tourny’s the difference is that the chips are equivalent to real money and at the end of the allotted time, 2 hours typically, you cash out dollar for dollar your actual chip count, so there is no prize pool, or bubble. There is no mad rush to get in the money near the end of two hours, etc. it plays exactly like a cash game, because that is pretty much what it is. Also, these are all single table……I have played in these, they are fun. This is how the casino gets around the no no-limit cash laws….FYI