Shootout tournaments are different from traditional ones in that they consist of several rounds of single-table tournaments in which the winners of each table move on to the next round.
Take as an example a shootout tournament with 100 participants divided into 10 tables of 10 players each. The top three players from each table will advance to the second round which means that a total of 30 players will compete in three tables of 10 players each. In the next round there will be only nine players (the top 3 players of the three tables in the second round) who will compete for the final prize.