What is
Progressive Knockout Tournament (PKO)
in poker?
In poker, a PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournament is a tournament format where a portion of the buy-in goes toward a bounty on each player’s head.
In PKO tournaments, when a player eliminates another player, they typically receive a cash prize for half of the eliminated player’s bounty. The remaining half of the bounty is added to their own head for other players to try to claim. When two or more players win, in a split pot, the bounty is divided equally across all winners. Note, some sites such as Pokerstars run PKO tournaments where ⅔ or even the full prize pool are dedicated to bounty prizes.