Database driven online distributed tournament system

This invention is a method and a system (100) for a distributed electronic tournament system in which many remotely located players participate in a tournament through input/output devices (104, 106) connected (108) to a central controller (102) which manages the tournament. The method includes the steps of uniquely identifying a player (202) communicating with the central controller (102) via an associated input/output device (104, 106), responding to payment of an entry fee (204) by the player for allowing the player to participate in a tournament occurring within a fixed time window via an associated input/output device (104, 106), accessing a database to store player information (206) that is generated as the player participates in the tournament, such information being available for use in a subsequent tournament, which is administered by the controller in which the player participates, and awarding the player a prize for achieving a pre-established performance level in the tournament (208). The method further includes the steps of determining whether the player has been qualified to advance to a subsequent game session in which at least one player is eliminated from the previous game session and permitting each player qualified to a subseqeunt game session to participate in that game session.