"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" Tournament of Ten

Definition:

The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Tournament of Ten is a one-time event running from November 9-20, 2009. During the tournament, one person will win the one million dollar top prize.

How the Tournament of Ten Contestants Are Chosen

The ten finalists for the Tournament of Ten are the ten top-seeded contestants from the beginning of the season to the last regular game before the tournament begins.

Players are seeded according to the prize money won, and the amount of time banked at the end of their game.

How the Tournament Works

Over the course of ten episodes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, each finalist will take the hot seat and get the chance to answer a million dollar question. No lifelines are available for this question, and contestants can only use as much time as they had banked during their regular game, plus 45 seconds.

Once the question has been read by host Meredith Vieira, contestants can then decide to answer, or walk away. If they choose to provide an answer and that response is incorrect, the contestant's prize money drops down to the last safety level he reached during his game. A correct answer puts him in the running to win the million.

If someone gets the question right, but is unseated in the tournament by someone seeded higher, he will walk away with his original earnings. The highest seeded contestant to correctly answer the million dollar question will win the million.