1. What Bonsaigers’ X is

Bonsaigers’ X is an online bonsai tournament. Thirty-two trees, drawn at random into a bracket, face each other over five weekends until one is left standing.

It runs entirely online. No travelling, no shipping trees. Your tree stays where it is.

This is the sixth edition.

2. Who can enter

Anyone who grows bonsai, anywhere in the world. There is no membership, no qualification, no fee.

The tree you enter must be in your care. You do not have to own it, but you have to be the person working on it.

You must be 18 or older to enter.

One tree per person. If you submit more than one, we choose which enters the tournament — tell us if you’d rather withdraw the others than leave the choice to us.

3. How to enter

Submissions open on 1 September and close on 2 November.

You enter through the form at bonsaigers.com. You will be asked for:

• your name, country and Instagram handle
• the species, in Latin
• the style, height, and how long the tree has been in training
• a photograph of the tree as it is now
• photographs of its development over time — optional, but weighed by the judges

4. The photographs

This is the part people get wrong, so read it twice.

The main photograph must be 1080 × 1350 pixels, vertical. That is the format we use across the whole tournament — on the site and on Instagram. A horizontal photo, or one at the wrong ratio, will be cropped or rejected.

Shoot it properly: plain background, even light, the tree square to the camera, the whole pot in frame.

The development photographs are optional at entry. Three to six images, in chronological order, with the year for each, showing how your tree got here — what it looked like when you found it, the work along the way, where it stands today. You don’t need them to submit.

But they matter for two reasons, and both cut in your favour. They are what we build your published entry from — the more you show, the better the piece we write. And the judges may take them into account: a tree that shows a decade of considered work reads differently from one that arrived finished. In a close match, this is often what tips it.

No fixed pixel count for the development photos, but they need to be clear. No blurry screenshots, no heavily compressed reposts — we need to be able to actually see the tree’s structure. As a working floor: at least 1000 pixels on the long side.

5. Selection of the 32

More entries arrive than there are places. We select thirty-two.

We choose for the quality of the tree, and we also choose for range — species, styles, countries, and levels of experience. A field of thirty-two conifers from the same region would be a worse tournament than a mixed one.

The selection is ours — Bonsaigers, not the judges. The judges’ first job is the bracket itself, once it’s set.

Everyone who enters is told the outcome, selected or not. Those not selected are placed on a reserve list, in order.

6. The bracket

The thirty-two selected trees are drawn at random. There is no seeding: a first-round match can be between the two strongest trees in the field, and often is.

The bracket is published in full before the first round, and does not change.

Round	Weekend	Trees remaining
Round of 32	21–22 November	32 → 16
Round of 16	28–29 November	16 → 8
Quarter-finals	5–6 December	8 → 4
Semi-finals	12–13 December	4 → 2
Final	19–20 December	2 → 1

7. How a match is decided

Each match is worth five points.

The three judges have one point each. They vote before the match opens, on the tree alone.

The public has two points. Voting runs through Instagram Stories for the duration of the weekend, and the tree with more votes takes both points.

The tree with more points goes through.

This means the judges’ three points outweigh the public’s two only when all three agree. If the judges split two to one, the public decides. A unanimous panel cannot be overturned.

8. The Bonsaigers Master

The tree that wins the final is the Bonsaigers Master 2026.

Previous winners: Andrei Darusenkov (2021, 2022), Alexandre Ermolenko (2023), André Ruiz Pechin (2024), Sergio Cuan (2025).

9. The weekly titles, and Best in Show

Best in Show is decided by the public, on our website, and it has nothing to do with the bracket.

A tree knocked out in the first round can win it. That is deliberate: the bracket rewards the tree that survives its draw, this rewards the tree people cannot stop looking at.

It runs across the five weekends, and the question changes every week.

Weekend	The title	What you are voting for
1	Best Development	The tree that has travelled the furthest. You vote looking at the development photographs: where it started, the work along the way, where it stands today.
2	Best Composition	Tree and pot as one object. The right pot for that tree — size, colour, glaze, foot.
3	Best Structure	The bones. Nebari, trunk line, taper, the placement of the branches.
4	Best Presence	The one that stops you. No technical argument required.
5	Best in Show	The final vote, between the four weekly winners.

All thirty-two trees are eligible every week, whether they are still in the bracket or went out on the opening weekend.

A tree can hold only one weekly title. If a tree that has already won a category finishes first in a later one, that title passes to the tree behind it. Four titles, four different trees, four finalists.

On the final weekend the four winners go to a single vote, and the question is the plain one: which of these four is the best tree in the tournament. That tree is Best in Show 2026.

How to vote. One vote per person per week, on bonsaigers.com. You leave your email address — that is how we keep the vote honest, and how you hear the result on Monday morning.

10. Prizes

There are prizes for first, second and third place in the bracket, a prize for the Best in Show winner, and a prize for one of the people who voted for Best in Show. What they actually are will be announced in October.

Shipping is on us. Customs and import duties, where they apply, are the winner’s responsibility. We’ll flag this clearly again when we reach out to winners, so nobody is caught off guard.

11. The judges

Three judges, announced before the tournament begins.

12. Your photographs, and what we do with them

By entering, you allow us to publish your photographs — on bonsaigers.com, on our social channels, in the tournament posters, and in materials about Bonsaigers’ X, including future editions.

You keep ownership of your images. We always credit you by name and by Instagram handle. We do not sell them, and we do not license them to anyone else.

If you want your photographs removed after the tournament, write to us and we will take them down from our own channels.

13. Your data

We ask for your email address to run the tournament: to tell you whether you were selected, to send you the bracket, and to let you know the results.

Signing up for our newsletter is a separate, optional choice — you can enter the tournament without it, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Voters give an email address to vote. We use it to make the vote fair and to send the results. Nothing else.

We do not sell or share your data.

14. Fair play

The tournament runs on public voting, so it can be gamed. We would rather say this plainly than pretend otherwise.

Asking your friends and your followers to vote for you is encouraged — that is part of it.

Voting with fake accounts, bought votes, automated voting, or multiple email addresses is not. We check, and where we find it we remove the votes. In a serious case we remove the participant.

If a participant is disqualified mid-tournament, their opponent goes through. No reserve is called in at that stage — the bracket simply plays on with one fewer tree.

15. Changes

If something has to change while the tournament is running — a judge falls ill, a platform breaks — we will change it, and we will say publicly what changed and why.