Embodiments include methods, systems and computer program products for performing a tournament tree sort on a hardware accelerator. The method includes receiving a plurality of key values by the hardware accelerator, storing each the plurality of keys into a location on a memory of the hardware accelerator, and creating a pointer to each of the locations of the plurality of keys. The method also includes storing the pointer to each of the plurality of keys into a first array stored by the hardware accelerator, sorting the plurality of keys by ordering the pointers in the first array and by using a second array for storing the pointers, wherein the sorting identifies a winning key from the plurality of keys in the memory, and outputting the winning key.