Next Venom on Americas Cardroom Begins in January
The Winning Poker Network believed there would be no better way to start the new year than with its flagship tournament, one that broke records in 2021 and has the potential to do so again in 2022.
Americas Cardroom and other WPN sites will host the latest edition of the Venom starting with the first flight on January 21. It will then play out through February 2. And it will offer a $10M guarantee on the prize pool, with at least $1M of that going to the winner.
The last Venom on Americas Cardroom happened in September of this year. It was the PKO Venom with a progressive knockout structure and a $5M guarantee. It garnered 2,321 entries over the course of four starting days, and that created a prize pool of $5,802,500. In the end, a Russian player named babadlucktou won more than $411K in prize money plus more than $304K in bounties as the champion.
As for the standard Venom, the last one took place this past summer. It was the first time that WPN put a $10M guarantee on the prize pool. Ultimately, there were only 3,930 entries, making for an actual prize pool of $9,825,000. However, the network kept its word, added $175K to the prize pool, and reset the pot at $10M. And the tournament ended with two millionaires in the top two spots – BabyBowser of the US winning $1,514,000 for first place and sw33ney of the UK with $1,015,200 for second place.
In January, ACR and WPN will go for it again with a $10M guarantee. This time, they hope to make history again and pay out even more money.
$10M Venom
The Venom schedule is set. The first one of 2022 will offer the $10M guarantee on its prize pool again. And of that money, the winner will receive at least $1M of it. The buy-in is $2,500 + $150, as usual, but many players will qualify for less via the plethora of satellites available.
Players can choose from any of four starting days – or all of them – which are on this schedule:
-Day 1A: January 21 (Friday) at 1pm ET to play through Level 28
-Day 1B: January 23 (Sunday) at 1pm ET to play through Level 28
-Day 1C: January 28 (Friday) at 1pm ET to play through Level 28
-Day 1D: January 30 (Sunday) at 1pm ET to play through Level 28
-Day 2: January 31 (Monday) at 1pm ET to play through Level 59
-Day 3: February 1 (Tuesday) at 1pm ET to play to final table of 8
-Day 4: February 2 (Wednesday) at 5pm ET to play to a winner
Each person starts with 300K chips, and blinds begin at 800/1,600 with a 240 ante. Levels will play 20 minutes each through Level 18, at which point the levels increase to 30 minutes each. Once a player qualifies for Day 2, they can no longer enter to play another flight.
Venom Fever
There are many ways to win seats to the Venom. The most popular way, by far, is Venom Fever. Americas Cardroom will offer more than 750 tickets through Venom Fever with buy-ins as low as zero.
These MEGA satellites will begin on January 2 and run through January 30. The full schedule of Venom Fever offerings is on the ACR website. Players can begin with freeroll satellites, each one offering 10 guaranteed seats to a super satellite. Each super satellite then guarantees 10 seats to a MEGA. From there, this is a sampling of the offerings in just the first few days of the promotion:
Sunday, January 2
–$109 MEGA (5 seats GTD)
–$215 MEGA (10 seats GTD)
–$95 Beast & SnC MEGA (20 seats GTD)
–$32 Turbo (1 seat GTD)
Monday, January 3
–$55 MEGA (3 seats GTD)
–$32 Turbo (1 seat GTD)
Tuesday, January 4
–$290 MEGA (3 seats GTD)
–$109 MEGA (3 seats GTD)
Venom On Demand
Another way to qualify for Venom tickets is through the On-Demand Step and Skip tournaments. These start at freerolls or $0.25 and take players up a ladder to winning seats. These are available around the clock, every day through most of January. Each event begins when there are enough players to do so.
The steps portion of this method is as follows:
-Freeroll = 125 players required, 50 $0.11-tickets GTD
-$0.11 = 15 players required, 10 Step-2 tickets GTD
-$0.44 = 12 players required, 8 Step-3 tickets GTD
-$1.31 = 10 players required, 7 Step-4 tickets GTD
-$3.80 = 10 players required, 6 Step-5 tickets GTD
-$12 = 8 players required, 5 Step-6 tickets GTD
-$32 = 8 players required, 4 Step-7 tickets GTD
-$95 = 6 players required, 3 Step-8 tickets GTD
-$290 = 4 players required, 2 Step-9 tickets GTD
-$880 = 5 players required, 2 Venom seats GTD
Players can start at the freeroll level or jump in at any level and pay the buy-in to participate.
There are also special Skip tournaments as follows, again on demand:
-$0.25 = 6 players required, 2 Step-3 tickets GTD
-$1.40 = 8 players required, 2 Step-5 tickets GTD
-$12 = 8 players required, 2 Step-7 tickets GTD
-$95 = 10 players required, 2 Step-9 tickets GTD
Venom Blitz
Blitz tournaments (also known as Cyclones) are fast-fold events that play with no wait times for other players. This means that a player who folds a hand is immediately placed at a new table to start a new hand. The games are played six-handed and available on desktop or mobile.
The Venom Blitz Step events start at just $0.11 and play out like other steps-formatted satellites.
-Blitz 1 for $0.11 = 9 players required, 2 Blitz-2 tickets GTD
-Blitz 2 for $0.45 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-3 ticket GTD
-Blitz 3 for $1.40 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-4 ticket GTD
-Blitz 4 for $4 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-5 ticket GTD
-Blitz 5 for $12 = 6 players required, 2 Blitz-6 tickets GTD
-Blitz 6 for $32 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-7 ticket GTD
-Blitz 7 for $95 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-8 ticket GTD
-Blitz 8 for $290 = 6 players required, 1 Blitz-9 ticket GTD
-Blitz 9 for $880 = 6 players required, 1 Venom seat GTD
Staking Available
Since the Winning Poker Network recently launched its new staking feature, this will be the first Venom tournament in which players can participate. Any player – even someone not playing the Venom – can buy a piece of another player’s action for a percentage of their winnings. Any player can allow others to buy pieces of their action to lower the cost of their own personal investment.
WPN guarantees all stakes. If a player unregisters for a tournament, the investor gets her or his money back. The player accepting stakes also has no choice but to pay their backers because WPN requires it and oversees the process.
