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PKO Venom Shows Big Numbers and Charity Wins

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

The latest edition of the Venom tournament on the Winning Poker Network is over. It ran its course this week and exceeded its guarantee by bringing in more than 2300 entries. Everyone loves a bounty tournament these days, making the Venom PKO a very popular version of the WPN’s flagship tournament.

The last Venom PKO ran in May and attracted 2,864 entries, pushing the prize pool well past the $5M guarantee to $7.16M. That was the largest one thus far, and it will keep that status. This edition ran during the end of summer, at the same time as players were getting some last bits of sunshine before the seasons change. In addition, it ran right up to the start of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the first one in two years. Perhaps these were factors in the lower numbers this time around.

Never fear, there will be another Venom PKO soon. But there will be a regular Venom even sooner.

How the Numbers Added Up

Players started buying in to the Venom PKO in mid-September. Some ponied up the $2,650 buy-in, while many others won their seats at a discount through Venom Fever and other satellites. And reentries were allowed. Here’s how it all came together.

-Day 1A (Sept 17): 288 entries

-Day 1B (Sept 19): 645 entries

-Day 1C (Sept 26): 407 entries

-Day 1D (Sept 29): 981 entries

Total entries: 2,321

Total prize pool: $5,802,500 (easily surpassing $5M guarantee)

On Monday, September 27, the survivors of those four flights came together online to play into the money. There were 394 players who started the day, though only 270 made the money. And by the end of the night, only 46 players remained in the tournament.

Those few tables restarted the action on September 28 to play to a final table. They did just that. Andy Mcbeal exited in 10th place with $22,339.62 (plus $52,197.26 in bounties), and paltex bubbled the final table, accepting $29,012.50 (plus $10,273.44 in bounties) for ninth place.

Playing for Payouts and Bounties

The final table got underway on on Americas Cardroom and sister WPN sites on September 29 with eight players hoping for big money and a Venom title. Action began with these players, their chip counts, and their accumulated bounties to that point:

-1. badlucktou = 164,504,419 chips + $54,912.07 bounties

-2. jumping gn = 103,564,690 chips + $70,644.52 bounties

-3. wizazo = 96,260,128 chips + $40,502.93 bounties

-4. lampiao23 = 87,16,276 chips + $18,750 bounties

-5. SirRunALot = 81,496,496 chips + $25,517.58 bounties

-6. YoAsakura = 80,404,999 chips + $47,868.64 bounties

-7. Miral777 = 60,820,368 chips + $4,531.25 bounties

-8. Stackedbrightfutur = 21,432,624 chips + $16,542.97

Less than 10 minutes into the action, two big stacks got involved in a huge hand. Wizazo was all-in with K-10 suited, but jumping gn had pocket aces and just little more than four big blinds behind. The aces held, and jumping gn took over as the massive chip leader as wizazo became the first casualty of the day.

Stackedbrightfutur looked good to double through jumping gn with Q-10 against A-J, along with a queen on the flop. But an ace fell on the river to eliminated Stackedbrightfutur in seventh place. A bit later, short-stacked lampiao23 pushed with A-Q, but YoAsakura called with 7-6 and caught a six on the flop and seven on the turn to send lampiao23 out in sixth place. Within moments, SirRunALot got involved with pocket sixes on a Q-3-4-7 board. Badlucktou called with 10-9 but caught a nine on the river to bust SirRunALot in fifth.

Four-handed play started with baclucktou holding nearly 100 big blinds, jumping gn with 40, YoAsakura with 27, and Miral777 hanging in there with seven big blinds. They played for a while, with badlucktou chipping up and the others looking for good spots. YoAsakura risked the tournament with pocket eights against the pocket tens of jumping gn, but an eight came on the flop. That left jumping gn with little more than nine big blinds.

After the first break, Miral777 made that move with K-10, and badlucktou called with Q-7 suited. The board looked like it was going to double the short stack with J-A-2-A, but a seven on the river gave it to badlucktou. Miral777 departed in fourth place.

Jumping gn doubled their short stack and then pushed all-in again soon after. Badlucktou called with K-Q of spades, and YoAsakura called all-in with pocket jacks. Jumping gn showed K-Q, and the board came 7-3-A-K-6 to bust YoAsakura.

Heads-up play started with jumping gn holding around 20BB to the 120BB of badlucktou. Over the course of numerous rounds, jumping gn played fairly cautiously but chipped up slowly. With a chance to kick up to at least 40BB, jumping gn made an all-in play on the 7-3-J-K-9 board with 6-4. That bluff didn’t work, though, as badlucktou called with 9-7 for the win.

The final results were:

-1st place: badlucktou (Russia) $411,687 + $304,408 bounties

-2nd place: jumping gn (Canada) $411,687 + $100,417 bounties

-3rd place: YoAsakura (Germany) $262,273 + $57,868 bounties

-4th place: Miral777 (USA) $189,161 + $4,531 bounties

-5th place: SirRunALot (Brazil) $136,358 + $25,517 bounties

-6th place: lampiao23 (Brazil) $103,574 + $18,750 bounties

-7th place: Stackedbrightfutur (USA) $72,531 + $16,542 bounties

-8th place: wizazo (USA) $50,771 + $40,502 bounties

Breast Cancer Research Wins

Between Day 1A and Day 1B, Winning Poker Network CEO Phil Nagy tweeted that he wanted to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. He asked people to submit videos, and he would pick six people to stake in the Venom PKO, with 50% of any profits going to the player and 50% to cancer research.

The response was so overwhelming that Nagy added that he would give out six more entries to the Venom PKO, that group going to pro players or semi-pros. The pro tickets went to Ryan Laplante, Faraz Jaka, Dara O’Kearney, Tim Reilly, Greg Raymer, and Anthony Zinno.

Ultimately, the official donation to charity was more than $7500, but several players collected more via Twitch and various challenges and personal donations.

 

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