by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Aug 3, 2021 | Updated on Aug 3, 2021
With the online poker market getting more competitive with every passing month, online poker operators are forced to raise the stakes by coming up with more tournaments, bigger prize pools and enticing promotions.
Americas Cardroom (ACR) decided to push the boundaries and launch its popular Venom tournament with a massive guarantee.
ACR confirmed that Venom 5 will run with a massive $10 million guaranteed prize pool. The biggest Venom tournament guarantee prior to Venom 5 was Venom IV which came with an $8 million guarantee.
ACR CEO Phil Nagy decided to take a calculated risk based on the success of the previous four Venom tournaments and upped the guaranteed prize pool by $2 million.
Venom V came with a buy-in of $2,500 (+$150) and needed to attract an average of 1,000 players per day during its four starting days in order to meet the $10 million guaranteed prize pool. Day 1 turned out to be real bad for ACR as only 535 players registered which meant that Venom 5 was far behind its expected numbers.
Day 1b turned out to be a lot better as the 1,000 number was hit as a total of 1026 players registered. ACR had another rough day on Day 1C as 771 players registered which made the overlay look a lot worse. ACR needed to have a big day on the fourth day or they were going to have to deal with millions of dollars in overlays.
Things worked out well for Venom 5 on day 4 as a total of 1,598 players registered which brought the total number of player registrations for the tournament to 3,930. ACR had to get a total of 4,000 registrations in order to reach the $10M guaranteed prize pool.
ACR Faces $175K Overlay
ACR has had to put down $175,000 into the guaranteed prize pool to cover the 70 player overlay. While this is a lot of money, ACR will still be pleased that Venom 5 out did Venom IV and took the prize pool close to the guaranteed $10 million prize pool. The tournament is still underway and there are little less than 600 players.
The final table will play out on August 4 and the winner will be announced. Venom 5 is expected to pay give the winner and the runner-up a check of $1 million each.
