$5 million guaranteed tournament wraps up Day 1A and 1B action on WPN
Day 1B of the $5 Million Guaranteed Venom PKO ended with Americas Team Pro Ryan Depaulo in a familiar spot near the top of the chip counts.
Depaulo followed up on five bullets fired on Day 1A by spinning a single entry into the top ten of the Day 1B leaderboard. Depaulo stands at eighth in the overall chip counts in the latest run of The Venom, which saw the first two of four opening-day flights play out over the weekend.
Day 1A saw Depaulo put in five entries in the $2,650 buy-in progressive knockout tournament, but none of those bullets resulted in an advancement to Day 2 action. Playing under his ‘Whyisjadakiss’ screen name on Americas Cardroom, Depaulo needed only one entry on Day 1B, ending up with north of 4.3 million chips.
That stack puts Depaulo in prime position for Day 2, which begins May 10. Depaulo’s previous deepest run in The Venom came in the December 2019 edition of the tournament.
“The deep run I made in The Venom in December 2019 is only the second Day 3 I have ever made in a poker tournament, and it is so exciting it's hard to describe,” Depaulo told Poker.org. “Coming back for a Day 3 of a poker tournament is just amazing. “I could barley sleep.”
Depaulo still has plenty of work ahead if he wants to advance to Day 3 of the current chapter of The Venom, but his top ten chip stack has the player known as the “Degenerate Gambler” in contention for another deep run.
The Venom PKO: Halfway home on the Day 1 flights
Day 1A played out Friday on WPN, with Day 1B concluding Sunday. The two fights drew a combined 1,126 entries and 185 suvivors, with Depaulo accounting for six of those registrations.
Day 1C begins Friday, May 7. Day 1D, which will likely draw the largest attendance of any of the Day 1 flights, plays out on Sunday, May 9.
High-stakes crusher Patrick Leonard, playing under his ACR screen name ‘birthdaycuddles,’ finished just outside of the overall top ten with over 3.95 million in chips.
“Day 2 in the @ACR_POKER VENOM with 4 milly. I think in a time where there are new series invented on a weekly basis, ACR have done a fantastic job making VENOM so prestigious/popular. good job,” posted Leonard in a Sunday tweet.
The $5 Million Guaranteed Venom PKO needs 2,000 entries to meet the guarantee, and the tournament is on pace to go well over that mark at the end of the first two flights.
“Everyone gets so excited about it - the WSOP and The Venom are the two poker Christmases,” Depaulo said. “The Venom has been such a big success since its debut because it's amazing! Many reasons but the first that comes to mind is the structure is great. Because you are deeper stacked for longer amounts of time, this allows people to take a shot with a bigger buy in than they normally would without being irresponsible.”
“The fact that it is a PKO just adds to this point- you are likely to get some money back and the variance is just going to be much lower in a PKO. Aside from the technical reasons why its amazing- DEGENS LOVE BIG GUARANTEES. There are tons of satellites, and everyone is watching!”
The last time the Venom ran as a progressive knockout event came in October 2020. That tournament far surpassed the $5 million guarantee, with 2,711 total entries pushing the final prize pool to $6,777,500.
Can the current run of the Venom PKO go even bigger? Stayed tuned here at Poker.org for ongoing coverage of WPN’s flagship tournament.
