Venom PKO Main Event awards record-breaking prize pool for a PKO tournament
The biggest progressive knockout tournament series ever unleashed on the poker community came to an end Wednesday with more than $750k going to the Venom PKO Main Event winner.
The Venom PKO Main Event championship went to player 'pinguinachica', who earned a total of $751,067 with the victory. 'pinguinachica' earned $477,814 in first-place prize money, plus $273,253 in bounties.
pinguinachica outdueled 'Crusher1991' in the heads-up finale, with the runner-up finisher earning $570,401 total for the run to second place. The prize total for 'Crusher1991' included the $477,813 second-place prize money and $92,588 in progressive bounties.
Other top finishers in the Venom PKO Main Event included 'CheekySleek' (3rd - $414,153), 'ULoveToDonk' (4th - $248,739), and 'grrrp' (5th - $164,959).
Huge turnout and prize pool for Venom PKO Main Event
The Venom PKO Main Event promised a $5 million prize pool, which according to the records kept by the America's Cardroom blog made it the biggest progressive knockout poker tournament of all time in terms of awarded prize money. The $2,650 buy-in tournament on the Winning Poker Network ended up far surpassing that number, however.
A total of 2,711 entries registered for the tournament, which played as the centerpiece event in the seven-week MoMoMoPKO series. That registration total made the final prize pool balloon to $6,777,500.
Each of the top seven finishers took home six-figures in money ladder payouts and progressive bounties. Rounding out the top seven were 'CoramDeo' (6th - $139,705) and 'Xazel303' (7th - $100,313). The eight-handed final table also included 'BorisRU1974' (8th - $72,325).
The Venom PKO Main Event offered four opening Day flights, then played down to the final eight over Day 2 (Nov. 2) and Day 3 (Nov. 3). The surviving eight players from those three days of PKO play then returned Wednesday to play down to a champion.
The 2,711 entries produced 475 players in the cash overall, with many more players collecting prize money through progressive bounties.
The Venom PKO Main Event marked the second time in the latter half of 2020 that a WPN Venom Main Event went over the guarantee. The last instance happened in August, with the $7 million guaranteed Venom Main Event attracting 3,872 entries and awarding $9.68 million in prize money.
Final table action
The final table played out on the America's Cardroom Twitch channel, and took just over three hours to crown 'pinguinachica' as the winner. 'pinguinachica' started the day third in chips (54.77 big blinds), looking up at 'Crusher1991' (110.37 big blinds) and 'CheekySleek' (121.03 big blinds) as the chip leaders.
The three players that started the day with the biggest stacks ended up taking the top three spots in the tournaments, with 'pinguinachica' finding the path to leap over 'Crusher1991' and 'CheekySleek' by tournament's finish.
It took about two hours to get down to three-handed play, which began with 'CheekySleek' (55.34 big blinds) holding the chip lead against 'Crusher1991' (32.26 big blinds) and 'pinguinachica' (28.5 big blinds).
Despite starting with the shortest of the final three stacks, 'pinguinachica' emerged with the win after just under 90 minutes of three-handed play. The final hand saw 'Crusher1991' shove with A❤️2♣ for his last nine big blinds, and get a call from 'pinguinachica,' who had the opponent well-covered at turned over 9♣ 9❤️.
The board ran out T♠2♦️K♠3❤️6♦️, clinching the win for 'pinguinachica.'
Featured image source: Twitch
