America's Card Room is breaking its own records with the announcement of a $25 million guaranteed series of progressive knock-out tourneys.
ACR's rather breathless marketing copy explains, "This is the biggest tournament series in [ACR's] history. And it’s packed into just two weeks. Get your sleep in now because there’s non-stop action coming your way!"
The two-week series begins on May 9, 2021, and ends on May 25. Over the course of those fourteen days, ACR has scheduled 146 events. Several of these events will have high, medium, and low versions. So the total number of tourneys is actually much higher.
As well as another $5 million guaranteed Venom tourney, there will be a pair of main events. One will have a $630 buy-in with $1 million guaranteed. The other will have a $55 buy-in with $500,000 guaranteed. Buy-ins for the other events range from $6.60 up to $2,650.
Among the spread of events will be three multi-flight tourneys. Each of these events will have 16 day-one flights between May 8 and May 23. The three price points for the events are $16.50, $215, and $630. Players will be able to enter on as many day-one's as they see fit. Though only one chip stack will carry through to day-two. The guarantees for the multi-flight events are $250,000, $1 million, and $2.5 million respectively.
ACR tweeted about the event.
"The OSS Progressive Knockout (#PKOSS) has $25 Million in guarantees from May 9th-24th," they tweeted. "And is jam-packed with #PKO, #NLH, #PLO and more. Don’t miss the biggest tournament series in our history."
The knock-out punch
Progressive knock-outs seem to be having a moment in the good graces of the industry. The record-breaking Venom events have all been knock-out events. PokerStars have been holding PKO-only festivals. GGPoker, with its lowest common denominator marketing strategy, has followed suit.
ACR is a little late to the spring party though. Partypoker, PokerStars, and GGPoker have all gone to the mattresses over their spring festivals last month. And all three decided that there is enough life in the old horses to put on encores this month. Party is throwing another WPT Online, GGPoker has a WSOP Online Circuit event, and PokerStars have cracked out a post-SCOOP "afterparty."
ACR's offering is on a comparable scale, but keeps itself distinct with its monomania for PKO events.
As the U.S. reopens, we are all looking to see how online poker will fare. Experiments like the PKOSS are going to give us a good sense of where the market is going. But this massive event seems like a lot of risk for ACR to put on its own small shoulders.
We'll soon see how it all pans out.
Featured image source: Twitter
