Yesterday saw the Venom's four separate Day One flights combine for the first time for Day Two action. But as play kicked off, two seats were noticeably marked "disconnected." Vanessa Kade and Chris Moneymaker, the two biggest ACR pros, both rolled up to the event late.
Moneymaker tweeted that he'd overslept.
Kade sheepishly hit the comments on his tweet to say she'd done the same after her flight was canceled. Forest Fires are blitzing their way across her home province of British Columbia. The West Coast of Canada is seeing the return of a heatwave that led to fires in July so fierce that they caused rainless lightning storms overhead.
This is one of the rare occasions when Kade could enjoy better air quality in Vegas than in her hometown of Kelowna. Not a lot to burn in the desert.
"Overslept start of the @ACR_POKER venom Day 2. Will start streaming before too long," Moneymaker wrote.
"Weird, I did, too - got the time wrong and overslept because I didn’t get in until 5:30am after my flight home was canceled," Kade replied.
Day 2 action
Day 2 of the Venom saw 645 players return to play roughly 11 hours worth of blinds. Play closed with 70 players left. It was a pop-culture extravaganza, with everything from Marvel Comics to 70s cop dramas getting a name check.
August 1 is Spider-Man day. So it is perhaps fitting that the day after is Venom Day (two). The Marvel villain/anti-hero for which the ACR tournament is named has his own movie franchise starring Tom Hardy: Venom: Let Their Be Carnage. The tournament's timing created the potential for a ton of cross-googling when the movie's trailer dropped on Sunday.
ACR is also in the run-up to its large hold 'em PKO event called the Carnage, so that cross-googling's will pay off for a while.
With ACR's heavy focus on streaming as an advertising platform, it was not surprising that plenty of the action for even these early days aired on Twitch.
Moneymaker's run was mostly live-streamed. Including the moment his son attempted to take over the stream. Moneymaker fended off the tyke, but at a great cost in concentration. Still, you play the hand you're dealt.
At the end of the day
The 70 remaining players remained at the end of Day 2. "Sw33ney" led the field, going in with 43.8 million in chips. The average stack was 16.8 million.
ACR tweeted about the day, saying: "We need to catch our breath because Day 2 of the $10 Million GTD Venom was wild."
The tweet came with a screencap showing the current standing in the tourney.
The Sweeney wasn't the only TV show repped in the top 10 chip stacks at the end of Day 2. Other entries included The Queen's Gambit ("MrShaibal" — 35.7 million), Sneaky Pete ("sneakypete01" — 30.0 million), and Prison Break ("CWestmoreland" — 28.2 million).
Day 3 will see those 70 players whittled down to the final table. Two of them will walk away millionaires tomorrow.
Featured image source: Flickr by WPT
