Final two opening day flights available for registration in the $5 million guaranteed tournament
The first weekend of the $5 million guaranteed Venom PKO saw registration numbers that put the tournament well on its way to surpassing the promised prize pool.
The second weekend of Winning Poker Network’s flagship poker tournament gets underway today, and players can almost certainly look forward to even bigger attendance for the final Day 1 flights. Day 1C of The Venom PKO kicked off today at 1 pm EDT, and late registration is still available through the end of Level 18.
Day 1D, the last of four opening flights for the Venom, commences Sunday, May 9, and also begins at 1 pm EDT. If typical poker tournament proceedings hold true, Day 1D will draw the biggest registration numbers of any of the Day 1 flights.
Here’s a look at the full schedule for the ongoing edition of The Venom PKO:
Venom PKO $5 Million Guaranteed dates
| Date | Flight |
| Friday, April 30 | Day 1A* |
| Sunday, May 2nd | Day 1B* |
| Friday, May 7th | Day 1C |
| Sunday, May 9th | Day 1D |
| Monday, May 10th | Day 2 |
| Tuesday, May 11th | Day 3 |
| Wednesday, May 12 | Final Table |
How big will The Venom PKO go?
Day 1A and Day 1B saw a combined 1,126 entries register for The Venom PKO, the biggest progressive knockout online tournament in the world. The $2,650 buy-in tournament ($2,500 plus $150 in registration fees) needed to draw 1,000 combined entries for Day 1A and Day 1B to get halfway to the $5 million guarantee.
Multi-phase tournaments generally draw much bigger attendance for later flights versus earlier flights, and that pattern bodes well for this weekend’s Venom numbers.
The spring 2021 edition of The Venom marks the sixth chapter in WPN’s signature tournament:
WPN’s The Venom at a glance
| Guaranteed Prize Pool | Actual Prize Pool | Entries | First Place Prize | |
| The Venom (July 2019) | $5,000,000 | $6,382,500 | 2,552 | $1,050,559 |
| The Venom (December 2019) | $6,000,000 | $6,740,000 | 2,696 | $1,039,982 |
| The Venom (August 2020) | $7,000,000 | $9,680,000 | 3,872 | $1,394,821 |
| The Venom PKO (October 2020) | $5,000,000 | $6,777,500 | 2,711 | $752,067 |
| The Venom (January 2021) | $8,000,000 | $9,435,000 | 3,774 | $1,113,330 |
| The Venom PKO (April/May 2021) | $5,000,000 | ? | ? | ? |
All five previous runs of The Venom saw the guaranteed prize pools far surpassed. The only previous installment of the PKO version of The Venom (also $5 million guaranteed) took place last fall, with 2,711 entries pushing the final prize pool to $6,777,500.
The last Venom PKO saw ‘pinguinachica’ take down the championship, earning $751,067 in total prize money. Of that total, $477,814 came from the first-place prize money, and another $273,253 from progressive bounties.
That $750k-plus winner’s total is what WPN players have to look forward to as the current edition of The Venom rolls on.
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Featured image source: Twitter
