Biggest guaranteed prize pool online tournament in U.S. history awards $1,113,330 to the winner
After four starting flights and two weeks of action, the Winning Poker Network’s biggest-ever tournament crowned a champion Wednesday evening.
‘PORKONOMAR’ emerged victorious in the $8 Million Guaranteed Venom, taking away a $1,113,330 payday with the win. ‘PORKONOMAR’ came into Wednesday’s final table action as the tournament chip leader, and won all of the chips in the end to earn the seven-figure victory.
The final streamed on the Americas Cardroom Twitch channel Wednesday night, with Chris Moneymaker, the newest ACR Team Pro addition, looking on. ACR Team Pro Michael Loncar and play-by-play man Justin Kelley called the action at the final table.
The final table took just under two-and-a-half hours to trim down from eight players and crown ‘PORKONOMAR’ as the champion. ‘SmashedAvocado’ (2nd - $849,150) finished runner-up, coming away with nearly a million dollars for the second-place finish.
The Venom $8 Million Guaranteed final table results
| Place | Player Screen Name | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | PORKONOMAR | $1,113,330 |
| 2 | SmashedAvocado | $849,150 |
| 3 | geNet1x | $612,331.50 |
| 4 | Ha19000 | $381,117.50 |
| 5 | Ninjaman100 | $217,005 |
| 6 | GORDONITO | $121,711.50 |
| 7 | Pl3aseMuck | $89,632.50 |
| 8 | GreekerFreaker | $70,762.50 |
Epic heads-up battle caps off The Venom final table
The eliminations happened fast and furious to start off the final table action in The Venom. After taking less than 90 minutes to go from eight players to the final two, ‘PORKONOMAR’ and ‘SmashedAvocado’ dueled for more than an hour in heads-up play.
The remaining two players went into the final battle with relatively even chip stacks, but ‘PORKONOMAR’ spend most of two-handed play with the chip advantage. ‘SmashedAvocado’ never led at any time during heads-up play, but staved off elimination several times while looking up at the formidable stack of ‘PORKONOMAR.’
The final hand began with ‘SmashedAvocado’ limping from the button with just over 28 big blinds remaining. ‘PORKONOMAR’ raised to 3.22 big blinds, and ‘SmashedAvocado’ three-bet over the top for their entire 28.42 big blind stack.
‘PORKONOMAR’ called, tabling pocket jacks against the ace-jack offsuit of ‘SmashedAvocado.’ Looking for an ace to continue the battle, ‘SmashedAvocado’ got no such luck, with a six-high board sealing the win for ‘PORKONOMAR.’
Other top finishers included ‘geNet1x’ (3rd - $612,331), ‘Ha19000’ (4th - $381,117), and ‘Ninjaman100’ (5th - $217,005). Rounding out the final table finishers were ‘Pl3aseMuck’ (7th - $89,632) and ‘GreekerFreaker’ (8th - $$70,762).
The $8 Million Guaranteed Venom drew 3,774 entries for the $2,650 buy-in tournament. That attendance pushed the final prize pool to $9,435,000, which marked the second-largest prize pool in the history of the Winning Poker Network.
The $8 million in guaranteed prize money made this edition of The Venom the biggest guaranteed prize pool online poker tournament for any U.S.-facing site in history. The $8 Million Guaranteed Venom ran from Jan. 22 through Feb. 3 on the Winning Poker Network’s family of sites.
Featured image source: Twitch
