WPN Brings Back VENOM $5M Guaranteed: April 20 – May 3

It's time for the 14th running of the Venom tournament at the Winning Poker Network, this time with $5 million in guaranteed prizes. The action begins Thursday, April 20 and continues through Wednesday, May 3. You can access this tournament from any participating site on the WPN, including Americas Cardroom, Blackchip Poker, True Poker, and Ya Poker.

Millions Guaranteed Is a Venom Tradition

The total guarantee of $5 million is ambitious for most online poker tournaments. However, such grand prize pools are standard for the VENOM. In fact, there have been $10M guarantees in the past, such as the VENOM event in August 2022, which succeeded in covering its guarantee. Thus, the $5 million on offer should be no problem for the network to meet.

To be in with a chance of claiming some of the loot, you have the option of buying in to the tournament for the full sticker price of $2,500 + $150. Alternatively, you can gain access to the tournament via satellite qualifiers of which there is an absolute abundance. This affords you the opportunity to play for life-changing money with whatever funds you can comfortably spare.

Key Details and General Structure

Multiple Starting Flights

The most important structural detail of the tournament is that there are four individual Day 1 flights. Day 1A is scheduled for Thursday, April 20, and the event is set to get underway at 1:05 p.m. ET. The next opportunity for joining the Venom comes on Sunday, April 23, and that is when Day 1B will kick off, keeping the same 1:05 p.m. ET start time. The third starting day will take place on Thursday, April 27, followed by Day 1D on Sunday, April 30. Just like the first two, these later starting flights begin at 1:05 p.m.

On all five starting days, play will last for 28 levels. Each of these will be 20 minutes long, and there will be 18 levels of late registration.

It's possible to participate in multiple Day 1s so long as you earn enough entries or are willing to hand over $2,650 for each additional day you wish to play. However, once you qualify for Day 2, you will not be able to enter any more starting days. Similarly, if you are in the middle of playing a Day 1, you cannot enter another one at the same time.

Subsequent Days

If you make it past the first day, then you’ll find Day 2 springing into action on Monday, May 1 at 1:05 p.m. ET. You’ll start this day with the same chips carried over from the number that you finished with on your first day of the event. Day 2 is scheduled for a full nineteen levels of 30 minutes apiece.

Then should you survive to Day 3, you will begin play at 1:05 p.m. ET again on Tuesday, May 2 and continue until there are only eight players remaining.

The Final Table is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 3. In a change from the previous days, the cards will begin to fly at 4:05 p.m. ET. All the final table action will be broadcast live at www.twitch.tv/americascardroom.

Progressive Knockout Format

This version of the VENOM is a PKO, or progressive knockout bounty event. This means that half of each buyin (excluding the $150 fee) is dedicated toward a bounty on each entrant's head. However, when an individual is knocked out of the tourney, the entire $1,250 isn't paid to the person who knocked them out.

Rather, half of the bounty is paid immediately to the eliminating player, and the other half is added to the bounty already on that individual. This means that as the MTT progresses and the field is whittled down, the bounty amounts will start to grow and grow until they amount to five-figure sums for the elimination of particular players.

Satellites Available

A myriad of satellites and other methods are available for you to utilize as a potential way of gaining access to the Venom tournament. These work perfectly for players who don’t have the initial $2,650 buy-in price in hand.

Venom Fever

Something of particular note are the Venom Fever satellites. They operate as the most prominent way of qualifying for the $5 million event. Standard MEGAs are running daily. It starts at just $0!

How is it possible for this to be the case? Well, most of these MEGA satellites have a four-step approach for you to take. You can start out by playing a freeroll satellite, which guarantees seats to a Satellite. Win one of the seats in the Satellite, and that will transport you onward. After you progress through the preliminaries, you'll be propelled to the Mega Satellite. Through this, you can garner a $2,650 Venom ticket.

If you would rather buy in to a satellite directly rather than battling your way through sub-satellites, this is of course possible. Most of them exist at buyins of $95, $109, $207.50, and $290 – though there are a few outliers in both directions – and each one comes with between 1 and 60 seats guaranteed.

There are 948 tickets available through the Venom Fever qualifiers. They have already started running and will continue doing so until Day 1D begins on April 30. A few hyper satellites will even run during late registration on the final starting day.

Venom Steps

As an alternate steps route, you can try out On Demand satellites. They are like SNGs in that they start when a predetermined number of entrants (from 6 to 15) enter. However, there's a late registration period, like in a multi-table tournament, during which more participants can join in.

The seven On Demand Steps you must proceed through have the following buyin levels:

• Step 1: $0.11
• Step 2: $0.55
• Step 3: $2.50
• Step 4: $11
• Step 5: $33
• Step 6: $109
• Step 7: $290

Make it through Step 7, and you will earn your $2,650 VENOM ticket.

Start Planning Today

All things considered, this is bound to be one of the biggest online poker tournaments of the year in terms of number of users participating and total prize money up for grabs. You only need to look at the outcome of the prior Venom tournaments to realize that. With so many opportunities to gain entry happening on a daily basis, it makes sense to take a crack at it and see if you can emerge from the season hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars richer.

Of course, in order to do so, you must have an account in good standing with Americas Cardroom or another reputable site on the Winning Poker Network. We advise our readers to register for ACR with our exclusive America's Cardroom bonus code PRB10FREE. This will enable you to receive $10 with no deposit required. What's more, you’ll also get a 100% up to $2,000 bonus on your initial deposit. Read our detailed ACR review to learn more.

If you’d rather head elsewhere, then Americas Cardroom has several sister sites that provide the same access to the Venom and the rest of the tournament schedule although some of their welcome promos might be different. Check out our reviews of BlackChip Poker, True Poker, and Ya Poker (non-US) for information about these alternate WPN skins.

Previous Venom Details