PushLightYear wins the NLH title, tigerseyes tops the PLO results after a deal, and Sunday brings seven $30,000 Paradise packages.
The cards are down on ACR Poker’s Dual Venom PKOs, but there’s not much of a break on the tournament calendar. Wednesday, October 21, brought a $536,577.13 win for PushLightYear in No-Limit Hold’em, a final-table deal in Pot-Limit Omaha and a remarkable double deep run for Pepareg1.
Both $2,650 buy-in events beat their guarantees, paying out $6,862,500 between them. Now attention turns to Sunday, October 25, with seven $30,000 WSOP Paradise packages guaranteed in the next Mega Satellite and more Halloween Mystery PKO starting flights on the schedule.
PushLightYear Rallies From Sixth to Win NLH
PushLightYear wasn’t the chip leader when the nine-player NLH final table got underway. The player from Andorra sat sixth with 60,800,682 chips, but turned that starting position into the title and a $536,577.13 payday.
The eventual champion earned $332,932.28 in regular prize money and another $203,644.85 in bounties. Add them together and the final return was $536,577.13, a reminder that the finishing position only tells part of the story in a PKO.
Runner-up ArkaduktusFrRM also had a substantial payday, taking $332,931.12 from the regular prize pool and $85,893.50 in bounties for $418,824.62 overall. The two finalists’ regular payouts were almost identical, but their bounty hauls made a sizeable difference to the final totals.
PLO Final Table Deal Puts Bounties in Focus
The PLO finale produced another close finish on paper. Mexico’s tigerseyes arrived at the seven-player final table as chip leader and finished first after a deal involving Ukraine’s Pepareg1.
Following that deal, tigerseyes received $128,621.94 from the regular prize pool, while Pepareg1 received $128,621.88. Those amounts were separated by just six cents. Once bounties were counted, however, the results looked quite different.
tigerseyes added $111,197.51 in bounties to finish with $239,819.45. Pepareg1 earned $36,050.98 in bounties, bringing that player’s PLO total to $164,672.86. It was a strong finish for both players, but the bounty figures were a major part of what separated their overall returns.
Pepareg1 Finds Two Ways to Run Deep
There was more to Pepareg1’s Wednesday than the PLO deal. The Ukrainian player had started the PLO final table with the shortest stack before battling all the way to second. Pepareg1 also made a deep run in the NLH Venom.
Pepareg1 finished third in NLH for $240,369.59 in regular winnings, with another $41,101.06 in bounties pushing the NLH return to $281,470.65. Put that alongside the $164,672.86 PLO result, and the two tournaments produced $446,143.51 in combined winnings.
Of that total, $368,991.47 came from regular payouts and $77,152.04 from bounties. Third in NLH and second in PLO on the same final day is an eye-catching way to close out a two-format series.
Both Venoms Finish Above Their Guarantees
The NLH Venom drew 2,143 entries and paid out $5,357,500. The PLO event attracted 602 entries and produced a $1,505,000 prize pool. Together, the tournaments exceeded their advertised combined $6.5 million guarantee by $362,500.
That brought the Dual Venoms to a close with both titles decided, but ACR Poker has two very different kinds of Sunday action for players looking ahead to October 25.
Seven Paradise Packages on the Line October 25
The next $1,050 WSOP Paradise Mega Satellite starts Sunday, October 25, at 3:05 p.m. ET. It guarantees seven packages worth $30,000 apiece, putting $210,000 in total package value up for grabs.
Each package includes the $26,000 buy-in to the $50 million guaranteed Super Main Event, which runs December 10–17, and accommodation at SLS Baha Mar from December 5–18. Travel, meals and personal spending aren’t included, so players considering a package should factor those costs into their plans.
There’s also a value angle worth watching. Both of the first two weekly Paradise Megas had more than $50,000 in overlay, meaning the guaranteed package value exceeded the value funded by entries. That doesn’t mean October 25 will play out the same way; Sunday’s turnout will determine whether there’s another overlay.
If the $1,050 buy-in is a little steep, $95 Beast satellites offer a lower-cost way to pursue a Mega entry. One detail matters here: these Beast satellites feed into the following Sunday’s Mega, so check which week the ticket is for before entering. The Mega schedule continues through November 22.
Halloween Mystery PKOs Keep the Flights Coming
If a big PKO field sounds more appealing than a Bahamas package, ACR Poker’s Halloween Mystery PKOs are already underway. Starting flights began October 18 and continue daily through November 1, with $650,000 guaranteed across three events.
The largest is a $109 buy-in tournament with $500,000 guaranteed. There’s also a $33 event with $100,000 guaranteed and a $5.50 event with $50,000 guaranteed. Players can take multiple shots through the starting flights and combine qualifying stacks for Day 2.
That gives players a choice of stakes while building toward the same key date: Sunday, November 1, when the bounty phase begins. The starting flights themselves don’t award bounties, so the real knockout action is still ahead.
The Mystery Bounty Twist Starts on Day 2
These aren’t ordinary Mystery PKOs. In the format, which is exclusive to the Winning Poker Network, every eligible Day 2 knockout reveals a mystery prize. Half is paid immediately to the player who scores the elimination, while the other half is added to that player’s visible progressive bounty.
There’s another layer: if the eliminated player already has an accumulated progressive bounty, that bounty also gets divided 50/50. In other words, winning a mystery prize puts money in your account, but it can also put a bigger target on your back.
It’s a twist that keeps the value of an elimination connected to what happens later at the table. The player collecting a bounty gets a reward straight away, but opponents can still chase a share of the amount now sitting on that player’s head.
With the Dual Venom champions crowned, Sunday offers a fresh decision: chase one of seven Paradise packages, or use a Halloween flight to build a stack for November 1. Check the ACR Poker tournament lobby for registration details and the latest start times before choosing your table.