Over the weekend, ACR Poker hosted its Dual Venom PKO tournaments, a pair of online events with $6.5 million in combined guarantees. Both events, a $5 million no-limit hold’em PKO event and a $1.5 million guaranteed pot-limit Omaha PKO tournament each exceeded expectations.
The headlining offering, the $2,650 NLH tournament, drew 2,498 entrants over five starting flights for a total prize pool of $6,245,000, including bounties. The parallel PLO PKO tournament built a prize pool of over $1.6 million.
Hockey Player Scores Big In NLH
Of the more than $6.2 million in prizes awarded in ACR Poker’s Venom NLH PKO event, $3,122,500 was awarded in bounties. On his way to victory, Pavels ‘Rigapols81’ Spirins claimed more than four times as much of that bounty prize pool as any other player in the field.
Along with his $378,372 first-place prize, Spirins (pictured above) earned $296,852 worth of bounties. It was a return trip for Spirins, who found previous success in this event in 2024.
“The feeling [of winning] is indescribable. Last year I finished fourth in this exact same tournament, and now I finally managed to win it! I plan to celebrate with my family and friends, nothing special, there’s still a lot of work ahead.”
Spirins, 29, who is from Latvia, played semi-professional hockey in Latvia, Sweden, and Norway before hanging up his skates in 2018.
On the final hand of this tournament, Spirins hit a runner-runner spade flush with 9♠5♠. Most of the money didn’t go in until the river, when Spirins’ opponent, ‘manuelmpc,’ called off a 1.5x river shove with J♠6♥ on a K♦6♦4♠10♠Q♠ board. You can watch that hand, and the entirety of the cards up final table, on ACR Poker’s Twitch channel.
Spirins’ $675,224 total payout in this tournament exceeds his best career live results by several times over. Back in 2023, Spirins finished third in a $2,000 no-limit hold’em event at the World Series of Poker for $238,129.
| Place | Player | Payout | Bounties |
| 1 | Rigapols81 | $378,372 | $296,852 |
| 2 | manuelmpc | $378,372 | $59,299 |
| 3 | Disenchantment | $276,216 | $46,430 |
| 4 | AceOfSpades33 | $201,638 | $27,656 |
| 5 | MillionDollarCorner | $147,194 | $29,921 |
| 6 | wisimaki | $107,451 | $3,437 |
| 7 | UnaVez | $78,443 | $50,268 |
| 8 | colheitafeliz | $57,260 | $20,571 |
| 9 | JINLEMON | $41,797 | $36,645 |
‘PohPohPohPAAAA’ Pops Off In PLO
The largest PLO PKO tournament ever run on ACR poker happened in parallel to its no-limit hold’em compatriot. Over five starting flights, the $2,650 buy-in tournament hit 641 entrants. The prize pool reached $1,602,500, with exactly half of that money dedicated to bounty prizes.
‘PohPohPohPAAAA’ was crowned as champion of this tournament. In addition to his $135,789 first-place prize, he nearly doubled his payout with $117,099 in bounties.
“Playing the Dual Venoms was pure adrenaline from start to finish,” said 2003 WSOP main event champion and ACR Pro Chris Moneymaker. “Every knockout was super exciting and could change your whole tournament. It was action-packed and full of huge moments, and it’s great to see the Dual Venoms going from strength to strength.”
With the latest edition of the Dual Venom event in the books, attention turns to a handful of additional tournament opportunities of note on ACR Poker. Among those are the considerable selection of satellites into the WSOP Paradise super main event. For as little as $95, players can win one of at least 100 prize packages to the Bahamas worth $30,000, including a seat into the $26,000 buy-in, $60 million guaranteed event.
Photo credit: Danny Maxwell / Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.
