ACR Poker has added a Saturday Bonus Flight to its $15 million Dual Mystery Bounty Venoms, firing on 29 August in both events. Six flights in, the hold'em field is still a long way short of its guarantee. That is the reason the extra flight exists.
ACR now has nine Day 1s on the calendar rather than the eight it published in July, and three of them are still to come.
Both Venoms carry a $2,650 buy-in. The no-limit hold'em event guarantees $12 million and the pot-limit Omaha event guarantees $3 million.
ACR Added a Ninth Day 1 to a Schedule That Had Eight
The Saturday Bonus Flight was not on the original schedule. ACR confirmed it through its affiliate channel on 25 August and in a press release the following day.
Nothing else about the format moved. Same buy-in, same 12:05pm ET start, same Day 2 date. The only change is one more door into the tournament, and it lands on the busiest day of the poker week.
Nine flights, not eight. Every preview published in July, including our own rundown of the $15M dual Venom schedule, listed eight Day 1s as a Venom first. That number is now out of date.
Three ACR Venom Flights Left and Where the Fields Stand
Three chances remain to reach Day 2. All three start at the same time in both events.
| Flight | Date | Start |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1G | Thursday 27 August | 12:05pm ET |
| Saturday Bonus Flight | Saturday 29 August | 12:05pm ET |
| Final scheduled Day 1 | Sunday 30 August | 12:05pm ET |
ACR published its running totals alongside the announcement. Six flights have produced the following.
| Event | Guarantee | Entries | Through to Day 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NLH Venom | $12,000,000 | 2,738 | 320 |
| PLO Venom | $3,000,000 | 713 | 83 |
Five ACR Pros are already through in the hold'em event: Ana Marquez, Chris Moorman, Chance Kornuth, Rob Kuhn and 2003 world champion Chris Moneymaker.
The Omaha field is smaller in absolute terms but sits closer to its target. Roughly one in nine entries has reached Day 2 in hold'em, against one in eight and a half in Omaha.
What the Entry Count Says About the Guarantees
An overlay is money the operator adds when entries fall short of the guaranteed prize pool. ACR raised the possibility itself, saying the distance between the hold'em field and the guarantee creates potential overlay value.
Working out the size of that gap needs one figure ACR does not publish: how much of each $2,650 buy-in reaches the prize pool. Its own results answer that.
At the April 2026 Dual Venom, 3,673 hold'em entries produced a $9,182,500 prize pool. That is $2,500 per entry to the dollar. The Omaha event matched it exactly, with 837 entries producing $2,092,500.
On a $2,500 contribution, here is where both events sit.
| Measure | NLH Venom | PLO Venom |
|---|---|---|
| Prize pool so far | $6,845,000 | $1,782,500 |
| Shortfall | $5,155,000 | $1,217,500 |
| Entries needed in total | 4,800 | 1,200 |
| Still to find | 2,062 | 487 |
| Per remaining flight | 687 | 162 |
| Average of first six flights | 456 | 119 |
| Required uplift | 51% | 37% |
Closing flights always run hotter than opening ones, and re-entries pile up as the deadline approaches. A 51% jump across three starts is not impossible. It is a long way above anything the first six flights managed.
The April Benchmark
The April benchmark is the useful comparison. That Venom carried an $8 million hold'em guarantee, needing 3,200 entries to cover, and it finished with 3,673.
ACR has since raised the target to $12 million. Covering it takes 4,800 entries, half as many again as April's field actually delivered.
That is the real story of the final week. The guarantee grew faster than the fields have.
Where these numbers come from. ACR published the entry counts and the guarantees, and has said nothing about either guarantee being missed. The prize pool arithmetic above is ours, built on ACR's own April 2026 results.
You Are Not Limited to One Flight
Qualifying once does not end the decision. Players who advance from more than one Day 1 combine their stacks going into Day 2.
That turns the last three flights into two separate opportunities. One is a seat. The other is a bigger seat.
For anyone already holding a ticket, including our three Road to the Venom seat winners, the extra Saturday start is one more shot at building a stack rather than just surviving into the money.
Those tickets do not survive the series. Late registration on 30 August is the hard cut-off, and anything unused after that is gone rather than carried into the next Venom.
The Venom Vault shuts on the same date, taking any unopened keys with it, and the satellite schedule ends when late registration does.
Day 2 Is Where the Bounties Start
Nothing about the bounty pool is live until Monday. That is what makes reaching Day 2 the whole objective of the next four days.
- Everyone is in the money. Reaching Day 2 locks up a cash finish in both events before a single bounty is drawn.
- Every bounty pays at least $5,000. That is roughly two buy-ins back for one knockout, before any regular prize money.
- Top bounty, hold'em: $500,000, available to any player who reaches Day 2 regardless of where they finish.
- Top bounty, Omaha: $250,000, on a field a fraction of the size of the hold'em event.
Half of each prize pool goes to the bounty side in this format, which is why a deep Day 2 stack is worth more here than in a standard tournament.
Two tickets, one event? Fire them on separate Day 1s from the same account and combine what advances, because registering a second WPN account after qualifying forfeits your winnings. Unused Venom tickets expire when late registration closes on 30 August.
Saturday Also Carries $355,000 in Venom Specials
The bonus flight does not run alone. ACR is putting $355,000 in guaranteed Venom Specials around it on 29 August.
That reframes Saturday as the Venom day rather than a single tournament with a long wait either side of it. For players entering these last three days on a limited bankroll, the Specials are where the buy-ins stay reachable.
It also gives the bonus flight a reason to fill. A player who fires the Venom at midday has a full card of guaranteed events to fall back into if it goes badly.
The Specials have run alongside every Day 1 so far. The opening slate on 17 August guaranteed $860,000 and finished with $1.125 million in actual prize pools.
Both Final Tables Play on 2 September
Registration closes for good on Sunday evening. From there the two events run on slightly different tracks.
- Monday 31 August, 1:05pm ET: Day 2 begins in both events and the Mystery Bounties go live.
- Tuesday 1 September: Day 3, hold'em only. The Omaha event goes straight to its final table.
- Wednesday 2 September, 4:05pm ET: both final tables play out.
Sunday night is when the guarantee question gets answered. Either the last three flights close a $5.1 million gap in hold'em, or ACR tops up the difference and the players who fired in the final week collect the benefit.
For results from both final tables and the rest of the week, follow our poker news hub.
