One series ends, and another begins.
This is the way Americas Cardroom has responded to the surge in online poker traffic as players around the world remain under stay-at-home orders. With no casinos open, no card rooms available, and orders against all public gatherings, players were anxious to find poker somewhere. Americas Cardroom on the Winning Poker Network had an answer.
When the closures began in March as the coronavirus pandemic crept quickly across the United States, Americas Cardroom was still running its Online Super Series Cub3d. It was a massive three-part series that ran from February 9 through March 8 with 220 tournaments and $13 million in guarantees.
As the OSS Cub3d played to completion and nearly every casino in the world had shut its doors, Americas Cardroom then added a bonus OSS XL. That series ran from March 18 through April 6 with 171 tournaments and $12 million in guarantees.
With that having ended on Monday of this week, Americas Cardroom had other cards up its proverbial sleeve.
High Five Underway
The High Five tournament series is a popular one on ACR, offered at various times of the year. This time, it’s bigger than ever.
This three-part series began on Tuesday, April 7 and will finish on Sunday, April 26. And the cumulative guarantee is double the amount it usually offers, with this High Five guaranteeing $10 million in prize pools. With 100 tournaments on the schedule, they will play out with five per day.
For those new to ACR and the High Five series, note that many things will revolve around weed, thus the constant references to 420, i.e. breaks at 4:20pm, buy-ins of $420, etc.
High Five Series Highlights
There are three legs to the series, each one featuring a Main Event with $840K guaranteed. Players will find those tournaments on each of the next three Sundays.
Part 1: April 7-13--35 tournaments--Event 28 on April 12: $420+30 buy-in NLHE Main Event ($840K GTD)Part 2: April 14-20--35 tournaments--Event 63 on April 19: $420+30 buy-in NLHE Main Event ($840K GTD)Part 3: April 21-26--30 tournaments--Event 98 on April 26: $420+30 buy-in NLHE Main Event ($840K GTD)
Satellites are running for all of the tournaments. And the full schedule of events is on the ACR website
https://twitter.com/ACR_POKER/status/1247540073949618185?s=20
Preparing for More Venom
Inspired by such a large turnout for many of its tournaments in the past month – not to mention the success of Venom tournaments in the past – Americas Cardroom already scheduled the next one.
The Venom started as a one-time massive poker tournament last year with a $5 million guarantee. It ran in July and offered three starting days. When registration ended, the prize pool landed on $6,382,500. The second one then ran in December 2019 with a $6 million guarantee and four starting days. That one ended up with an actual prize pool of $6,740,000.
The next edition will start on July 24 and offer a $7 million guarantee, again with a $2,650 buy-in, four starting days, and $1 million guaranteed to the winner.
--Venom Day 1A: Friday, July 24--Venom Day 1B: Sunday, July 26--Venom Day 1C: Friday, July 31--Venom Day 1D: Sunday, August 2--Venom Day 2: Monday, August 3--Venom Day 3: Tuesday, August 4--Venom final table: Wednesday, August 5
In order to provide more options to players logging on in record numbers, ACR added some tournaments to its schedule. As of the beginning of April, there are more tournament options on weekdays, both for Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha players. Those buy-ins range from $0.27 to $215 and guarantees span from $250 to $100K.
ACR added more tournaments to the Sunday schedule as well. And the new tournaments – most of them – will offer three hours of late registration to appeal to players in different parts of the world.
Latest Software Update
The increased traffic combined with a general need to fix some software bugs to prompt Americas Cardroom to schedule a software update for April 1.
The goal was to fix bugs pertaining to function buttons, login status in the title bar, Blitz Poker tab filter, and a few more issues.
In addition, the site wanted to improve the overall stability of the poker platform, general menu, add Chinese language options, show folded cards on mouse hover when sitting out, leave a table open after busting out of a tournament, better manage the table box via left-side icons, etc.
And there were new features added to ACR as follows:
--Players can convert chip display to show the number of big blinds.--The update box includes a link to upcoming updates schedule posts on the site.--Mobile players have a new mobile lobby design.--All players can now choose Count von Count as a new avatar.--A button at the top of the main lobby now advertises new slot games available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTRWoDQQXTE
As can happen with software updates, there were some issues that created problems with players getting back to the site.
https://twitter.com/WPN_CEO/status/1245372285080526848?s=20
More issues created problems for players on April 7 and 8, but ACR issued refunds for players in tournaments and cash games.
https://twitter.com/ACR_POKER/status/1247887520437661696?s=20
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