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ACR Poker’s $6.5 million Dual Venom PKOs are underway after the Oct. 4 Day 1A flights sent 86 No-Limit Hold’em players and 17 Pot-Limit Omaha players through to Day 2. Atheist30 bagged the largest NLH stack, while BooooomHeadsot led the PLO field.

Atheist30 finished with 5,186,479 chips from an NLH opening flight that drew 511 entries. The player also collected $5,000 in bounties. kingqueensuited was second in chips with 4,248,891, ahead of SuubZer0 on 4,070,053, while lordgiven earned the most bounty money among the NLH qualifiers, $8,125.

As reported Oct. 4, the series consists of a $5 million guaranteed NLH PKO and a $1.5 million guaranteed PLO PKO, each with a $2,650 direct buy-in and five starting flights.

The PLO opener attracted 133 entries. BooooomHeadsot moved on with 6,706,559 chips and $3,437.50 in bounties, narrowly ahead of bethechange with 6,407,244 and blowdesenutz with 6,134,643. bethechange and sendmehome shared the PLO bounty lead at $9,687.50 each.

The progressive knockout structure pays half of an eliminated player’s bounty to the player making the knockout, with the other half added to the eliminator’s own bounty. That leaves the chip leaders and bounty leaders as separate Day 1A measures in both events.

Four Day 1 flights remain, on Oct. 8, Oct. 11, Oct. 15 and Oct. 18, all beginning at 1:05 p.m. ET. Both tournaments resume for Day 2 on Oct. 19; the NLH event continues to a Day 3 on Oct. 20, and both final tables are set for Oct. 21 at 4:05 p.m. ET.

GGPoker will run a $1 million Halloween Party for cash-game players from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, offering Mystery Pumpkin prizes worth up to $1,000 in cash. The promotion is part of the room’s wider October promotional campaign and is built around spotting the Jack of Spades during play.

Players earn one Candy whenever the Jack of Spades appears on the board in any GGPoker cash game. Ten Candies can be exchanged for one trick-or-treating chance, which opens a Mystery Pumpkin containing a prize.

The top Mystery Pumpkin award is $1,000 in cash, while players who miss that prize receive a consolation reward. Players can take further shots at the top prize by collecting and redeeming additional sets of 10 Candies.

The party sits within GGPoker’s October Giveaway, which runs from Oct. 1 through Oct. 31 and advertises $18 million in promotions and giveaways across all games. The operator lists $13 million in cash-game giveaways, including $7.5 million in regular cash-game leaderboards and $3 million through Daily $100,000 Flipouts and Rush & Cash Fridays.

The Halloween Party begins immediately after the Bounty Hunters Series ends Oct. 23, as we reported Oct. 2. That knockout festival carries $100 million in guarantees, including a $5 million guaranteed Main Event.

GGPoker’s promotional page frames the new contest simply: “Collect 10 Candies and win up to $1,000!”

GGPoker’s new Ocean KO jackpot progressive knockout format cleared its first test on Sunday, Oct. 4, as all three debut tournaments beat their guarantees. The $10, $100 and $1,000 events attracted 30,061 entries in total and generated just over $1.4 million in prize pools, against $1 million guaranteed.

The launch followed GGPoker’s Oct. 2 announcement and put the format into the Bounty Hunters Series. The $10 tournament accounted for 23,443 entries and a $215,700 prize pool, exceeding its $200,000 guarantee. The $100 event drew 5,926 entries for a $545,200 pool, while the $1,000 tournament brought in 692 entries and built a $657,400 pool. Each of those two higher-buy-in events had a $400,000 guarantee.

Ocean KO combines the usual progressive-knockout structure with a random bounty multiplier on every elimination. Half of each buy-in becomes a player’s bounty, with the balance split between the regular prize pool and fee. In a $10 event, for example, $5 funds the bounty, $4.20 goes to the prize pool and 80 cents is the fee.

When a player makes a knockout, half of the multiplied bounty is paid in cash and the other half is added to that player’s own bounty. A $5 bounty hit by a 10x multiplier becomes $50, paying $25 immediately and adding $25 to the eliminator’s bounty. That creates a $30 bounty for the player after starting at $5.

The multiplier range runs from 0.4x to 400x, and GGPoker says a single Ocean KO bounty can reach $1.5 million. The top 400x result is rare, occurring about once in every 50,000 bounties, while 10x lands 2.4% of the time. More than 72% of knockouts pay less than the bounty’s face value, although Pokerfuse’s format guide says the full multiplier table averages exactly 1x over the long run.

Ocean KO is the first jackpot PKO offered outside France and Spain, according to Pokerfuse. The format began with Winamax’s Space KO in December 2024 and later reached Betclic through Smash KO. Ocean KO’s maximum multiplier is four times Space KO’s 100x ceiling and eight times Smash KO’s 50x maximum.

The earlier formats showed how a knockout can dwarf a conventional tournament finish. One €100 Space KO event with an €80,000 guarantee paid more than €1 million in total, including an €838,000 bounty from a single elimination, while the winner’s first-place prize was just over €5,000.

Ocean KO has 14 bounty-evolution tiers. The first 10 can produce multipliers up to 400x, while four Legendary levels use flatter tables as bounties grow. Legendary Octopus begins at $10,000, and Legendary Shark applies to bounties of at least $1 million, with payouts ranging from 0.8x to 1.5x.

The random outcomes have also prompted concerns for players using staking or backing deals. Poker pro Patrick Leonard said the format makes those arrangements “very very very messy,” arguing that a few bounty-wheel results can swing a backed player’s tournament outcome heavily.

Ocean KO remains part of the $100 million guaranteed Bounty Hunters Series, which runs through Oct. 27. A $5 Ocean KO Opener carries a $1 million guarantee and has its Day 2 on Oct. 12; a $25 Ocean KO with a $2 million guarantee reaches Day 2 on Oct. 19.

The 2026 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final will run at The Victoria Casino in London from Nov. 19-29, closing the tour’s 20th season with £1.2 million in festival guarantees.

The £2,000 Main Event is the centrepiece, carrying a £500,000 guarantee. It begins with two full starting flights and a turbo flight across Nov. 26-27, before Day 2 on Nov. 28 and a scheduled final day on Nov. 29.

The schedule also lists a £1,250 Midi with a £250,000 guarantee, starting before the Main Event. The Midi has three regular opening flights and a hyper, with Day 2 on Nov. 21 and the winner due to be decided Nov. 22.

The £2,500 High Roller starts Nov. 25 with a £150,000 guarantee. That follows overlays in lower-guarantee GUKPT High Rollers at Luton and Leeds. The card also includes a £340 Mini Main with £150,000 guaranteed, a £560 GUKPT Cup with £50,000 guaranteed, a £1,000 PLO High Roller and a £250 four-card PLO event.

The Grand Final Main Event has the largest buy-in of the 2026 GUKPT season and doubles the top end of the £100,000 to £250,000 Main Event guarantee range at the other stops, according to Poker-in.com. The Victoria has already hosted GUKPT legs in January and April, making the Grand Final its third tour stop of the season.

Players can use Grosvenor Poker’s online path from £1 feeders, progressing through £5 and £30 tournaments to Live Event Credit worth £200, £300, £500 or £1,250. The credit is not restricted to one event, does not expire and can cover all or part of a GUKPT buy-in; using a larger credit for a cheaper event produces tournament credit for the difference.

One event sits immediately before the festival without being part of the regular GUKPT schedule. The Champion of Champions is set for Nov. 18 as the conclusion of The Victoria’s year-long Victoria Championships.

Blackpool is the final GUKPT stop before London. PokerNews’ Grand Final report lists its dates as Oct. 30-Nov. 8, while a separate PokerNews October calendar gives an Oct. 29 start; both list a finish on Nov. 8. Blackpool carries more than £500,000 in guarantees, including £250,000 for its Main Event and £100,000 for its Mini Main.

Nik carried the chip lead into the final 16 of the €1,150 EPC Super Main Event at King’s Resort in Rozvadov, bagging 77.2 million after Day 3. The Romanian player held a substantial lead over Mourad Tounnouti on 45.9 million, with Christophe Vincent, Mike Neuens and Erdinc Guentay next on the leaderboard.

The event drew 7,013 entries across eight starting flights and generated a €6.9 million prize pool. PokerNews reported that 108 players began Day 3, before 10 levels reduced the field to 16, all chasing the €862,300 top prize and the King’s Royal Scepter trophy.

As we reported in September, the Super Main Event was the €5 million-guaranteed centerpiece of King’s Resort’s new King’s Million European Poker Championship. The final prize pool comfortably cleared that guarantee.

Nik had led after the Day 1a flight and entered Day 2 with the biggest stack, making his Day 3 lead the latest stage of a sustained run. He had also placed seventh in the €1,000 Mystery Bounty earlier in the week for €23,600.

Behind Tounnouti, Vincent ended the day with 39 million and Neuens had 37.8 million. Guentay bagged 27.1 million, followed by Pavel Stribrny with 23.7 million, Hassibullah Hafizi with 21.1 million, Wiktor Weiner with 16.8 million, Lyubomir with 14.6 million and Antonio Sciacca with 11.4 million.

Hafizi’s stack represented one of Day 3’s biggest recoveries. He had less than one big blind at the final three-table redraw but doubled more than six times, including hands with pocket aces and kings, to reach seventh in chips overnight.

There was also a deep run for the married pair of Pokerhonta696 and Ulrich Ehlermann, who spent most of Day 3 at the same table. Pokerhonta696 exited in 35th when her short stack ran into Ondrej Ladner’s pocket jacks, while Ehlermann survived with 5.8 million after winning a Level 32 hand against two pairs of kings.

The 16 survivors were scheduled to resume Oct. 6 with 35 minutes left in Level 36, at blinds of 300,000/600,000 with a 600,000 big blind ante, and play 70-minute levels until a winner was decided.