Dominik Nitsche won ACR’s “The Venom” tournament and the $1.8m first prize. [X.com / ACR Poker]

Nitsche wins $1.8m

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, an online tournament which was mired in controversy reached its denouement by crowning a champion in one of the all-time greats of the game. 5,045 players/robots ponied up $2,650 to play The Venom on Americas Cardroom (ACR), generating a whopping prize pool of $12,615,500.

On a final table that included site ambassador Chris Moneymaker, it was German Wunderkind turned Poker-Zauberer Dominik Nitsche who reigned supreme to claim the $1,818,044 first prize.

Elated, the future Hall of Famer took to X to announce the result, which was not the biggest win of his career on paper, but did bank him the most of any previous result when you factor in selling action and swaps.

Everybody sucks

I first met Dominik in 2011, two years after he announced himself to the live poker world by winning the LAPT Main Event for $380,000. He was introduced to me by a mutual friend in a restaurant across the road from the Burlington Hotel, the venue for the Irish Open. He was just 20 years old, but already a staple of the UK and Ireland poker scene, his long hair and beardless, boyish face no less intimidating than his short-haired, bearded, bespectacled, owlish visage is today.

At the age of 21, Dom won a WSOP bracelet and a WPT title. At 23, he became the youngest person to win three WSOP bracelets, adding a fourth in 2017 when he took down the $111,000 buy-in One Drop WSOPE event in Rozvadov for $3.5m. His favorite line back then was “everyone sucks at poker,” a sentiment that was both a humorous rug-pull of egotistical “pros” who regarded their own games too highly and also an earnest call to humility in a pre-solver era of best guesses.

I’m just a little less bad than most of the others.”

When I first interviewed Dom in 2018, I asked him if the thought that he sucked at poker to which he replied: “Yes, absolutely. I’m just a little less bad than most of the others.”

I’ve had the great fortune to interview him many more times over the years and he always delivers terrific insights. He is not only one of the greats of No-Limit Hold’em, but he is also an innovator whose DTO app is the single biggest reason that I don’t suck more than I do.

DTO was a game changer

The DTO poker training app came out in 2019, the brainchild of Dom and Markus Prinz. It is an elite piece of kit which I immediately picked up and still use most days. As someone not naturally suited to how the game was evolving, it gave me a solid foothold in the new solver paradigm.

forcing me to think about the game in a different, more structured way

I didn’t have time to run my own sims in PioSolver and I could feel my game slipping. DTO allowed me to get in my reps, guiding me post-blunder and, perhaps most importantly, forcing me to think about the game in a different, more structured way.

Unsurprisingly, a thriving community has built up around the app, which Dom and Markus help to nurture. Myself and Dara O’Kearney have actually made several DTO-themed strategy segments on “The Chip Race” with guest contributors who are disciples of the app.

Antidote for the Venom

Since its release, DTO poker has constantly been updating and augmenting its product offering with cash game, tournament, ICM and multi-way spots being added all the time. Dom regularly points to the success and calibre of players who use the app: “My proof is my customers are high stakes professionals. My proof is I learn from the stuff I sell.”

There is certainly no better advertisement than Dom’s own success and last night’s victory is just the latest piece of evidence. It is the cure for what ails you. It is the antidote to the Venom.

Since his victory, VSO News spoke exclusively to an excited and appropriately hungover Dom who said:

“It feels pretty good to be the guy who made a lot of sets. It certainly made the final table a little bit easier. It turns out winning $1.8 million in a $2,650 tourney is a little bit more profitable than winning $3.5 million in a $100k.”