It's been eleven weeks since our last dispatch, and the numbers alone tell you why we're back: 3,145 tournaments completed, $1,474,289 in prizes paid, and $160,565 of it pure overlay — money the site added on top of buy-ins to meet guarantees. If you've been grinding, you've been playing in the most subsidized fields in Phenom history.
But the real story of the summer isn't the volume. It's that the tournament game on Phenom fundamentally changed shape — twice.
The Satellite Economy Is Real
Quietly at first, then everywhere: satellites. Since the ticket system went live in late spring, 3,336 tournament tickets worth $187,661 have been awarded to 498 different players. That's not a feature — that's an economy.
The structure runs in steps. A $1 or $2 step satellite feeds a $10 or $25 seat. Those feed the marquee events: the $200 Sunday Mixer, the $100 10-Game Mix. A disciplined satellite grinder can turn pocket change into a seat at the biggest table of the week — and hundreds of players are doing exactly that.
Today gave us the perfect specimen. At 1:51 PM, pullmeunder outlasted a field of ten in a $10 satellite to win a $100 seat into the 10-Game Mix $2,000 GTD. By evening they were in it, freerolling a shot at a prize pool that closed at $2,470. The run ended 11th of 26 — no cash, but the ledger shows what satellite poker really is: $10 risked for a $100 shot at $2,470. Donny8 closed the deal instead, taking it down for $913.91.
TournyTrack now tracks all of it properly: satellite winners show tied for 1st with their seat value as a ticket prize (look for the fuchsia 🎟), and entries paid with a won ticket are flagged so your ROI reflects seats you earned, not cash you spent.
Bounty Hunting Season
The second format shift: Progressive Knockouts have arrived. Half of every PKO buy-in goes to the bounty pool, and every elimination pays you half your victim's bounty in cash — immediately — while the other half lands on your own head.
Today's PLO PKO 25 ($1,000 GTD, 36 entries) showed how different the math is. TommyVercetti won the tournament for a $391.68 total haul — $203.60 from the prize ladder and $188.08 in collected bounties. Nearly half the winner's money came from knockouts. Meanwhile BluffandRebuy banked $182.39 in third place — more than the runner-up — by coming in swinging with $89.33 in bounties.
PKO results on TournyTrack now show the full split: total winnings with the bounty portion broken out in orange. Bounty-only players — knocked people out, missed the money — finally get credited for the cash they actually collected.
The Summer Score Board
The biggest single results since our last post:
| Player | Score | Event | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| LedZeppelin47 | $12,500 | $1,000 NLHE Mega | Jun 14 |
| iwannarumb1e | $12,500 | $1,000 NLHE Mega | Jun 14 |
| Alec Torelli | $12,500 | $1,000 NLHE Mega | Jun 14 |
| Dmmoose | $3,840 | $400 NLHE | Jun 14 |
| Nanasmakeup | $3,700 | $250 NLHE | Jun 7 |
| whennextwave | $3,526 | $200 NLHE | Aug 9 |
June 14 stands alone as the summer's biggest day — a $1,000 buy-in mega that paid three players $12,500 apiece, with its field fed by $1,000 super-satellites all week. The ladder worked exactly as designed: players who started in $400 steps were holding five-figure equity by Sunday night.
TournyTrack Caught Up Too
The site shipped its biggest update since launch today:
- A redesigned player profile — new performance charts (cumulative P/L and a by-buy-in-tier breakdown, from a 1-day view out to all-time), daily result subtotals, and a fully filterable tournament history.
- Finish positions with context — every result now reads like it should: 4th of 48.
- Custom avatars for premium members — 200+ designs, animated versions, and generated portraits.
- Share your results to X — every cashed result has a share button that drafts the post and attaches a branded result card with your name and avatar. Winners get the gold card.
The satellite and PKO tracking runs live from here forward, and a historical pass is coming that will re-credit past satellite results to their true seat winners.
The Question That Matters
The ticket economy has minted 498 seat winners in under four months. Sooner or later, one of them is going to ride a $2 step all the way through a Sunday major for a four-figure score — the full ladder, bottom to top.
Who's going to be first?
Track every result, every bounty, and every seat on TournyTrack.