The poker landscape may have altered drastically since the last time PokerStars rolled out the tournament red carpet, but that hasn’t stopped them from presenting the very latest Spring Championship of Online Poker.
Although U.S. players were noticeably absent, these first three events seem to indicate that the appetite for online poker grows unabated in the rest of the world. It’s also testament to how well PokerStars has diversified in the last few years. Although the events of Black Friday will undoubtedly hit the company hard, it seems that their worldwide player-base should be enough to keep them among the most powerful online poker sites in the industry.
SCOOP Event #1 was always going to be an important benchmark. As with every event in the series, the tournament is split into three different buy-in levels, each with their own guaranteed prize pool. Each was a No Limit Texas Hold’em 6-max tournament, with the low end costing participants $22.
The tentative $200,000 guarantee laid on by PokerStars turned out to be far too conservative. A total of 19,946 players signed up for the event, bringing the prize pool to a massive $398,920. The final three decided to split was left of the prize pool, leaving UK player willrobrubu to claim both the smallest portion of the chop and the title.
1 willrobrobu United Kingdom $34,358.84
2 SKobold Austria $39,000.00
3 MrRepsak Denmark $35,000.00
4 Specpro_tect Netherlands $11,967.60
5 Geriieee Netherlands $7,978.40
6 junkcardman Canada $3,989.20
The $215 Medium Event #1 was similarly well attended, boasting a prize pool of $764,800. There was no amicable split here, with joemac17 taking home the glory and the cash.
1 joemac17 United Kingdom $118,544.94
2 StigR Norway $86,422.40
3 spielverderb Germany $63,478.40
4 fabsoul United Kingdom $40,534.40
5 ChuteBoxe972 Spain $24,534.78
6 flysohigh87 Germany $13,384.00
A full 463 players turned out for the premiere version of Event #1. Money finishers included a few big names, with Team PokerStars Pro members JP Kelly and Anders Berg eliminated in 41st and 43rd respectively.
1 B4d3m3!st3r Germany $185,200.00
2 MatchBalla Denmark $137,048.00
3 MONSTER_DONG Australia $101,860.00
4 Søren Smith Denmark $70,376.00
5 joaobarb Portugal $51,393.00
6 Cod Meharly United Kingdom $32,873.00
The ball kept rolling with SCOOP Event #2 and the buy-ins kept pouring in. The $22 low event was even more popular than the opening tournament, tempting in 25,993 players. Perhaps the Two-Day format was more interesting. Either way, it built a prize pool of $517,660.
1 Humlae79Germany $46,613.26
2 eeriness Russia $32,043.15
3 max1210dj United Kingdom $23,294.70
4 Roflam1337 Austria $18,118.10
5 MM2MacxHungary $12,941.50
6 jack77s United Kingdom $7,764.90
7 MikiOpasniy Russia $5,176.60
8 onetwo780501 Hungary $3,882.45
The Medium version was similarly well attended and actually boasted a marginally higher prize pool than the most expensive option. The 6877 players loaded the cash pile with $1,375,400.
1 zethos1 Peru $209,202.21
2 kommandoGE Germany $154,732.50
3 lermonad Russia $110,032.00
4 twirlproHungary $75,647.00
5 ReadOnYouGermany $57,766.80
6 JohanEll Faroe Islands $44,012.80
7 T-Recz Germany $30,258.80
8 Volanthn Austria $16,504.80
Unlike Event #1, the money places in the high stakes version of Event #2 were bereft of Team PokerStars Pro members. That just left more money for the rest of the world to scoop up, as the likes of Viktor Blom fell by the wayside.
1 in Y0UR F4CE United Kingdom $234,738.00
2 Schappuscha Austria $172,017.00
3 PKaiser Chile $126,684.00
4 guyguy12 Israel $95,634.00
5 Balog23 Canada $67,068.00
6 Miss Baxter Ukraine $52,785.00
7 javahound Thailand $40,365.00
8 generdir Russia $27,945.00
Attendance dropped slightly for Event #3, but no more than you’d expect for the usual pattern of a big series. Although we’re only in the early stages, it looks like the 2011 SCOOP is going to be an unequivocal success. The low buy-in version of this two-day 6-max NLHE contest attracted 17,240 entrants, who stuffed the kitty with $265,935.
1 MusonToch Ukraine $32,350.62
2 Vingtcent Netherlands $23,934.15
3 cybermitzu Romania $15,956.10
4 Boartskiepke Netherlands $7,978.05
5 holy h3ll Germany $5,318.70
6 juanpert Spain $2,659.35
The Medium stakes event was similarly well attended. 3630 players coughed up the $55 required to enter and easily blasted through the $300,000 guarantee.
1 xandyLx Germany $74,548.85
2 UhhMee Canada $54,587.82
3 zwuerbs Germany $40,159.32
4 p0cket00 Canada $25,730.82
5 snake8484 Canada $15,630.87
6 Bandano Netherlands $8,416.62
A total of $534,000 was on tap to be split between the 372 entrants for the 2011 SCOOP Event #3 High Stakes edition. After the final three players had thrashed out a deal, zefir_max went on to take the title, while Black88 collected the most cash.
1 zefir_maxBelarus $87,050.92
2 BIack88 Russia $93,685.97
3 WhatIsICM Russia $74,515.11
4 RoyalSalute Brazil $42,720.00
5 Obär89 Germany $32,040.00
6 szusza84 Hungary $21,360.00