SCOOP 2016: Looking over the (obvious) highlights

Nine more SCOOP winners since yesterday, which compared to recent day is almost a pedestrian number of new champions.

Those looking for a highlight of the day didn’t need to look far. Three events stood out for the quality of their cast: SCOOP 32-H, 33-M and 33-H.

Looking a bit more closely these were events played by the best players in the game, in some of the hardest formats. SCOOP 32 was a PL Omaha 6-Max, 5-stack contest, which SCOOP 33 was Stud Hi/Lo.

Given that they’re wagering their way through SCOOP, Jason Mercier and George Danzer’s appearance at the final table seemed relevant. In the end Danzer got the better of Mercier, but only just. Mercier departed in sixth, soon followed by Danzer in fifth. British player raidalot would finish third but honours went to BriDge2PaiN, who took the title and a first prize of $216,000. The full story, written by Al Rash, is well worth a read.

Meanwhile in SCOOP 33, the “M” event was equally well staffed.

Matt “Plattsburg” Vengrin won his first SCOOP title this week (sitting nicely alongside two WCOOP titles), and would finish in eighth place. In seventh was Shaun Deeb, forever present in the game for the past decade and in pursuit of this year’s leader board title.

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Out in fifth went Stephen “stevie444” Chidwick, fresh off his own SCOOP win a few days ago, while in fourth went six time SCOOP winner Calvin “cal42688” Anderson, ahead of Mike “goleafsgoeh” Leah. Quite frankly, it was a ridiculous looking final table.

And, as David Aydt reported, it was won by Polish player __akun333___, who collected $16,479 after a heads up deal with Nairam “marjanko89” Kim.

That left the “High” version, won by RunGodlike from the UK. Behind him a trail of poker heavyweights including Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy in fourth, that man Jason Mercier again in sixth, and Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich in eighth. Let Al Rash once more tell you the full story.

All of which shook up the SCOOP leader board somewhat.

SCOOP leader board: 18 May 2016Shaun Deeb now sits atop the overall leader board, five points ahead of Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy and 25 ahead of former leader SixthSenSe19. Jason Mercier is in fourth place, but nearly 100 points behind Deeb. But looking at the top ten is to look at some of the great names in the modern game. Who will win is uncertain, but what is certain that it’s going to be an exciting race to the finish this weekend.

That’s all for today. There’s more tomorrow, details of which you can find on the SCOOP 2016 homepage, along with the schedule and tournament leader board. For all the results from SCOOP 2016 check out the PokerStars Blog’s results page which features links to every final table report.

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Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.