Tuesday, 23rd April 2024 07:02
Home / Uncategorized / Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara and Jason Mercier in close race for top spot

With the first week of the 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker done and dusted, and 26 of 55 events already complete, it’s time to take a look at which Team PokerStars Pros are in the running to win the first Team PokerStars SCOOP Leaderboard.

Unsurprisingly, last year’s SCOOP Player of the Year, Jason Mercier, is in contention for ultimate bragging rights, with 16 cashes helping him to a total of 315 points. But it’s Team PokerStars Pro Online player, Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara, who currently leads the way on 330 points courtesy of 15 cashes, including two 3rd-place finishes over the weekend. The Japanese player will take some stopping as he plays all the games, having cashed in Draw, Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Badugi and Mixed Omaha tournaments so far.

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Meanwhile, two-time SCOOP Player of the Year runner-up, George Danzer, sits in third place at this stage, having amassed 195pts from 15 cashes. Having reached his first final table of the series over the weekend, the signs are that Danzer is beginning to find some form. He’ll need to as well, with a $10k prop bet with Mercier on the line for whoever finishes highest!

With 30 more events to come, though, there’s still plenty of time for several other Team Pros to make their name and shoot up the leaderboard. Twitch-streamer extraordinaire, Jaime Staples, is going strong in fourth, and it would a be a foolish person indeed that ruled out the likes of Jason Somerville and Marc-Andre Ladouceur from going on a heater to win.

Here’s the current top 10 on the Team PokerStars SCOOP 2016 Leaderboard…

Position Name Stars ID Points Overall SCOOP Leader Board position Pro/Online
1 Naoya Kihara nkeyno 330 5 Team Pro Online
2 Jason Mercier JasonMercier 315 9 Team PokerStars Pro
3 George Danzer GeorgeDanzer 195 61 Team PokerStars Pro
4 Jaime Staples jaimestaples 155 106 Team Pro Online
5 Jason Somerville jcarverpoker 105 354 Team PokerStars Pro
5 Chris Moneymaker Money800 105 354 Team PokerStars Pro
7 Grzegorz Mikielewicz DaWarsaw 85 632 Team Pro Online
8 Marc-Andre Ladouceur FrenchDawg 75 863 Team Pro Online
9 Chen-An Lin Chen-An Lin 70 988 Team PokerStars Pro
10 Mickey Petersen mement_mori 65 1148 Team Pro Online

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