Some of the game’s most consistent crushers came to the fore on Saturday night as the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) hit another landmark. Two million can’t be wrong, so read today’s latest from the SCOOP tables…
TODAY’S HEADLINES
âą Leonard continues to crush with second title
âą Career SCOOP first for Nitsche
âą Vietnam makes first SCOOP splash
âą Clean sweep for Brits in rebuy tournaments
âą Entry totals pass 2 million across extended series
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Two from the series for Patrik “pads1161” Leonard
Leonard continues to crush: There have been numerous series across various poker sites over the past couple of months, with players often playing simultaneously across several. There’s been no one more successful during this period than Patrick Leonard, who plays on PokerStars as “pads1161” and who last night won his second SCOOP title of the the series. (He’s been crushing on other sites too.) Leonard won the $215+rebuys turbo, in which 460 players added a further 399 rebuys and 288 add-ons to build a prize pool of $232,841. Leonard beat “julioassp” heads up for a $41,808 score, with Andras “probirs” Nemeth making another final table but finishing fourth. Leonard also won the $2,100 PLO 6-Max this year, and his career SCOOP title haul now stands at three.
Nitsche finds a first SCOOP: It’s been a relatively quiet SCOOP for Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche, the Edinburgh-based German, who is one of the very best players in the world. In fact, despite more than $5.8 million in documented online tournament earnings, and more than $18.6 million in live results (including four WSOP bracelets), Nitsche had never previously won a SCOOP title. Nitsche broke his duck last night in the $530 buy-in SCOOP-87, beating “Geokarak” of Greece heads-up to prevail from a 956-entry field and win $82,365. The closest Nitsche had come before was a second place in a Win The Button event in 2017, but finally now Nitsche has addressed the surprising deficiency on his poker resume.
Dominik “Bounatirou” Nitsche: Finally a SCOOP champ
Eleven years later, two for “shuriken555”: It’s been 11 years since Germany’s “shuriken555” appeared on the winner’s list in a SCOOP tournament, having won a $215 NLHE event in 2010. But last night, he or she picked up a second title, this time winning the first ever Fusion event to appear on the schedule. shuriken55 was the last player standing of a 4,094-entry field in the $5.50 low buy-in version of this new variant, having cut a deal three handed. The prize for mastering this devilish new game, and for having the patience to stick with SCOOP poker for more than a decade, is a $2.490 payday and a second SCOOP gong.
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS
LEADER BOARDS | ALL BLOG REPORTS
One at last for Vietnam: There are more than 97 million people who live in Vietnam, but not many of them play poker. Through the first 11 years of SCOOP, there wasn’t a single tournament champion from the southeast Asian country — but that changed last night. “Hieucbvn96“, from Vietnam, was one of three players who arranged a near even chop of SCOOP-87-L, divvying up the last $32K from a prize pool of around $146K. And then after Ukraine’s “pol555mag” and the UK’s “swoody2k8” were vanquished, only Hieucbvn96 was left, booking a win worth $11,462.67 and claiming the first title. From a field of 29,746 entries, it’s a fine way to put Vietnam on the board and multiply a $5.50 buy-in by 2,084.
TODAY’S RESULTS
| Tournament | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
| 87-L: $5.50 NLHE | 29,746 | $145,755 | Hieucbvn96 | Vietnam | $11,462.67* |
| 87-M: $55 NLHE | 8,782 | $439,100 | eagletore69 | Luxembourg | $48,285.20* |
| 87-H: $530 NLHE | 956 | $500,000 | Bounatirou | UK | $82,365.40 |
| 88-L: $5.50 Fusion 6-Max | 4,094 | $20,061 | shuriken555 | Germany | $2,490.92* |
| 88-M: $55 Fusion 6-Max | 932 | $46,600 | dpsd05 | Netherlands | $7,676.83 |
| 88-H: $530 Fusion 6-Max | 193 | $100,000 | bob43155 | Mexico | $19,945.48 |
| 93-L: $2.20+R NLHE 8-Max, Turbo, Rebuy | 10,609 | $60,078 | NeptuneProject | UK | $6,726.66* |
| 93-M: $22+R NLHE 8-Max, Turbo, Rebuy | 4,111 | $195,240 | judgedredd13 | UK | $27,880.84 |
| 93-H: $215+R NLHE 8-Max, Turbo, Rebuy | 460 | $232,841 | pads1161 | UK | $41,808.65 |
| Daily totals | 59,883 | $1,739,675 | $248,643 |
â inc. bounties
*denotes deal
STAT TRACKER
Well, will you look at that. As players flocked to the rebuy turbo tables last night, one of them became the 2 millionth entry to SCOOP this year. And our tracker is going to keep counting for another week at least…
Tournaments completed: 270
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Starting today: 15
Entries so far: 2,041,236
Prize pools so far: $138,979,362
First-place prizes awarded: $19,234,415
Totals refer to completed tournaments only.
FEATURE! FEATURE! FEATURE!
In our most recent SCOOP feature, a whole gallery of SCOOP winners shared their answers to one crucial question: “What common mistakes do players make at the tables to make them exploitable?”
If you want to know what the likes of Charlie “Epiphany77” Carrel and Preben “prebz” Stokkan have noticed, which you might still be doing, this is going to help you a great deal. “The biggest mistake is not to have bankroll managementâ SAYS Robert â4bet_meâ Rohr, who took down 68-M: $109 NLHE. âBut sometimes it is worth taking a shot.â
There’s some excellent advice here for players of all bankrolls and abilities.
The SCOOP mistakes youâre making (according to the champions who beat you)
INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS!
We’ve been catching up with numerous other SCOOP champions over the series, happy to share the secrets of their success, or simply to introduce themselves to the poker world. Most recently, the $55 Sunday Kickoff champ Fellipe âFellipeDâ Drapichinski admitted, “This is the best moment of my career.” Read the full interview.
Adam Jonsson: SCOOP-46 winner
Pedro “BigodinSagaz” Henrique: Following a path to success
LĂĄszlĂł âLackoo87gcbâ MolnĂĄr: “I think I’m starting to like it!”
Cristian âChapexâ Chapoñan: One for Peru
Jonathan “Corback_fr” Therme: Sunday Million winner left speechless
Nicolas âNicoverlastâ Wright: pacing a treadmill to success
Swedish pro Adam âpruttzz12â Jonsson: How to beat Urbanovich, Beresford and Kurganov
Vitor âvitoradironâ Adiron: “I’ll continue working on my failures”
Guilherme âteruliroâ Orrico: Two WCOOPs and now one SCOOP
“plens” targets bucket-list EPT appearance
Tapio âPikkuHUMPPAâ Vihakas: “I am as lazy as a human can be”
Catalina âcatam18â Marmureanu”: A result for all women in poker
Paul âpistolp999â Kroezen: A triumph of perseverence
Adam “adamyid” Owen: Defeating end-boss “veeea”
Matt “MUSTAFABET” Ashton: Tournaments are practice for cash games
Antanas âNr1InEuropeâ Bakaitis: “I’m no good at Texas Hold’em!
“MarkBang”: First out to last man standing
“thegodfisher”: Busy broker finds time to win SCOOP title
Oleg âFukurukuâ Vasylchenko: Poor student becomes richer
Michael âMalicious20â Cottier: $9.5K from a $2.20 buy-in tournament!
Dimitrios âpapadatos69â Papadatos: Making most of downturn in tourism
William “Williaml666” Barbosa: Best feeling ever!
Last hand double-KO gives âPufuMiuâ win in Event #11-L
TWITCH WATCH
It’s fair to say Spraggy wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to this hand when an early-position raiser decided to four-bet push over Spraggy’s three bet from the big blind. Spraggy had ace-queen and decided to call for the bounty. What did the raiser have? Well, Spraggy soon did become a lot more involved in the hand, put it that way…
The dust is still settling on both Lex and Spraggy’s main event runs, but both are obviously back at the tables and trying to snag the still-elusive trophy. It’s going pretty well for Lex in the $530 Afternoon Deep Stack, where he sits 40th of 50 remaining (from a starting field of 734). This big pot helped. “Happy days!”
Ready to sign up for PokerStars and play SCOOP? Click here to get an account.
TOP TWEETS
Niclas “@niclas_1988” Hansen plays on PokerStars as Salckin and, as he shared with his Twitter followers last night, it’s going to be a very busy Sunday for the man from Oslo:
Ready for not one, not two, but three day twos tomorrow! Lost a few hands in the last minutes of the biggest one, but we can spin that stack up in a few hours!#Poker #SundayFunday #SCOOP2020 #ItWasAGreatSaturday #LetsMakeItAnEvenGreaterSunday @PokerStars pic.twitter.com/5zpL7xqM3O
â Niclas Hansen (@niclas_1988) May 24, 2020
Poker News on the case
FOLLOW THE ACTION LIVE!
Our friends at Poker News took it relatively easy last night on the live updates front, but only because they know there’s a packed Sunday coming up.
The Main Event “Second Chance” gets the full Poker News treatment, with blow-by-blow coverage of the $530 and $5,200 hold’em tournaments, as well as the $5,200 PLO. There’s $1.5 million guaranteed in each of the former two and $750K in the latter.
LEADER BOARD LATEST
Although we still haven’t seen him collecting a trophy this year, Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira continues to plug away and he added a further 35 points to his leader board tally overnight. It’s been absolutely relentless from the Netherlands-based Portuguese player this year. Patrick “pads1161” Leonard is now in the top five after his outright victory, and one senses the whole thing isn’t quite yet over…
Latest standings:
1 – Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira, Netherlands, 1,650 points
2 – Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi, UK, 1,375
3 – “krakukra”, Russia, 1,280
4 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, 1,135
5 – Körrinho, Austria, 1,090
(Prizes: 1st: $50,000 + Trophy; 2nd: $20,000; 3rd: $10,000)
COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD
Players from the UK pulled off a clean sweep of the rebuy event last night, winning low, medium and high buy-in events. With a fourth title coming thanks to Dominik Nitsche in the $530 NLHE, the Brits put breathing space again between them and Brazil at the top of the countries standings.
With Vietnam claiming a first title of the series, 42 countries are now on the leader board — coincidentally, the same number of victories players based in the UK have managed.
Latest standings:
42: UK
37: Brazil
25: Russia
18: Germany
17: Netherlands
11: Canada, Ukraine
Nine: Norway, Austria
Eight: Mexico
Seven: Sweden, Ireland
Six: Finland
Five: Greece, Hungary, Belarus
Four: Poland, Argentina, Lithuania, Romania
Three: China, Peru
Two: Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Lebanon, Japan, Luxembourg.
One: Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Uruguay, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, South Korea, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macau, Cyprus, Moldova, Latvia, Vietnam.
STARTING TODAY
Day 25: Sunday, May 24
Did things not go according to plan in the Main Event last weekend? That’s OK. The extended schedule today offers you a second chance in both NLHE and PLO, with a nice $5,200 buy-in on the high price point. That means there are guarantees of $1.5 million in the NLHE and $750,000 in the PLO, which is attractive to all.
8pm ET – Event 94: NLHE Sunday Kickoff
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $75,000, $250,000, $350,000
10.30pm ET – Event 95: NLHE 8-Max, Sunday Warm-Up PKO
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $150,000, $500,000, $500,000
1pm ET – Event 96: NLHE 2nd Chance Main Event
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Guarantees: $1 million, $1.5 million, $1.5 million
2.15pm ET – Event 97: PLO 6-Max, 2nd Chance PLO Main Event
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Guarantees: $150,000, $300,000, $750,000
5pm ET – Event 98: NLHE 8-Max, Turbo, PKO, Sunday Cooldown
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $60,000, $200,000, $500,000
GET SCHOOLED
There are still tons of chances to join the SCOOP action. And if you’re thinking about doing that for the first time, or maybe are returning to the tables after a break, you will be well advised to read PokerStars School’s online tutorials. They are always relevant.
PokerStars School has all the information you need on how to get involved, how to make sure you have the right bankroll, how to play the satellites and how to play the tournaments themselves.
Click through to get yourself properly prepared:
Am I SCOOP ready? Planning, bankroll, mindset
Gearing up for SCOOP – General tournament strategy
Multi table tournaments (MTT) course
Poker satellite strategy
PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE
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