SCOOP 2021: Third title of series for Montenegro’s rising star, Nevanlinna bags two in one night

It’s been another absolute top day at the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) tables. The first triple champion has emerged and an old hand rushed pulled off a same-day double. Here’s the latest bulletin…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Montenegro’s Kaladjurdjevic is 2021’s first triple champion
• Russian players dominate all three tiers of NLO8
• Player of the Series contender Jussi Nevanlinna earns two in one night
• Sami Kelopuro, Elias Gutierrez, and “Anjeyyy” among winners

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Montenegro’s rising star grabs third title: Since the start of SCOOP 2021 less than a week ago, we’ve been following the almost unbelievable journey of Dejan “dejanlc357” Kaladjurdjevic. On Day 1 of the series, Kaladjurdjevic won the $530 Kickoff event for a total of $78k. In doing so, he became Montenegro’s first and only SCOOP winner. A few days later, Kaladurdevic won a near-identical PKO event for $64k, becoming a double champion. And now, less than 24 hours later, he’s has done it again. Kaladjurdjevic tactfully maneuvered through the $1,050 Deepstack, outlasting a tough field of 277 players, many of them pros, to win $52,742 and his third SCOOP title – third of all time, third of the series, and a third for Montenegro. We expected a few double champions, but we’ll admit we didn’t see this one coming. It’s still early doors too, which begs the question, could Kaladjurdjevic make it four or even more?

Monster prizes in midweek high stakes event: With 139 entries and a $750k prize pool, the 18-H midweek event yielded epic moneys up top for the winners. It wasn’t an easy ride though. Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, “silentm0de” and Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro were all up there on the final table. UK poker pro and 2019 WCOOP winner Elias “SinKarma” Gutierrez eventually prevailed, beating “Internet93o” in a heads-up battle that was essentially worth over $50k. Inernet93o took $120,000 for second, and SinKarma earned a massive $174,375.

Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna earns a SCOOP double – two in one night

Two in one night for Nevanlinna: Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna is always a huge threat in SCOOP. By 2016, he had three titles to his name. In 2018, he won a further two titles to make it five in total, in the process claiming Player of the Series. Last night, Nevanlinna did the unthinkable and won two more SCOOP titles, taking down both the low and high versions of the FLO8 event for a combined total of over $28k. Aside from the momentous achievement of claiming two titles in one night, these victories also catapulted Nevanlinna to joint first in the low stakes leaderboard, first in the high leaderboard, and first in the overall Player of the Series standings. Nice one.

Russian’s completely dominate No-limit Omaha: It was a completely dominant performance by Russian players in all three tiers of the PKO NLO8 events. In the high version, four of the six final table players hailed from Russia, including second place “FONBET_RULIT” and first place “RedPh0enix”, the latter earning $49,068 after accumulating a huge bounty total. “Linker500” won the low version for $6,707, and “MAMbl4” took down the medium for $19,832. That’s three of the five titles that Russia have added to the country leaderboard.

Sami “Lrzlsk” Kelopuro, one of online poker’s greatest players, earns his third SCOOP title

First title for Ukranian pro “Anjeyyy”: This is a player who’s name we see a lot on the final tables of big weekly tourneys. “Anjeyyy” from Ukraine has over $3.4 million in online cashes, including a second place finish in a WCOOP Super Tuesday for $309k, but they’ve never quite locked up a COOP. Until now. Anjeyyy slogged through an extremely tough field in the $530 rebuy event to proudly take what seemed rightly theirs. Pros like Shakerchi and Yuri Martins fell just before the final table, and four time SCOOP winner “Legenden” was out in sixth. Anjeyyy beat “DeuceofDuc” of the Netherlands heads-up, earning $83,389 and their first title.

Sami Kelopuro makes it three with Turbo win: The night wrapped up in spectacular fashion with one of online poker’s all-time greats winning a fast and furious tourney. Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro has over $17.2 million in online cashes, two WCOOP titles, one Blowout Series, one Turbo Series, and already had two SCOOP titles to his name, one of which was the 2011 Main Event for $735,300. Last night, the Finnish pro took down the $1,050 Turbo event in just four and a half hours of intense poker action, earning $70,557 and his third SCOOP title.

TODAY’S RESULTS

†inc. bounties
*denotes deal

STAT TRACKER

Five days into SCOOP 2021 and prizes have already breached the $25 million mark, with first place winners paid over $3.9 million, including over half a million in bounties. Here’s the latest stats:

Entries: 341,563 (inc. 47,162 re-entries)
Prize pools: $27,970,823
First place payouts: $3,922,065 (inc. $500,149 in bounties)
Tournaments completed: 69
Tournaments ongoing: 3
Tournaments starting today: 0

(Note: Stats from completed tournaments only)

TWITCH WATCH

None of the usual streamers made Day 2s, so it was a day off Twitch in that respect. PokerStars Central held the fort, broadcasting Elias “SinKarma” Gutierrez’s huge $174k win. Here’s the last hand:

COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD

Russian players dominated the Omaha and picked up a total of five more titles. Finland also pulled off five, two of those coming from Nevanlinna’s double. Kaladjurdjevic continues to single-handedly move Montenegro up with another title win. Meanwhile, Brazil maintain a solid lead with another three. Here’s the latest country leaderboard standings:

Latest standings:

15 titles – Brazil
11 – Russia
7 – Finland, UK
3 – Romania, Hungary, Montenegro
2 – Czech Republic, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden
1 – Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Ukraine

TODAY’S ACTION

Today is the day of rest for SCOOP 2021. There’s no official events starting, but if you want to stay in on the action you can pick from a number of interesting Side Events:

SCOOP Side Event: PKO, big bounties
Buy-ins: $1.10, $11, $109
Gtd: $8k, $40k, $60k

SCOOP Side Event: PL Badugi
Buy-ins: $2.20, $22, $215
Gtd: $2k, $6k, $18k

SCOOP Side Event: NLHE/PLO, PKO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Gtd: $6k, $20k, $40k

LEADER BOARD LATEST

There’s been major movement in the leaderboards, with Jussi Nevanlinna’s double moving him right up to the top spot in the Low, High and Overall standings. Dejan “dejanlc357” Kaladjurdjevic, the player from Montenegro who is SCOOP 2021’s first triple champion, has moved to second in the High. Meanwhile, Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, despite not picking up a title, has cashed consistently enough to move up too. Here’s how the leaderboards look at the end of Day 5:

Low
=1 – andreyayo9, Canada – 165 points
=1 – Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna, Finland – 165
=1 – rawsignature, Norway – 165
-4 – AwadeuS, Indonesia – 160
=5 – Alex_Vol, Russia – 155

Prizes: 1st – $5,000 + Trophy; 2nd – $2,500; 3rd – $1,500 (20 players rewarded)

Medium
-1 – aleksandrs10, Russia – 230 points
-2 – Ilari “Fabahaba” Tahkokallio, Finland – 180
-3 – römpsä, Finland – 165
=4 – Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos, UK – 160
=4 – B–rabbit444, Norway – 160

Prizes: 1st – $10,000 + Trophy; 2nd – $7,500; 3rd – $5,000 (10 players rewarded)

High
-1 – Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna, Finland – 355 points
-2 – Dejan “dejanlc357” Kaladjurdjevic, Montenegro – 300
-3 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, UK – 280
-4 – Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro, Finland – 235
-5 – Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden, Finland – 225

Prizes: 1st – $15,000 + Trophy; 2nd – $10,000; 3rd – $5,000

Overall Player of the Series

-1 – Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna, Finland – 670 points
=2 – aleksandrs10, Russia – 510
=2 – Ilari “Fabahaba” Tahkokallio, Finland – 510 points
-4 – Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, UK – 420
-5 – Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi, UK, 330

Winner: $25,000 + Trophy

See official SCOOP page for more details

PLAYER PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

With ten titles to his name, Calvin Anderson is the undisputed SCOOP greatest of all time

We’ve been taking a look back at some of SCOOP’s most decorated performers. Here’s our series of SCOOP’s greatest players of all time:

Calvin “cal42688” Anderson
Mike “SirWatts” Watson
Shawn “buck21” Buchanan
Connor “blanconegro” Drinan
Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira

WATCH! WATCH! WATCH!

PokerStars’ streaming army will be out in force during this SCOOP, with all of Lex Velduis, Spraggy, Fintan “easywithaces” Hand, Arlie “Prince Pablo” Shaban, Mason “Pyefacepoker” Pye and Georgina “GJReggie” James certain to be playing most, if not all, days.

The PokerStars central Twitch and YouTube account will also be streaming cards-up final table action five nights a week. Here’s the schedule.

SCOOP 2021 broadcast schedule