Three versions of the inaugural PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Main Event played out on Monday, with j.thaddeus taking down the high-stakes $10,300 buy-in tournament for nearly $1 million.
A total of 502 players turned out for the five-figure buy-in Main Event. j.thaddeus’ victory was worth $963,000, the largest payday given out during the two week tournament series. The event broke its $5 million guarantee, with the top 54 players finishing in the money. The winner hails from Ireland and edged out German PokerStars member ragen70 heads-up; the runner up brought home a $715,000 consolation prize. Well-known live and online poker pro Jon “PearlJammer” Turner grabbed third place in the high-stakes Main Event, pocketing $527,000 for his efforts. Others who reached the final table included MazeOrBowie (fourth place for $401,600), $teveyMoney (fifth place for $281,120), Chowdahhead4 (sixth place for $213,350), actionDJ (seventh place for $163,150), Moorman1 (eighth place for $112,950), and teacuppoker (ninth place for $83,332). Chris “Moorman1” Moorman is one of the top U.K. poker players.
The mid-stakes Main Event, which featured a buy-in of $1,050, attracted a field of 3,198 entrants, over six times the size of the high-stakes installment. In the end, Team PokerStars Pro member J.C. Alvarado, who is better known by the name “PrtyPsux” online, emerged as its champion, $502,000 richer for his wear. He defeated ErikXP heads-up and proved that his runner up finish in the 2007 World Poker Tour’s World Poker Challenge was no fluke. Also seeing significant paydays were Crisper (third place for $263,835), Ericb09 (fourth place for $183,885), weeminer (fifth place for $135,915), phinomenon (sixth place for $103,935), fan4mizzou (seventh place for $71,955), hasuace (eighth place for $39,975), and Teejmeister1 (ninth place for $25,584). A total of six countries were represented at the final table.
The $109 buy-in didn’t deter a whopping 18,747 players from entering the low-stakes SCOOP Main Event. It was the second largest SCOOP tournament held, trailing only the 27,134 players who turned out for the low-stakes version of Event 1. French PokerStars player JannotLapin took home $151,000 for the win in one of the rare opportunities to turn $100 into life-changing money in a matter of a few hours. The tournament was chopped when four players remained, with Sador1983 (second place for $113,000), Tiktok23 (third place for $120,000), and Naxer (fourth place for $110,000) also amassing large paydays. Neither the mid-stakes nor high-stakes Main Events were chopped.
In stats released by PokerStars, pusteblume and teacuppoker led the way with 15 cashes each, the most among any player in the SCOOP series. The country with the most number of cashes, as expected, was the United States with 13,418. Players from the U.S. earned over $20 million from SCOOP tournaments.
One of the most impressive performances of the SCOOP series was a dual win by Terrence “Unassigned” Chan, who took down both the mid-stakes and high-stakes versions of Event 20, a Limit Hold’em Six-Max tournament, on the same night for a combined $185,000. A total of 99 players turned out for the high-stakes tournament, while Chan had to battle 539 other competitors in the mid-stakes installment. Chan hails from Hong Kong and defeated jasjas11 in the mid-stakes tournament, while besting one of the world’s top online poker players, Shaun Deeb, heads-up in the high-stakes edition.
PokerStars member thehoffa also took down two events. He won the low-stakes version of Event 2 for $10,000 and then promptly emerged victorious in the low-stakes Eight Game Mixed tournament (Event 15) for another $13,000. A total of 21 events awarded first place prizes of $100,000 or more.
The online poker world now awaits the start of the 12th Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS), which will kick off on May 6th. The tournament series consists of 25 events and will also include a MiniFTOPS schedule. The Main Event of the high-stakes FTOPS is a $535 buy-in tournament with $2.5 million in guaranteed prize money. It will be hosted by Full Tilt pro Jennifer Harman and occurs on Sunday, May 17th, just 10 days before the start of the 2009 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
