Not content in topping its rivals, PokerStars keeps wanting to top itself. Case in point: the 2018 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). This year’s edition of the exceedingly popular online poker series will feature $65 million in guaranteed prize pools, $10 million more than the guarantees from last year. Running May 6th through May 21st, the schedule is comprised of 61 events, four more than last year. And since this is SCOOP, that means that each event has three buy-in levels, so that’s 183 tournaments in total.
As PokerStars rightly boasts, every day of the 2018 SCOOP will have at least one tournament with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. Four of the days will have multiple $1 million guarantees.
The highlight, of course, is the No-Limit Hold’em Main Event, which will be at 2:00pm server time on Sunday, May 20th. The $109 buy-in “Low” Main Event will have a $1.5 million guarantee, the $1,050 buy-in “Medium” Main Event will have a $4 million guarantee, and the $10,300 buy-in “High” Main Event will have a $5 million guarantee.
As always, there will be a SCOOP leaderboard to track which players perform the best over all events. The overall leaderboard winner will win a Platinum Pass valued at $30,000. The Platinum Pass includes a $25,000 seat in the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship (PSPC) live tournament, six nights’ accommodation at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, and $2,000 in food and beverage allowances.
The top three finishers on the high leaderboard will win $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000, respectively (and one would think the high leaderboard’s top player will also be the overall winner). The top ten on the medium leaderboard will win money with $7,500 going to the winner, and the top 25 on the low leaderboard will score extra cash, with the winner taking $5,000.
The winner of each Main Event will also receive a Platinum Pass, as will the winner of a special All-In Shootout.
In addition, everyone who has played in any SCOOP event in the past will have access to a special 10th anniversary freeroll in which $50,000 in SCOOP tickets will be given away. The freeroll will be held May 5th.
And, as this is PokerStars, no poker series can be run without the requisite special Spin & Go tourneys. These Spin & Go’s with buy-ins of $7.50 and $35 will give players the chance to win SCOOP buy-ins worth up to $25,000. There will also be a couple weekly Spin & Go challenges that will provide players who complete them entry into a SCOOP ticket freeroll.
And that’s that. Lots of events, gazillions of dollars in guarantees, a quintet of Platinum Passes, Spin & Go promotional jazz, a leaderboard triptych, the 2018 SCOOP has all the trappings one would expect. If you want to start planning your May, the complete schedule is available on the PokerStars website.