After years of trying, Lex Veldhuis finally came through. On Monday, the Team PokerStars Pro and prolific streamer won his very first Championship of Online Poker on Stars, taking the crown in the $5,200 No-Limit Hold’em Titans event in the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP).
The high stakes tournament attracted the world’s best online poker players and Veldhuis readily admitted on social media beforehand that he “might be the worst player at the table.” He also said that it relaxed him a bit, as even though he was at yet another COOP final table that he so desperately wanted to win, he didn’t expect to win it.
He began the final table in the middle of the pack, but went into heads-up play against Ignacio “Nacho124441” Morón with around a 3-to-1 chip lead. Veldhuis got it in good on the final hand, but it was close, as Nacho had A-T.
Live streaming the action as he usually does, Veldhuis didn’t make a sound as the virtual dealer dealt the flop: Q-4-4. Safe for now, but Nacho had two overcards and a runner-runner possibility. The 8 on the turn removed the runner-runner chances, but added another card (along with the Queen) that, if paired, would counterfeit Veldhuis’s Threes and give the hand to Nacho, who would have better kickers.
So Veldhuis had to fade a bunch of cards: Aces, Queens, Tens, and Eights. And that’s just what he did. A Nine fell on the river and with that, Veldhuis let out a gigantic, “YESSSSSSSS!” as he finally had that elusive COOP title, not to mention over $140,000.
Winning his first COOP in this tournament, specifically, was also meaningful to Lex Veldhuis. Speaking with the PokerStars blog, he said:
It’s almost a triple win. I remember when I got second in a COOP last year — a really small one, an $11 6+ event. I was gutted. I was like, wow. It was only then that I really understood what having a COOP title meant to me, even a small one. They really all count.
So, I would have been super happy to win an $11 SCOOP. But I also got a big prize AND it was against the best competition in the world. I really maxxed out.
Veldhuis actually hopped back into SCOOP events and kept right on playing and streaming shortly after his win. He said that opponents at his tables congratulated him, which amazed him, as he realized that all sorts of people were watching, even those who were currently playing in SCOOP tourneys.
For a guy who has had a lot of success both playing poker and streaming his play, it seems strange that it took him this long to get a PokerStars COOP win, but he has one now and it is certainly a day he will not forget.
