Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk is one of the most renowned online poker players in the game. For years he’s battled at the high-stakes cash games, while also finding time to win a World Series of Poker gold bracelet and win the PokerStars Mountain Series $700 Kilimanjaro for $162,952. However, the one thing missing from his impressive résumé was a “COOP” title.

That all changed this past weekend when he navigated a tough final table and dispatched Oliver “sk2ll_m0dR” Wies in heads-up play to win SCOOP-43-H: $2,100 NL Hold’em [1R1A] for $115,000. 

“I’ve actually never won any COOP before, but the main reason is I never really play them,” Polk said while attending Jason Somerville’s Run It Up Reno!. “Most of the time when it comes to tournament it’s such a grind. Because I was playing on Twitch, I got in basically every single tournament, grinded them every day. I was just lucky I managed to take one down.”

What’s more, Polk did it while streaming to thousands of viewers on Twitch!

“People were going nuts,” Polk said of his stream. “First off, you have to turn on subscribers-only chat. It was a really cool final table because at one point with seven people left I was the shortest. It was getting ropey at the final table, but once it got down to heads up I really felt I had a really good chance to win because that’s the format I play. Everyone was just loving it.”

The tournament featured a $250K guarantee, but thanks to 151 entrants that accounted for 42 rebuys and 57 add-ons, that was doubled as a $500,000 prize pool was distributed to the top 18 players.

The defending champ, Ankush “pistons87” Mandavia busted in 98th place, while poker pro David “dpeters17” Peters had the unfortunate distinction of bubbling the final table in 19th place. From there nine players hit the rail before the final table of nine was established. Among those to fall were Oliver “ollie_p” Price (18th – $10,250), Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (15th – $10,750), Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser (14th – $10,750), and Darren Elias (13th – $10,750).

Here’s how things stacked up at the start of the final table:

Pavel “3P3NIPA” Plesuv – 609,105
James “Andy McLEOD” Obst – 440,407
Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk – 419,274
Sergio “zcedrick” Aido – 363,075
Miguel “Gandalf MR” Riera – 177,923
Justin “birddy420” Ouimette – 175,756
Oliver “sk2ll_m0dR” Wies – 159,042
Alexander “EvnomiYa” Mordvinov – 81,805
Sami “lrslzk” Kelopuro – 73,613

In the final hand of the tournament, which took place in the 10,000/20,000/2,500 level, Weis (1,181,344) raised to 50,000 holding the [Ts][6c] on the button and Polk (1,318,656) defended the big blind with the [Js][7s]. Both players checked the [Jc][9h][Jh] flop, and then Polk led out for 140,000 on the [Td] turn.

Weis called, the [6s] completed the board on the river, and Polk bet 525,000. Weis responded by moving all in for 988,844 total, and Polk took to the chat.

“Lol, I’m never good [here] but will still call,” he said before doing just that. Polk was wrong as his trips was in fact the best hand, which sent Weis to the rail in second place with an $80,000 consolation prize.

“The most notable hand was the final table of the tournament,” explained Polk, who played SCOOP from Vancouver. “I over-bet the river for value and he jammed. I even said it in the chat that I was calling but l was never good. Emotionally, I felt I’m never going to win, but luckily for me I don’t really use that side of my brain to make decisions. I just go with a more pure math style. If you’re to over-bet and fold trips to a min-raise, you’re going to get owned. I want to give that guy props, he went for it. It was a pretty crazy hand, but really exciting to win that.”

“BOOM, won the 2k cubed,” Polk tweeted after the win before staying on his grind while streaming his action from SCOOP-49-H: $21,000 NL Hold’em [Heads-Up, High-Roller], $400K Guaranteed.

“That’s not an event I can skip. I have to play that. I was playing the final table while playing the $21k. I was like two tabling. I actually won both matches. What sucked in the heads up is I had to play “Donger Kim” in the second round. He is a student of mine, one of my best friends, but luckily I let him know who the coach was.”

SCOOP-43-H: $2,100 NL Hold’em [1R1A], $250K Guaranteed
Entrants: 151 (42 rebuys, 57 add-ons)
Prize Pool: $500,000
Place Paid: 18

1st – Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk (Australia) $115,000
2nd – Oliver “sk2ll_m0dR” Wies (Germany) $80,000
3rd – Sergio “zcedrick” Aido (UK) $60,750
4th – James “Andy McLEOD” Obst (Australia) $45,000
5th – Pavel “3P3NIPA” Plesuv (Czech Republic) $30,000
6th – Miguel “Gandalf MR” Riera (UK) $25,000
7th – Justin “birddy420” Ouimette (Canada) $20,000
8th – Alexander “EvnomiYa” Mordvinov (Russia) $15,000
9th – Sami “lrslzk” Kelopuro (Finland) $12,500

“I’m going to play the ARIA $300k,” Polk said while playing the $125 pot-limit Omaha at RIU Reno. “It’s funny, I’m playing this $125 tournament here, and it’s my only tournament I’m playing in between. Nice little polarization there. I do like polarizing ranges.”

Chad Holloway is a Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Andres ‘Educa-p0ker’ Artinano has been on his own, as a Spaniard living in the U.K with no direction home, but he’s no longer a complete unknown after winning the Medium version of the 2016 SCOOP Main Event.

The day of reckoning. The SCOOP Main Event….

The final SCOOP Sunday rolled around with big tournaments and massive prize pools. The spotlight tournaments were the three SCOOP Main Events pulling in huge crowds of players, including nearly 25,000 entrants in the low buy-in version. After three lon…

No rest for the weary in Event #56! They were going to kick it old school and play from start to finish in a single session during a rare single-day event on the 2016 SCOOP docket. The actual official designation for this event is Progressive Super-Kno…

SCOOP-51-H: $1,050 NL Hold’em [Day 2], $1.5M Guaranteed was a tournament broken down into two parts with the first calling for players to enter one of numerous Day 1 flights and survive 18 levels of play. Those who made it to Day 2 were not only in the money, but able to compete for a $437,420.71 first-place prize.

The tournament attracted 2,813 entries throughout the various starting days, but just 307 made it through to Day 2. Among those to fall in the money were Team PokerStars Pros Marc-Andre “FrenchDawg” Ladouceur (225th – $2,636.90), Naoya “nkenyo” Kihara (156th – $3,326.09), Jason Mercier (86th – $5,323.32), and George Danzer (47th – $6,754.57).

Others who cashed were Joe “smokrokflock” Serock (300th – $2,094.84), Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (294th – $2,094.84), Doug “WCG|Rider” Polk (174th – $3,326.09), Ludovic “ludovi333” Geilich (64th – $6,754.57), and Alex “dynoalot” Difelice (13th – $20,086.38).

Here’s a look at how things stacked up at the start of the final table:

profit76 – 4,570,124
jzjayz88 – 4,166,245
ViCiuSMaXiMu – 3,622,690
Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins – 3,442,515
gordon0410 – 3,334,177
Jack “jackziyang” Salter – 2,704,882
Rob “robtinnion” Tinnion – 2,673,322
ismo
Andreas “Hoegh93” Høgh – 1,359,123

Aces Fail ismo

With the blinds at 35,000/70,000/7,000, Rob “robtinnion” Tinnion (4,460,130) raised to 149,100 from middle position and “ismo

Tinnion checked, ismo

ismo
Tinnion: [6s][7s]

ismo

ViCiuSMaXiMu Runs Into Kings to Bust Eighth

With the blinds at 50,000/100,000/10,000, “profit76” (5,879,053) limped the cutoff and “ViCiuSMaXiMu” (1,117,757) moved all in from the button. Both blinds folded and profit76 made the call.

profit76: [kc][ks]
ViCiuSMaXiMu: [6c][6h]

ViCiuSMaXiMu was looking for a six, but it wasn’t in the cards as the board ran out [7h][8h][as][9s][Jh]. ViCiuSMaXiMu earned $41,300.74 for finishing eighth.

Big Slick Doesn’t Do the Trick for Andreas “Hoegh93” Høgh

Later in the same level, “gordon0410” opened for 210,000 from early position and Andreas “Hoegh93” Høgh (712,371) moved all in from the cutoff. profit76 (5,914,410) then moved all in over the top from the small blind and gordon0410 folded.

Høgh: [as][kd]
profit76: [jd][jc]

It was a flip, but Høgh needed to improve to stay alive. That proved easier said than done as the board ran out an unhelpful [Td][8d][5h][3h][js]. Høgh won $57,938.79 for finishing in seventh place.

Double Knockout Sends Martins Out in Sixth; Salter in Fifth

A few hands later, Jack “jackziyang” Salter (2,813,359) limped under the gun and “jzjayz88” (5,068,936) raised to 270,000 from the hijack. Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins called off for 170,460 from the button, both blinds folded, and Salter called to see a [qh][Ts][4s] flop.

Salter led out for 198,445, jzjayz88 raised to 640,000, and Salter three-bet to 1.15 million. Not to be outdone, jzjayz88 four-bet to 1.8 million and Salter called to see the [9c] turn. Salter shoved his last 733,359 and jzjayz88 called.

jzjayz88: [ad][qc]
Salter: [as][js]
Martins: [10c][8c]

jzjayz88 was ahead with top pair, but both his opponents were drawing very much alive. Fortunately for jzjayz88, the [5c] river was a blanked and he scored the double knockout.

Since he began the hands with less chips, Martins finished sixth for $81,279.66, while Salter took fifth for $114,022.98, his largest online score to date.

gordon0410 Takes His Leave in Fourth Place

With the blinds at 60,000/120,000/12,000, jzjayz88 (6,740,755) raised to 270,000 from the button and was met by an all-in three-bet from gordon0410 (1,758,465) on the button. Tinnion flatted fro the small blind, profit76 called, and then the two active players checked the [5d][Ts][3s] flop.

When the [8d] appeared on the turn, Tinnion bet 900,000, profit76 called, and the [6c] completed the board on the river. Tinnion returned to checking but called when profit76 bet 1.12 million. profit76 showed the [ac][5c], but it was no good as Tinnion held the [9h][9c]. gordon0410 simply mucked and exited in fourth place for $159,957.02.

jzjayz88 Straightened Out in Third Place

With the blinds at 100,000/200,000/20,000, Tinnion (11,417,816) raised to 426,000 on the button holding the [jh][5h] and jzjayz88 (6,402,016) defended the big blind with the [ac][4c].

jzjayz88 then checked the [5d][2s][3h] flop, which gave him a straight, and Tinnion bet 647,680 with top pair. jzjayz88 just called and then led out for 1.2 million on the [9h] turn. Tinnion, who picked up a flush draw, made the call and promptly his another heart on the [8h] river.

jzjayz88 bet another 1.2 million, Tinnion moved all in, and jzjayz88 called off his remaining 2,908,336. With that, jzjayz88 was out in third place for $224,395.82.

Tinnion vs. profit76 for the Title

Heads-up play began with Tinnion holding 17,939,832 in chips to profit76’s 10,190,168, but the stacks fluctuated in what turned out to be a back-and-forth affair. Eventually profit76 pulled out to a lead, and things came to a head in the 120,000/240,000/24,000 level.

In what would be the final hand of the tournament, profit76 (21,000,050) raised to 480,000 from the button with the [kh][2h], Tinnion (7,129,950) called from the big blind with the [7s][6s], and the flop came down [7h][5d][4d].

Tinnion check-called a bet of 385,020, the [Ks] appeared on the turn, and profit76 bet 1,373,506 after his opponent checked. Tinnion called and then checked for a third time on the [2c] river. profit76 moved all in and Tinnion opted to call off his remaining 4,867,424. With that, Tinnion was out in second place for $314,794.10 while profit76 finished as the winner for whooping $437,420.71.

SCOOP-51-H: $1,050 NL Hold’em [Day 2], $1.5M Guaranteed
Entrants: 2,813 entries (307 on Day 2)
Prize Pool: $2,813,000
Place Paid: 307

1st: profit76 (Romania) $437,420.71
2nd: Rob “robtinnion” Tinnion (UK) $314,794.10
3rd: jzjayz88 (China) $224,395.82
4th: gordon0410 (UK) $159,957.02
5th – Jack “jackziyang” Salter (Cyprus) $114,022.98
6th – Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (Australia) $81,279.66
7th – Andreas “Hoegh93” Høgh (Denmark) $57,938.79
8th – ViCiuSMaXiMu (UK) $41,300.74
9th – ismo

This year’s SCOOP is winding down, but until it does can find recaps for each event right here on the PokerStars Blog.

Chad Holloway is a Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

One of the more interesting events on the 2016 SCOOP schedule — SCOOP-51-M: $109 NL Hold’em [Day 2], $1M Guaranteed – concluded Monday night. The tournament was broken down into two parts with the first calling for players to enter one of numerous Day 1 flights and survive 22 levels of play. If they did that, not only did they advance to Day 2, they were also in the money.

Over all the starting flights, 14,482 entrants took to the felt, but just 954 of them advanced to Day 2. Among those to do so, but subsequently fall over the course of play were Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier (415th – $645.75), Adi Agarwal (254th – $1,012.29), Jaime Staples (189th – $1,271.08), Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen (175th – $1,271.08), and Jake Cody (115th – $1,599.24). 

Others who went even deeper were Mike “pipedream17” Dietrich (67th – $2,575.47), Bertie “bigstealer” Bayley (23rd – $4,709.25), and David “davidv1213” Vamplew (19th – $4,709.25), just to name a few.

Here’s a look at how things stacked up at the start of the final table:

tuk-tuk17 – 26,914,147
clan1 – 23,053,250
tzini9 – 21,909,305
Giorgos “gkap13” Kapalas – 19,141,277
pol17pl – 16,082,711
dampfnudel77 – 14,757,321
Bluf_To_Much – 10,211,771
mathiijs992 – 6,542,070
Harleyy20040 – 6,208,148

Bad Beat Sends tzini9 Out in Ninth

With the blinds at 180,000/360,000/36,000, “pol17pl” opened for 799,200 under the gun and action folded to Giorgos “gkap13” Kapalas (25,525,827), who three-bet to 2,066,525 from the button. “tzini9” (20,765,305) then four-bet to 5,299,999 from the big blind, pol17pl folded, and Kapalas moved all in. tzini9 quickly called off and the cards were turned up.

tzini9: [ad][ah]
Kapalas: [kd][kh]

It was a cooler for Kapalas, but it turned out to be a bad beat for tzini9 as the [ks][6s][2c] flop delivered his opponent a set. Neither the [2d] turn nor [7c] river helped tzini9, and he was sent out the door in ninth place for $12,931.84.

Cracked Aces Also Send dampfnudel77 to the Rail

Not long after, cracked aces spelled doom for “dampfnudel77.” It began when “tuk-tuk17” (23,373,597) opened for 720,000 under the gun and “Bluf_To_Much” (13,043,715) called from the cutoff. pol17pl called from the button, dampfnudel77 (12,356,778) three-bet to 3,100,766 from the small blind, and tuk-tuk17 folded.

Bluf_To_Much called, pol17pl folded, and it was heads-up action to the [5c][9d][qd] flop. dampfnudel77 bet 2,612,345, Bluf_To_Much called, and the [4s] appeared on the turn. dampfnudel77 moved all in for 6,607,667, and Bluf_To_Much snap-called.

Bluf_To_Much: [qh][qc]
dampfnudel77: [ad][as]

Bluf_To_Much flopped a set, and he successfully cracked the aces when the [2d] blanked on the river. dampfnudel77 took home $18,141.45 for his eighth-place finish.

Harleyy20040 Takes His Leave in Seventh Place

With the blinds at 200,000/400,000/40,000, Kapalas (49,854,332) raised to 840,000 from early position and “Harleyy20040″(6,140,948) defended his big blind to see a [7d][6d][Tc] flop.

Harleyy20040 checked, Kapalas bet 836,250, and Harleyy20040 check-raised all in for 5,260.948. Kapalas called and the cards were revealed.

Harleyy20040: [8d][7c]
Kapalas: [Qd][Th]

Harleyy20040 had outs, but neither the [6h] turn nor [Jd] river was what he was looking for. Harleyy20040 boosted his bankroll by $25,449.94 for finishing in seventh place.

mathiijs992 Gets It in Good But Falls in Sixth

In the same blind level, Bluf_To_Much (33,905,153) raised to 820,000 from the cutoff and was met by an all-in three-bet by “mathiijs992” (4,707,230) in the small blind. Bluf_To_Much made the call and mathiijs992 discovered he was a 59.1% favorite.

mathiijs992: [ad][jc]
Bluf_To_Much: [kc][qs]

mathiijs992 got it in good, but Bluf_To_Much pulled ahead on the [qd][3c][6d] flop. The [5h] turn was no help to mathiijs992, and neither was the [8d] river. 

pol17pl Out in Fifth After His Kings Fail to Hold

The next elimination didn’t occur until the 400,000/800,000/80,000 level and it happened when pol17pl (12,290,232) raised to 1,776,000 from the cutoff and then moved all in after “clan1” (24,791,880) raised to 3,688,585 from the small blind. clan1 made the call and pol17pl was primed to double.

pol17pl: [kc][kh]
clan1: [ah][jd]

pol17pl was looking to dodge an ace, but that proved easier said than done as the [7h][as][Td] flop contained one. The [4c] turn left pol17pl looking for a king on the river, but it wasn’t in the cards as the [5s] bricked. pol17pl was awarded $50,085.41 for finishing in fifth place.

tuk-tuk17’s Kicker Problem Results in Him Exiting in Fourth

With the blinds at 600,000/1,200,000/120,000, tuk-tuk17 (16,541,221) open-jammed from the button and clan1 (20,669,482) moved all in over the top from the small blind.

clan1: [ah][th]
tuk-tuk17: [ac][5d]

tuk-tuk17 had a kicker problem, and it didn’t get resolved as the board ran out [8d][3h][2h][jd][Td]. 

Ace on the Flop Sends Bluf_To_Much Out in Third

A few hands later, Bluf_To_Much (24,621,473) raised to 2,655,955 from the small blind and then called off when clan1 (36,370,703) moved all in from the big blind.

clan1: [ad][8c]
Bluf_To_Much: [kh][kd]

Bluf_To_Much was a 71.2% favorite, but not after the [ac][jd][Ts] flop delivered clan1 an ace. Bluf_To_Much picked up a Broadway draw, but he missed as the [2d] blanked on the turn followed by the [9c] on the river. Bluf_To_Much earned $98,567.96 for his third-place finish.

Giorgos “gkap13” Kapalas Has to Settle for Runner-Up

Heads-up play began with Kapalas holding 83,707,824 in chips to clan1’s 61,112,176, but before long the latter pulled out to a small four million lead. Then, with the blinds at 700,000/1,400,000/140,000, Kapalas (70,662,597) raised to 2.8 million from the button, clan1 (74,157,403) called, and the flop came down [kc][2h][7d].

clan1 check-called a bet of 1,862,325, and then checked the [7c] turn. Kapalas bet 4,236625, clan1 check-raised to 12,252,580, and Kapalas called to see the [qh] river. clan1 moved all in, and Kapalas called off for 52,607,692 with the [9h][7h]. Unfortunately for him, his kicker was no good as clan1 held the [7s][ah] to seal the deal.

SCOOP-51-M: $109 NL Hold’em, $1M Guaranteed
Entrants: 14,482 entrants (954 on Day 2)
Prize Pool: $1,448,200
Place Paid: 954

1st – clan1 (Germany) $193,767.77
2nd – Giorgos “gkap13” Kapalas (Cyprus) $138,276.16
3rd – Bluf_To_Much (Moldova) $98,567.96
4th – tuk-tuk17 (Israel) $70,262.46
5th – pol17pl (Poland) $50,085.41
6th – mathiijs992 (Netherlands) $35,702.47
7th – Harleyy20040 (Mexico) $25,449.94
8th – dampfnudel77 (Austria) $18,141.45
9th – tzini9 (Romania) $12,931.84

This year’s SCOOP is winding down, but until it does can find recaps for each event right here on the PokerStars Blog.

Chad Holloway is a Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Phenomenal. Extraordinary. Sensational. What other adjectives could I come up with to describe Shawn ‘buck21’ Buchanan’s long, strange trip through the 2016 SCOOP? Buchanan won his third event at the 2016 SCOOP for his sixth career SCOOP title.

Lock…

Most tournaments on the 2016 SCOOP schedule were two-day events with the occasional quick, one-day tournament plus the Main Events finished up in three. But then we have Event #51, the first time we have a “Phased” SCOOP tournament to run up massive nu…

Back in 2012, Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo closed SCOOP out with an excellent day at the tables, taking down the $10,300 SCOOP-High Main Event for $798K after a three-way deal. The next three years passed without another champion’s watch, and after 11 previous cashes without a final table, it looked like the same might hold true for SCOOP 2016. But after four years and two days of waiting, Nick Grippo has earned his second SCOOP title with another series-closing victory.

The final Sunday Warm-Up Special Edition of SCOOP 2016, Event #52-M kicked off at 11am ET yesterday. The 27 levels of 8-max poker played took the Day 1 field from 4,967 to under 150, paying out the majority of the 640 cashers in the process, including Team Pro’s Liv Boeree (460th place, $397.36).

Team Online was well-represented in the payouts. Both Kosei “K.Ichinose” Ichinose (298th, $476.83) and Caio “Pessagno” Pessagno (234th, $516.56) cashed on Day 1, but Celeste “LadyMaCe86” Orona was still in the hunt with more than half the prize pool remaining when Day 2 began. Her run eventually came to an end in 97th place, good for $993.40.

By 3:48pm ET, all but these eight players had collected their payouts:

Seat 1: pisha4 (2,704,519 in chips)
Seat 2: SergeiOrehov (6,460,110 in chips)
Seat 3: Squa1l (7,959,053 in chips)
Seat 4: Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo (25,321,391 in chips)
Seat 5: Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot (14,345,202 in chips)
Seat 6: Kley (5,045,176 in chips)
Seat 7: Gerardo “g3r4rd0x” Rodriguez (17,292,090 in chips)
Seat 8: passuare (20,212,459 in chips)

Blinds and antes were at 140K/280K/35K, putting pisha4 in immediate danger. The player from Belgium had last made a SCOOP final in 2011, taking third place in a Medium 6-max event, but this stay wouldn’t last quite as long. pisha4 called from the big blind with [5d] [5c] after GripDsNutz raised to 622K, then opened all-in for 2M more when the flop came [4d] [6h] [3c]. GripDsNutz called behind with [Ac] [Jh] but took the lead on the [Jc] turn, and the [Qs] river ended pisha4’s tournament in 8th place ($7,450.50).

SergeiOrehov’s stack had dropped by a about a quarter since the start of the final table. Then the Russian player picked up [Ac] [Ad] under the gun, raised the minimum, and got one caller in Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot. SergeiOrehov led for 725K on the [7c] [8d] [7d] flop, and then again for 722K on the [6c] turn after tonkaaaa called. tonkaaaa raised all-in then, showing [7s] [7h] for flopped quads when SergeiOrehov called. Drawing dead, the Russian player left in 7th place ($12,417.50).

About 15 minutes went by without a knockout, a stretch that saw the blinds and antes rise to 160K/320K/40K. That put added pressure on short stacks Kley and Squa1l, the latter of whom ended up raising all-in for 4.1M in the small blind with [As] [8d] after passuare opened for 640K on the button. passuare called with [Ad] [Jh] and made queens and jacks on the [Jc] [9h] [Qc] [7d] [Qs] board to send Squa1l to the rail in 6th place ($28,808.60).

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

After holding on to a 20-big-blind stack long enough to see it become a 17-big-blind stack when the stakes went up to 200K/400K/50K, Kley would be the next to go. The Swedish player moved all-in with [Ad] [Kc] over the top of tonkaaaa’s opening raise and ended up in a race with [Qc] [Qd]. Both of Kley’s cards stayed live the whole way, but the [5d] [6d] [Js] [7s] [Jh] board provided no help, eliminating Kley in 5th place ($48,676.60).

Getting a grip

Half of the contenders had been accounted for in the first 43 minutes of play, leaving these four to chase the title:

Seat 4: Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo (34,835,920 in chips)
Seat 5: Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot (26,574,695 in chips)
Seat 7: Gerardo “g3r4rd0x” Rodriguez (13,041,982 in chips)
Seat 8: passuare (24,887,403 in chips)

Nick Grippo immediately put some distance between himself and the other three. On the first hand after Kley’s departure, he made the fourth pre-flop bet for 6.6M in the small blind after g3r4rd0x opened for 840K and passuare re-raised to 2M on the button. g3r4rd0x folded, but passuare called and took the [Ac] [7s] [2s] flop. The Brazilian player raised the minimum after Grippo opened for 3.8M, but Grippo’s all-in three-bet ended the action in the 29.9M-chip pot.

passuare’s 10.5M remaining chips dwindled to 8M before the Brazilian player picked up [Qd] [Qs] and re-raised all-in from the small blind over the top of g3r4rd0x’s 800K opening bet. g3r4rd0x called with [7h] [7s] and 5M chips behind, which looked to be where he would be working from after the [8h] [4d] [Ah] flop and [Kd] turn, but the [7d] river made a set to win the pot for the underdog. That dagger of a river card brought passuare’s tournament to a close in 4th place ($68,544.60).

That pot gave g3r4rd0x 21.5M chips, but the deck didn’t hold many more wins for the past Sunday Million and MicroMillions 7 winner. Three-handed play amplified the effect of 250K/500K/62.5K blinds and antes, and after 20 minutes g3r4rd0x was holding just 10.6M. He limped on the button with [Ad] [Jd] and then shoved when GripDsNutz made it 2M to go in the small blind. GripDsNutz called with [8c] [8s] and made two pair by the time the board read [4s] [4h] [3h] [4c] [3s], taking the 21.8M-chip pot and knocking out g3r4rd0x in 3rd place ($88,412.60).

Winning that pot gave Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo 69.1M chips as he began heads-up play in a SCOOP event for the first time in almost exactly four years. Past Super Tuesday winner and SCOOP 2016 Event #45-H 5th-place finisher Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot 30.1M. They immediately made a deal based on ICM, giving Grippo the bigger share of the money and leaving $12,000 on the table as a brief but entertaining run to the title began.

First Talbot won a race with [Tc] [Th] to Grippo’s [Ks] [Qc] to take the lead by eight big blinds. Then Talbot jammed a few minutes later with [2s] [2h], only to have Grippo call and win with [Ad] [Ah]. Talbot doubled to 26.1M two hands later with [Kc] [Qc] to Grippo’s [Jc] [Jd], and then reclaimed the lead one minute later after winning with [Ad] [Qc] against Grippo’s [Qh] [2h]. Then Grippo won with [Kc] [Kh] against Talbot’s [7c] [7h] to get back to 81.6M in what would be the final lead change of this tournament. Three hands later, Grippo jammed on the button with [Kc] [6d] and Talbot called with [Qc] [Td]. The king on the river of the [Ad] [5h] [7s] [7d] [Ks] made a pair for Grippo, bringing this Sunday Warm-Up Special Edition to its conclusion.

Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot’s share of the heads-up deal was $119,041.85. And Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo, after 11 previous SCOOP 2016 cashes with no final tables and three previous SCOOP series without a title, laid claim to $146,436.43 and his second career SCOOP champion’s watch. Congratulations to him for another fine SCOOP closing day!

SCOOP-52-M ($215 NL Hold’em, 8-Max, Sunday Warm-Up SE) results
Entrants: 4,967
Total prize pool: $993,400
Places paid: 640

1. Nick “GripDsNutz” Grippo (Canada) $146,436.43*
2. Parker “tonkaaaa” Talbot (Canada) $119,041.85*
3. Gerardo “g3r4rd0x” Rodriguez (Peru) $88,412.60
4. passuare (Brazil) $68,544.60
5. Kley (Sweden) $48,676.60
6. Squa1l (United Kingdom) $28,808.60
7. SergeiOrehov (Russia) $12,417.50
8. pisha4 (Belgium) $7,450.50
*Reflects the results of a two-way deal that left $12,000 in play for the winner

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Another day, another final table for Team Online Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara. Persistence pays off, but would he finally break through to the other side?? Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara went on a Badugi heater two weekends ago when he final tabled two different buy-i…

People are hard-wired to look for patterns. Sometimes, though, there really isn’t one when it looks like there is. Just ask Argentina’s tinchoarce, who made a SCOOP final table 2014 and again 2015 without winning a title. After becoming one of the first finalists of SCOOP 2016 in Event #02-M and cashing seven more times during the series without returning to a final, some might have said there was a “one SCOOP final per year, no champion’s watch” pattern developing. Not so much, it turns out. A quick run through the first 5800+ players in Event #55-M – and surviving a close call during heads-up play – allowed tinchoarce to close out SCOOP 2016 with a victory.

The Medium version of the last event on this year’s SCOOP schedule was a $109 no-limit hold’em tournament with ultra-deep stacks and a progressive super-knockout payscale. And to keep things from spilling over into Monday, the turbo structure made every blind level five minutes long. That attracted 5,838 players, the top 765 of whom shared in half of the prize pool. The other $291,900 went to bounties, starting at $25 and progressing upward for the rest of the tournament.

The tournament started at 5pm ET and only took five hours and 17 minutes to reach this final table:

Seat 1: grbalazs (25,763,700 in chips)
Seat 2: Zoukki (19,765,438 in chips)
Seat 3: ZAR84 (51,584,704 in chips)
Seat 4: tinchoarce (85,706,659 in chips)
Seat 5: Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich (29,949,357 in chips)
Seat 6: Nacho “PokerLoans1” Barbero (20,868,440 in chips)
Seat 7: mackkim (32,488,113 in chips)
Seat 8: Trem-FCK-Ftp (17,876,196 in chips)
Seat 9: dankol2 (7,897,393 in chips)

It was never going to be a long stay for anybody with the blinds going up every five minutes, but Zoukki’s stay would be the shortest. The FInnish player’s second final table of SCOOP 2016 (after Event #15-M) ended on the first hand after calling all-in with [Ac] [Jc]. Hungary’s grbalazs had moved in from the hijack seat with [Qd] [Td] and paired on the flop of the [Qc] [5s] [8c] [8d] [7c] board to take the 44M-chip pot, ending Zoukki’s day in 9th place ($2,335.20 + $1,860.50 in bounties).

Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich entered the final day of SCOOP 2016 in ninth place on the Player of the Series leaderboard. A finalist in three events already, his quest for a champion’s watch to round it all off would be denied. Sitting on the button with [Kh] [Qc], he effectively moved all-in over the top of tinchoarce’s opening raise, leaving less than a small blind behind. tinchoarce called with [As] [6d], neither player improved on the [4d] [Ts] [9h] [5d] [7d] board, and Colisea’s tournament ended in 8th place ($3,648.75 + $4,121.79 in bounties).

No SCOOP watch for Colisea this year

After stealing the blinds and antes on the next hand, tinchoarce claimed both of the next two knockout bounties on the hand that followed. After opening for 6.7M in the hijack seat with [Ad] [Jh], tinchoarce saw both Nacho “PokerLoans1” Barbero and Trem-FCK-Ftp move all-in, for 10.9M in the cutoff and 26M in the small blind, respectively. tinchoarce called and had just 19.9 percent equity against Barbero’s [As] [Kh] and Trem-FCK-Ftp’s [9c] [9s] before the flop. Then the board came [6s] [8c] [Qc] [Th] [9d], making a straight for tinchoarce to win the 68M chips in the middle. Barbero, owner of the shorter stack and previous SCOOP 2016 finalist in Events #17-H and #49-L, finished in 7th place ($6,567.75 + $1,961.87 in bounties), while Trem-FCK-Ftp wound up in 6th place ($9,486.75 + $2,566.93 in bounties).

That gave tinchoarce 149M chips and all the initiative against dankol2 survived a desperate all-in against the three players hovering between 43M and 49M. dankol2 was in there, too, hanging on by a thread with 2M chips – less than a big blind now at 1.6M/3.2M/400K blinds and antes. Even doubling up twice left the player from Ukraine in desperate straits, and after a shove with [Kh] [6c] was met by tinchoarce’s call with [Kc] [Ts], the board came [7h] [Kd] [4h] [3h] [2c] to eliminate dankol2 in 5th place ($12,405.75 + $1,726.72 in bounties).

tinchoarce stayed the course on the next hand, calling on the button with [Ks] [Js] after MicroMillions 6 Main Event finalist ZAR84 moved in for 21M with [7h] [5h] under the gun. Making three kings on the [Kc] [2c] [9c] [4h] [Kd] board won the pot for tinchoarce, and ZAR84 left in 4th place ($16,492.35 + $1,454.26 in bounties).

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Three hands later grbalazs picked up [7c] [7h] and moved all-in from the big blind after tinchoarce had raised on the button. tinchoarce called with [Tc] [Ts], made an unnecessary set on the river of the [4h] [6d] [Qh] [9c] [Td] board, and eliminated grbalazs in 3rd place ($24,081.75 + $2,876.29 in bounties).

In just 17 minutes, tinchoarce had claimed bounties on six players to reach heads-up play with 226M chips. mackkim had doubled through tinchoarce once during that time, with [Qc] [Js] against [7c] [7s], to avoid the fate that the others had met. Over the next 19 minutes mackkim would not only dodge elimination, but put tinchoarce on the brink of it more than once.

After catching a deuce on the river to survive with [Ks] [2d] against tinchoarce’s [Ah] [9s], mackkim would play defense long enough to pick up [Ac] [Qc] and double up again, this time to 155M, after getting all-in against tinchoarce’s [Qd] [6d]. Then tinchoarce reclaimed a slim lead and three-bet all-in with [As] [Qh] over mackkim’s button opener with [Kc] [Jc]. It was the river that delivered once again, with the [7d] [8c] [Ts] [4h] [Ks] board making a pair of jacks to put mackkim in what looked an insurmountable position.

Holding 274M chips to tinchoarce’s 17M, mackkim would now feel the other side of variance, losing four potentially decisive pots in a row with tinchoarce up against the ropes. The Argentinian player finally reclaimed the lead in a limped pot when the same [8h] turn card that made a flush for [Th] [3h] made a straight for mackkim’s [5h] [2s]. mackkim managed one more double-up with [Jc] [Jd] a few hands later, but calling all-in on the final hand with [Kd] [2s] left the player from Canada dominated by tinchoarce’s [Ks] [Js]. The board fell [7c] [8s] [Kh] [Ah] [6h] and tinchoarce claimed the win.

Finishing in second place was worth $34,006.35 for mackkim, who took down another $2,636.67 in bounties. And the ninth cash of SCOOP 2016 was the charm for tinchoarce, paying off with a first career COOP title and $45,665.40 plus another $12,957.03 in bounties, including seven of the eight bounties available at the final table. Congratulations on wrapping up this series in style!

SCOOP-55-M ($109 NL Hold’em Wrap-Up, Turbo, Ultra-Deep, Progressive Super KO) results
Entrants: 5,838
Total prize pool: $583,800 ($291,900 regular prize pool, $291,900 bounty prize pool)
Places paid: 765

1. tinchoarce (Argentina) $45,665.40 + $12,957.03 in bounties
2. mackkim (Canada) $34,006.35 + $2,636.67 in bounties
3. grbalazs (Hungary) $24,081.75 + $2,876.29 in bounties
4. ZAR84 (Germany) $16,492.35 + $1,454.26 in bounties
5. dankol2 (Ukraine) $12,405.75 + $1,726.72 in bounties
6. Trem-FCK-Ftp (Czech Republic) $9,486.75 + $2,566.93 in bounties
7. Nacho “PokerLoans1” Barbero (Argentina) $6,567.75 + $1,961.87 in bounties
8. Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich (Poland) $3,648.75 + $4,121.79 in bounties
9. Zoukki (Finland) $2,335.20 + $1,860.50 in bounties

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Pretty much everyone is surprised that Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton didn’t win this SCOOP tournament, even dntfrgtame, who won actually won it.

From the start of the final two tables in Event #55-H Turbo PSKO, hitthehole was in peak form. He was a cross somewhere between the Terminator and Predator wiping out every opponent in his path. hitthehole amassed a ginormous stack the size of Mt. Everest and proceeded to pick off the first half of the final table with minimal effort. He even took out two players at once to kick things off at the final table. That auspicious start seemed like an omen or precursor of what’s to come. Alas, once it got three-handed, things went sideways for hitthehole. His magic seemed to…run thin…and he coughed up the lead. He still managed to get heads-up for the bracelet, but it was over as fast as it began. When dntfrgtame landed a haymaker, Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton hit the canvas and was unable to answer the count.

Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton settled for a second-place effort, while Latvia’s dntfrgtame waltzed into the winner’s circle as the newest SCOOP champion. If you add up all the KO-bounties plus the first-place prize in this turbo-charged event, dntfrgtame earned $156K, which is a juicy payday for only five hours of work.

Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton denied a SCOOP; Turbo Super-KO runner-up

By the way… Turbo Ultra-Deep Progressive Super-Knockout… sounds like the name of a hipster band from Brooklyn that would be opening up for the Arctic Monkeys. The high-end version of Event #55-H $1,050 NL Turbo, Ultra-Deep, Progressive Super-KO (a.k.a. TUDPSKO) attracted 1,335 runners. They created a total prize pool of $1,335,000.00. Half of it was split between the regular prize pool and the bounty prize pool or $667,500 each. The top 153 places paid out with $115,210.50 initially set aside to the champ.

With two tables to go, Denmark’s scorpio04 led with 8.7M until hitthehole chipped up to over 9M and rocketed to the top of the pack. hitthehole was just waking up and ready to embark on a heater. Once he got going, you couldn’t stop him. He literally had one switch — ON. He only had one speed — supersonic. He began vacuuming up chips on his short table and even sent aalloonn home on the final table bubble in tenth place when he outflopped aalloonn’s [Ac][Jh] with [Qs][5s].

SCOOP-55-H – Final Table Chip Counts:
Seat 1: daskalos20 (4,943,977)
Seat 2: dntfrgtame (3,243,428)
Seat 3: Brabupada (151,808)
Seat 4: hitthehole (22,837,336)
Seat 5: Garrin4e (6,616,249)
Seat 6: scorpio04 (6,340,471)
Seat 7: selinantis (11,011,520)
Seat 8: altiFC (2,714,482)
Seat 9: 1sag (8,890,729)

The final table commenced during Level 49 with blinds at 200K/400K and a 50K ante. Brabupada barely made the final table with marginal holdings and 152K. hitthehole held the biggest stack with 22M, or twice as much as selinantis in second.

Notables at the final table included… Max ‘altiFC’ Altergott won the EPT9 Monte Carlo Super High Roller in 2013 for a serious score worth €1,746,400… Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton a.k.a. Middy has won nearly $6 million playing online poker and he’s done pretty well for himself in a live setting as well as the EPT10 Bracelona champ… Andreas ‘daskalos20’ Christoforou won nearly $3M online. Christoforou and Middy were at the SAME final table at the EPT Barcelona that Middy won. Talk about a coincidence, eh?

Need a PokerStars account to play SCOOP? Click here to get one.

MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS TOUR: Brabupada eliminated in 9th place and daskalos20 eliminated in 8th place

Of course, Middy liquidated the first two players…in the same hand. Brabupada called all-in for 26,808, hitthehole shoved for 21,712,336, and daskalos20 called 4,268,977.

daskalos20: [Kh][Qd]
hitthehole: [6c][6h]
Brabupada: [As][4s]

Pocket sixes held up for Middy, who actually turned a straight on a board of [9d][7d][5h][8c][3c]. Brabupada and daskalos20 both failed to improve. Brabupada was the first player to exit the final table. Ninth place paid out $7,342.50. daskalos20 was knocked out in second place, which paid out $13,016.25.

Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton banked $4,930.66 for busting daskalos20 and banked $1,062.50 for busting Brabupada. His own bounty increased to whopping $34,083.95.

STEVE BIKO (STIR IT UP): Garrin4e eliminated in 7th place

Three-way all-in. dntfrgtame bombed it all-in for 2,568,428, hitthehole shoved for 29,883,121, Garrin4e called all-in for 7,803,749.

hitthehole: [9s][7s]
Garrin4e: [Ad][Qc]
dntfrgtame: [As][Js]

Of course, Middy was all-in with the worst of it! The board ran out [Qh][6d][5s][Ks][3s]. dntfrgtame tripled up in a side pot by winning with an Ace-high flush. hitthehole won the side pot against Garrin4e after catching a running flush. Garrin4e flopped a pair of Queens, but it failed to hold up. Garrin4e busted in seventh place, which paid out $19,691.25.

Yup, hitthehole earned another bounty. This one was worth $7,662.11. Middy’s own bounty jumped to $41,746.05.

With six to go, hitthehole led with 32M and altiFC was last with 4.9M.

WE CAN GET DOWN: scorpio04 eliminated in 6th place

Guess who won another bounty? Correct… hitthehole claimed another flashflood victim. The tsunami-like raising continue when hitthehole shoved for 34,087,514 with [7s][3s] and scorpio04 called all-in for 4,277,971 with [Ad][7h]. The board ran out [Qs][Ts][2d][Js][5s]. hitthehole turned a flush and won the pot. scorpio04 never improved and hit the virtual rail in sixth place, which paid out $26,366.25.

For stinging the scorpion, hitthehole locked up $1,515.63 for smushing scorpio04. Meanwhile, hitthehole’s bounty swelled to $43,261.67.

8 MILLION STORIES: Max ‘altiFC’ Altergott eliminated in 5th place

Max ‘altiFC’ Altergott decided it was time to double up or go home. Shorty altiFC open-shoved for 2,928,964, dntfrgtame re-shoved for 8,692,784, hitthehole also moved all-in for 40,990,485. Another three-way.

dntfrgtame: [Qh][Qd]
altiFC: [6d][6s]
hitthehole: [5s][5h]

The board ran out [8c][4h][2h][Qc][Kh]. dntfrgtame turned a set of Queens to win the main pot and side pot. altiFC was dunzo in fifth place, which paid out $33,041.25. dntfrgtame banked $2,593.75 for knocking out altiFC, and their own bounty jumped to $12,263.66.

Max ‘altiFC’ Altergott – 5th place

ELECTRIC RELAXATION: selinantis eliminated in 4th place

It was time for another shorty to make a stand…and falter. selinantis open-shoved for 1,359,538, but dntfrgtame and hitthehole both called. The flop was [8s][6h][3h]. dntfrgtame bet 2,250,000 and hitthehole folded. Heads-up.

dntfrgtame: [Qs][Jh]
selinantis: [Js][3s]

The turn was the [Qc] and the river was the [9c]. dntfrgtame won the pot with a pair of Queens. Treys were no good for selinantis, who busted in fourth place, which paid out $46,458.00.

Meanwhile, dntfrgtame earned another bounty and banked $5,097.66. Also, dntfrgtame’s own bounty jumped to $17,361.31.

With three to go, dntfrgtame seized the lead with 30M and hitthehole slipped to second with 25.4M. 1sag was last by default with 11M.

KEEP IT ROLLIN’: 1sag eliminated in 3rd place

1sag shoved for 8,112,916 with [9s][8s] and hitthehole called with [Jh][Tc]. The board ran out [Ad][5h][4h][6c][Kc]. Neither player improved, but hitthehole won with a better kicker.

Shocker. Another bounty for hitthehole, who earned $3,710.94, Meanwhile, his own juicy, salacious, mouth-watering bounty was bumped up to $46,972.60.

HEADS-UP: hitthehole (U.K.) vs. dntfrgtame (Latvia)
Seat 2: dntfrgtame (47,283,608)
Seat 4: hitthehole (19,466,392)

Middy’s mates expected him to pull off the miraculous comeback, but he must’ve saved that run good up for another day. Alas, the hole hath been hit too many times.

CLAP YOUR HANDS: hitthehole eliminated in 2nd place; dntfrgtame wins SCOOP bracelet

Three hands. hitthehole didn’t have much time to fortify a strong-enough defense, let alone launch a counteroffensive. dntfrgtame bombed it all-in for 49,883,608 with [Kd][5d] and hitthehole called for 14,866,392 with [Qs][Td]. The board ran out [Jd][8s][2c][8c][Js]. Neither player improved, but dntfrgtame won the pot with King-kicker. dntfrgtame also banked a bounty worth $23,486.30 for busting hitthehole.

For a runner-up finish, Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton earned $83,437.50.

Congrats to Latvia’s dntfrgtame. First place paid out $115,210.50 in addition to $40,847.61 in KO-bounties! $156K is a sweet score for five hours of work.

SCOOP-55-H ($1,050 NLHE [Turbo, Ultra-Deep, Progressive Super-Knockout]) results
Entrants: 1,335
Total prize pool: $1,335,000.00 (Regular pool: $667,500, Bounty pool: $667,500)
Places paid: 153

1. dntfrgtame (Latvia) $115,210.50 + $40,847.61 bounties
2. Tom ‘hitthehole’ Middleton (U.K.) $83,437.50 + $46,972.60 bounties
3. 1sag (Norway) $63,412.50 + $7,421.87 bounties
4. Justas ‘selinantis’ Semaska (Lithuania) $46,458.00 + $10,195.31 bounties
5. Max ‘altiFC’ Altergott (Malta) $33,041.25 + $5,187.49 bounties
6. scoripo04 (Denmark) $26,366.25 + $3,031.25 bounties
7. Garrin4e (Ukraine) $19,691.25 + $15,324.21 bounties
8. Andreas ‘daskalos20’ Christoforou (Cyprus) $13,016.25 + $9,861.32 bounties
9. Brabupada (Belgium) $7,342.50 + $2,125.00 bounties

Visit the SCOOP homepage for updated stats and find out who is in contention for Player of the Series.

Need a PokerStars account to play SCOOP? Click here to get one.

Pauly McGuire is the author of “Lost Vegas” and a freelance contributor to PokerStars Blog.

The final weekend of the 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker presented players with one of the most popular games on the schedule. High-rolling heads-up tournaments with three juiced up buy-in amounts, the medium version running with a $2,100 price tag and $200,000 guaranteed prize pool. After eight rounds of heads-up matches, it was a battle between two UK grinders in the end with jamjam818 defeating dougiedan678 for the SCOOP title.

The tournament drew 180 players to push the prize pool up to $360,000 with everyone in the Round of 16 earning a piece plus more than $100,000 up top for the winner. The tournament paused for the evening when it was in the money with 16 players remaining and plenty of big names falling short including Bryn Kenney, former WCOOP champion vicenfish, and habitual COOP final table member ( and Super Tuesday champ) AceSpades11.

Team PokerStars member Jason Mercier had the best chance to cash among his patched-up peers but he was run out by Igor “lechuckpoker” Kurganov short of the money round. With Alex “bigfox86” Rosen falling in the Round of 16, 3P3NIPA was the only player remaining with a past COOP title going into the quarterfinals. He earned up a SCOOP title earlier this series to go along with his $500K score for winning the WCOOP Sunday Million Special Edition in 2015.

Event #49-M Heads-Up High-Roller Quarterfinal Matchups?

Quarterfinal Matches

3P3NIPA versus ORLOVSKIY
teunuss versus jamjam818
beginner27 versus moglimiranda
bar-bar9999 versus dougiedan678

The first Quarterfinal match to wrap up was the battle of the broken capslocks between 3P3NIPA and ORLOVSKIY. It was the fastest of the four tables and had two big hands along the way. 3P3NIPA was behind by a nice chunk when he pulled a near double up without actually get all of his chips in the middle. He showed down with [jd][jc] and the board showing [5s][4d][4c][9h][6s] to drag a 16,800 chip pot.

ORLOVSKIY dropped down to 4,022 a little later then put them in the middle with [8c][7c] after the [kh][6c][2c] flop and 3P3NIPA called with [jc][js] once again. ORLOVSKIY couldn’t catch his flush as the board finished [9s][6h] to send him out.

jamjam818 was the next to advance after he earned a 14,000 chip pot without a showdown to take a lead, then put teunuss all-in on the river with flopped top set [tc][ts] and was called by jamjam818 with two pair [6h][5h] on the [td][6d][5d][7s][8h] board.

Former Super Tuesday winner bar-bar9999 was the next in line to hit the virtual payout desk after bleeding chips for much of his match. He was down to 4,433 and moved all-in with [ah][4d] to get a call from dougiedan678 with [as][9h]. He needed a lot of help but his chance went south right on the [9d][8s][8c] flop to leave one match still running.

The final match went on for a while as beginner27 ground down moglimiranda’s stack with a series of smaller pots until moglimiranda had to make a move with [qd][6d]. beginner27 called to flip with [4h][4d] then nailed the [8s][5d][4s] flop, his set turning into a boat on the [8h] turn and the semifinals were ready to go.

Ready to sign up for PokerStars and go for your own SCOOP title? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Semi-final Matches

3P3NIPA versus jamjam818
beginner27 versus dougiedan678

The heads-up high-roller turned into a UK affair with three of the four remaining players hailing from the empire and 3P3NIPA trying to stand in their way.

It looked like both matches were going to drag on for quite some time until jamjam818 and 3P3NIPA ran up a big pot with both holding similar stacks. jamjam818 called a three-bet from 3P3NIPA to see the [9h][8h][2s] flop then called another 1,356 before the [7s] turn.

3P3NIPA bet out 3,532 more to get another call from jamjam818 and they watched the [7s] hit the river. After firing on all streets up until this point, 3P3NIPA opted to check after the river and jamjam818 jammed him all-in. After using up almost all of his time bank, 3P3NIPA called at risk with bottom pair/busted flush draw [th][2h] which was far behind jamjam818’s flopped top two with [9s][8s]. It was a shocking end to the first semi-final match, 3P3NIPA hit the rail in 4th place while jamjam818’s win guarantees a UK champion in this event.

Unlike the other match, beginner27 and dougiedan678 waited an hour to play a significant, five-digit pot. dougiedan678 called a three-bet before the [qc][jc][8c] flop followed by bets after the flop and [qd] turn. beginner27 slowed down after the [8d] river and they both checked. Each hit a big flop but dougiedan678’s flush [7c][6c] trumped beginner27’s straight [td][9d].

beginner27 was able to hang on for a while longer but ran out of luck when his [ac][qc] was no good against [kh][3s] after the [kd][qd][8s] flop. The board finished [5h] and [2s] for beginner27’s exit in 3rd place to set up the final match.

jamjam818 wins long battle against dougiedan678 to win title

Despite starting the final match with the exact same chip count, dougiedan678 managed to talk nearly $5,000 in extra money out of jamjam818 when they paused to clock to discuss chopping up the remaining prize pool. dougiedan678 locked up $89,000 in the deal with $79,800 going to jamjam818 and $4,000 left behind for the eventual winner.

dougiedan678 held the advantage for the first hour of the match but jamjam818 pulled back a bit before catching a huge double to put him into the lead. jamjam818 called a three-bet to the [7h][6h][5s] flop and dougiedan678 check/called 2,851 to see the [8h] turn. This time, jamjam818 moved all-in after dougiedan678 checked the [2d] river and it was decision time for dougiedan678.

After a long think, dougiedan678 called incorrectly with two pair [8d][6d] against jamjam818’s straight with [kh][9s]. The hand put jamjam818 in control of the match and he finished it off 15 minutes later.

dougiedan678 was down to 5,675 and open-shoved his button with [q][9c]. After thinking it over for a minute, jamjam818 called with the dominating [qh][ts] and had dougiedan678 drawing dead on the turn with the board reading [6h][3d][3c][tc]. It was a tough, long battle of UK grinders but dougiedan678 can be happy that his chop deal $89,000 earned him more than first.

jamjam818 played a great set of heads-up tournaments and won eight straight matches to earn his first major online title, the custom Movado watch as SCOOP champion and the $83,800 bankroll boost.

SCOOP-49-M ($2,100 NL Hold’em Heads-Up, High-Roller) results
Entrants: 180
Total prize pool: $360,000
Places paid: 16

1. jamjam818 (United Kingdom) $83,800*
2. dougiedan678 (United Kingdom) $89,000*
3. beginner27 (United Kingdom) $36,000
4. 3P3NIPA (Czech Republic) $36,000
5. moglimiranda (Germany) $14,400
6. bar-bar9999 (Israel) $14,400
7. teunuss (Netherlands) $14,400
8. ORLOVSKIY (Russia) $14,400
*Reflects the results of a heads-up deal that left $4,000 in play for the winner

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Triple COOP. It’s a rare occurrence. Coming into this year’s SCOOP, only three players accomplished the stupendous feat — buck21, Andy McLEOD, and RuiNF. You can now add Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19’ Gonzalez to that exclusive club after former Uruguayan fo…

The first, and likely only, overlay of the 2016 SCOOP series took place on Saturday as 3,932 entrants hopped into action in the SCOOP-47-L: $27 NL Hold’em [Mix-Max]. That created a $96,530.60 prize pool, but of course that was bumped up to the $100K gu…

Sometimes a tournament is just too volatile to predict, like the huge 5-card PLO 6-max tournament on the final weekend of the 2016 SCOOP schedule. The tournament structure had the them playing down to the end of Level 29 before pausing for a Day 2 retu…

This is getting redonkulous. Another bracelet for Brazil? Did they really just ship their 19th bracelet? Dezenove! And there’s still couple of more days of SCOOP left. Our colleague Stephen Bartley dubbed it “The Brazilian Storm,” which tore through th…

Most of the tournaments on the SCOOP schedule in 2016 are two-day events that pause to give everyone time to rest before coming back for another poker marathon. At just six hours and 45 minutes, Event #50-H was a deviation from the norm, one that led to a very quick first career SCOOP title against some highly accomplished competition for Austria’s SuchADegen.

A 6-Max Progressive Super-Knockout tournament that started with three-minute levels and slowly worked up to 15 minutes apiece, Event #50-H drew a 567-player field with a $1,134,000 prize pool split evenly between cash for the top 66 finishers and bounties on everyone’s heads. Thanks to the aggressive tournament structure and the extra incentive to go for the knockout, it took less than five hours to progress to the final table. By then the blinds and antes were at 10K/20K/2.5K and these six players were the last with a shot at the title:

Seat 1: Trueteller (1,108,810 in chips)
Seat 2: Jason “jakoon1985” Koon (633,979 in chips)
Seat 3: SuchADegen (944,030 in chips)
Seat 4: Bryn “BrynKenney” Kenney (1,426,878 in chips)
Seat 5: xPastorcitox (627,667 in chips)
Seat 6: FaceStealer (928,636 in chips)

Despite the quick pace to reach the final table, nobody was working with less than 30 big blinds and the blind levels, which had begun the tournament at three minute apiece, had long since leveled out at 15 minutes each. There was plenty of room to play poker, and they did just that for the next two hours and two minutes.

The bulk of that final table time would be spent four-handed, and xPastorcitox wouldn’t last long enough to be part of it. Having dropped about 10 big blinds in the first half hour of play, the SCOOP 2015-Medium finalist came in for a raise in the cutoff with [Js] [9s] and fired three barrels on the [5c] [5d] [Tc] flop, [Qs] turn, and [6c] river after Jason “jakoon1985” Koon called from the big blind. Koon called down the whole way with [Qc] [Jd], taking the 888K-chip pot with a turned pair of queens and knocking out xPastorcitox in 6th place ($18,144) with $7,867.15 in bounties.

Koon, a SCOOP 2009 champ and Sunday Warm-Up winner with two wins in the Super Tuesday who finished 7th in the $21,000 High Roller event last week, was now in third place with 1.26M chips, just one big blind behind Bryn Kenney. But eight minutes later he himself would be gone after back-to-back losses to FaceStealer.

The seeds of Jason Koon’s departure were sown when SuchADegen doubled through FaceStealer with [Tc] [Ts] against [Ks] [Jd]. Then Koon took that first loss on the very next hand after opening with [Ah] [Kc], calling FaceStealer’s all-in bet, and losing the coin flip to [6c] [6d] on a [Js] [2h] [9d] [8s] [3d].

That put FaceStealer, a three–time finalist in the Super Tuesday with past WCOOP and SCOOP final table appearances, a little under four big blinds ahead of Koon’s 790K. FaceStealer had the button on the next hand and opened for the minimum with [Ad] [Qh], then called when Koon jammed with [Ah] [4h] in the big blind. Koon missed his flush draw on the river of the [Jh] [6c] [6d] [5h] [Kc] board, exiting in 5th place ($28,350) with $18,371.09 in bounties.

Jason Koon, out in 5th

The next 45 minutes would be spent four-handed. After that wild three-hand sequence, FaceStealer had the chip lead at 1.69M chips, but Trueteller and Bryn Kenney were about eight big blinds back and SuchADegen was in last but still in the seven-figure range. Trueteller won the first monster pot after calling all-in from the big blind with [Ad] [Qd] and flopping a flush, topping small-blind raiser FaceStealer’s [Ah] [7s] for the 1.8M-chip pot. Four more small wins shortly after that, plus an 892K-chip pot taken from Kenney without contest on the turn, made Trueteller the leader with 2.6M.

FaceStealer survived another all-in with [Ad] [6s] to button-raising SuchADegen’s [8h] [5h], climbing back to 1.17M. That put Bryn Kenney, FaceStealer, and SuchADegen all within three big blinds of one another, but Kenney would be the one to fall behind. After raising on the button with [Jd] [Td] and calling Trueteller’s big-blind re-raise to 190K, Kenney and Trueteller would both check the [7d] [8c] [Kd] [5c] [4h] board all the way to the river. Kenney fired 266K with the busted combo draw but lost when Trueteller called with an unimproved [Ah] [Qc].

That loss left PCA 2016 Super High Roller, SCOOP 2010, SCOOP 2014, and Super Tuesday champ with 776K in chips, which he called off three hands later in the big blind with [Ks] [Ts] after SuchADegen open-shoved on the button. Both had a flush after the board came [3d] [2s] [5s] [6s] [2h], but the Austrian player had the nuts, bringing BrynKenney’s third SCOOP 2016 final table appearance to its end in 4th place ($39,690) with $28,281.24 in bounties.

No title today for Bryn Kenney, out in 4th

Three-handed play kicked off with Trueteller in the lead, SuchADegen about 10 big blinds back, and FaceStealer holding about half the chips that SuchADegen had. The balance of the pots played was tilting toward Trueteller and away from SuchADegen. Then Trueteller raised to 125K from the small blind and called [Ah] [Js] after the Austrian player moved all-in from the big blind with [5c] [5d]. Trueteller paired on the turn with the board reading [7c] [8d] [7s] [Jc], but SuchADegen hit a full house with the [5s] on the river.

That win both kept SuchADegen alive and gave the Austrian player the chip lead, a perfect illustration of just how wide-open the tournament still was. Then Trueteller retook the lead with a stretch of six consecutive wins that reduced the field to two players.

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Down to 602K after the first five consecutive pots that Trueteller had won, FaceStealer open-shoved on the button with [Ad] [6s]. Trueteller called with [Ah] [7s], paired a seven on the [Td] [7h] [9h] flop, and dodged FaceStealer’s gutshot draw through the [3d] turn and [Jc] river to take the 1.27M-chip pot. That sent FaceStealer to the rail in 3rd place ($58,117.50) with $25,271.47 in bounties.

Trueteller had the edge heads-up with 3.4M chips to SuchADegen’s 2.2M and extended the lead further by winning pots worth 755K and 639K in their first three hands against each other. Then SuchADegen opened on the button with [Kc] [Tc] and called after Trueteller jammed in the big blind with [As] [6c]. A small underdog before the flop, SuchADegen made a pair of kings on the [3c] [4d] [Kd] [9h] [7d] board to double to 3.2M chips.

SuchADegen now had 53 big blinds to Trueteller’s 41, but a 1.4M-chip win for the Russian player eight hands later. The lead would only change one more time, though, and when it did it would leave Trueteller extremely short-stacked. SuchADegen opened the hand in question for 154K on the button with [9s] [8h] and Trueteller called, bringing the [5s] [9h] [4c] flop. SuchADegen bet 200K when checked to, then called two bets from Trueteller, the first a check-raise to 422K on the flop and the last an all-in move. Trueteller was an 84.1-percent favorite to win the hand with [Qh] [9c], but SuchADegen pulled out the win with a straight after the [6h] hit the river.

That 5.2M-chip pot gave SuchADegen an advantage of more than 10-to-1, and the Austrian raised every hand until Trueteller ended up moving in on the button for 152K with [Kd] [4h]. SuchADegen called with [7c] [5h] and won the pots with aces and fives after the board came [3h] [5s] [Ah] [Td] [Ad], bringing the tournament to a close.

Trueteller earned $79,380 as the runner-up, plus another $15,510.73 in bounties, an excellent showing after taking 4th place in Event #44-H this afternoon. And SuchADegen made a splash, picking up the champion’s watch, the $107,730 top prize, and another $41,645.97 in bounties. Congratulations to SuchADegen players for outlasting some highly accomplished players on route to a first career SCOOP win!

SCOOP-50-H ($2,100 NL Hold’em, 6-Max, Progressive Super KO) results
Entrants: 567
Total prize pool: $1,134,000 ($567,000 regular prize pool, $567,000 bounty prize pool)
Places paid: 66

1. SuchADegen (Austria) $107,730 + $41,645.97 in bounties
2. Trueteller (Russia) $79,380 + $15,510.73 in bounties
3. FaceStealer (Costa Rica) $58,117.50 + $25,271.47 in bounties
4. Bryn “BrynKenney” Kenney (Mexico) $39,690 + $28,281.24 in bounties
5. Jason “jakoon1985” Koon (Canada) $28,350 + $18,371.09 in bounties
6. xPastorcitox (Argentina) $18,144 + $7,867.15 in bounties

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Last weekend, Team Online Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara advanced to two SCOOP final tables in Badugi events. He finished in third place in both and narrowly missed his first SCOOP win. Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara made poker history in 2012 by becoming the first-ever…

Mixed games are more popular today than ever before, especially when they involve some of the more obscure poker variants available here at PokerStars. But there’s a lot to be said for kicking it old school when you’re mixing your poker games and playing some good old-fashioned HORSE. GrimIsCool kicked it all the way to a four-way deal in Event #44-M, then went on a late run to walk away with a SCOOP title.

The field of 990 in this tournament – 745 entries with 245 re-entries – came up 10 shy of doubling the guarantee with its $99,000 prize pool. The top 128 players cashed out at least $178.20, and a scheduled first-place prize of $18,245.70 awaited the winner.

Ari “BodogAri” Engel was chasing his third final table of SCOOP 2016 but busted on the 40K/80K Omaha Hi/Lo level in 9th place ($990), leaving these eight players to battle for the title:

Seat 1: cbolt21 (2,625,951 in chips)
Seat 2: GrimIsCool (185,189 in chips)
Seat 3: alxbanana (891,293 in chips)
Seat 4: BOT OHO (507,094 in chips)
Seat 5: hipoppotamus (1,147,142 in chips)
Seat 6: thefish01x (446,798 in chips)
Seat 7: grampabumkin (1,606,004 in chips)
Seat 8: YaaGy (2,490,529 in chips)

The 50K/100K/10K Stud level brought the first knockout of the final table. cbolt21 opened with the [As] showing and both alxbanana (with the [Jh]) and BOT OHO (with the [Qc]) called to see fourth street. alxbanana picked up the [Js] on fourth for a pair on the board and led for 50K, and BOT OHO raised to 150K with [Qc] [8c] showing. cbolt21 folded (x-x) [As] [9s] and alxbanana raised enough to put BOT OHO all-in. The player from Belarus called and showed [2c] [Kc] in the hole for a club flush draw, while alxbanana had [Td] [Jc] beneath for three jacks. alxbanana caught the [Ts] on fifth street to make tens full of jacks, which held up through sixth and seventh streets to eliminate BOT OHO in 8th place ($1,485).

Eight hands the stakes were the same but the game had switched to Stud Hi/Lo and hipoppotamus had the bring-in with the [3c] showing. SCOOP 2013 Medium FL Omaha Hi/Lo champion thefish01x completed to 60K with the [6h] showing and drove everyone else out of the pot, and hipoppotamus called to bring fourth street. hipoppotamus checked with [3c] [5d] showing, then check-raised, then called thefish01x’s fourth bet to put the player from Cyprus all-in for 200K.

thefish01x called with ([Js] [Jh]) [6h] [Ks] for a pair of jacks and was in trouble against hipoppotamus’s up-and-down straight draw with ([4c] [2c]) [3c] [5d]. The [6d] on fifth street made both a straight and a 6-5 low for hipoppotamus, while thefish01x’s hopes were resting on a runner-runner flush after being dealt a third heart with the [4h]. The [8s] on sixth and [Jd] on seventh didn’t do the trick, though, and thefish01x left the tournament in 7th place ($2,227.50).

60K/120K Limit Hold’em was next in the rotation and it would prove to be alxbanana’s undoing. The player from Norway opened under the gun toward the end of the level and then called hipoppotamus’ three-bet, bringing the [6c] [2c] [2s] flop. alxbanana check-called 60K there and then 120K on both the [Ks] turn and [Kc] river but mucked when hipoppotamus showed down [Td] [Tc] to win the 1.1M-chip pot.

That left alxbanana with 33K that all went in from the big blind on the next hand, which was the first of 70K/140K Omaha Hi/Lo. Dealt [Qc] [8d] [4c] [4s], alxbanana couldn’t improve on that pair of fours on a [Kc] [9s] [3s] [Ac] [Ts] board. cbolt21’s [Ad] [Qd] [9d] [2c] made aces and nines to take the pot, and alxbanana bowed out in 6th place ($3,465).

grampabumkin, who made both the Razz and 8-Game Mix final tables back in 2009 (Dan Kelly’s first WCOOP victory and David Williams’ first, respectively), would finish the tournament before the end of the Omaha Hi/Lo level. The player from Mexico got three bets in from the big blind with [Ah] [As] [Kd] [Ts] after GrimIsCool raised on the button, but GrimIsCool’s [Kc] [6h] [3s] [2s] picked up two pair on the [3c] [2h] [9s] flop and, after calling bets on the flop and [Td] turn, checked the [Qc] river to show down a winner.

The loss left grampabumkin with 666K, which was cut to 566 by the next big blind. Then grampbumkin raised in the small blind with [Jc] [Jd] [7s] [6d] and got YaaGy to call in the big blind, bringing a [Qd] [2h] [7d] flop. YaaGy, a past TCOOP 2012, Sunday Warm-Up, and Sunday Million finalist, called grampabumkin’s lead bet there and then raised after another bet on the [Ts] turn. grampabumkin called and then check-called all-in after the [Ts] river, showing down the jacks, but YaaGy’s [5h] [4s] [2s] [2c] scooped the pot with a set of deuces and a 7-5 low. With that, grampbumkin left in 5th place ($4,950).

With another break approaching and the game about to switch to 70K/140K/14K Razz, the remaining four players agreed to look at the numbers for a deal. After 15 minutes they reached a deal that gave everybody better than third-place money, with cbolt21 and YaaGy taking the largest shares, and the game was back on again.

GrimIsCool had the bring-in with the [8h] showing on a hand just after the players returned from the deal break and called with ([Ac] [6s]) in the hole when cbolt21 raised with the [4s] showing. Neither player’s hand improved much on fourth street, with GrimIsCool pairing the eight and cbolt21 catching a king, but after the action went bet-call, GrimIsCool caught the [5s] on fifth for 8-6-5-A. cbolt21 led with (x-x) [4s] [Kd] [Qs] showing and called GrimIsCool’s raise, then check-called on sixth and seventh, but the [7h] on sixth had made 8-7-6-5-A low for GrimIsCool.

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

That 1.45M-chip win moved GrimIsCool to within one small bet of cbolt21 for the chip lead, and another 917K-chip win heads-up with the player from Mexico on the Razz level would give GrimIsCool the lead at 3.6M. cbolt21 moved back into a slim lead when the game changed to 80K/160K Stud, taking a 1.1M-chip pot heads-up with GrimIsCool to re-establish control of the action, but GrimIsCool struck back for 1.2M on the last hand of the level after starting with a split pair of eights and catching aces on both sixth and seventh streets to make two pair.

Stud Hi/Lo came and went, leaving it to the 100K/200K Limit Hold’em level to provide the first post-deal knockout. It would end up being YaaGy, who re-raised on the button to 300K after hipoppotamus opened under the gun. Both hipoppotamus and GrimIsCool, in the big blind, called the 300K and then check-called 100K more from YaaGy on the [7c] [7s] [Td] flop. Both check-called 200K more on the [Jc] turn, but hipoppotamus broke the pattern with by betting on the [Ts] river. GrimIsCool folded but YaaGy called, mucking after hipoppotamus showed down [Kd] [Tc] for tens full of sevens.

Left with just 89K, YaaGy called all-in under the gun on the next hand. GrimIsCool called as well in the small blind, holding [Js] [2h], and checked down the [8h] [Qc] [Kh] [Jd] [7h] board with hipoppotamus in the big blind. GrimIsCool’s pair of jacks won the pot, and YaaGy left in 4th place ($12,255.70).

The rest of the hold’em round treated GrimIsCool very well. First a button raise with [Qc] [5s] turned into an open-ended straight draw on the flop and eventually ended up as trip fives against hipoppotamus on a [Th] [9c] [Js] [5h] [5c] board. GrimIsCool got raises in on the turn and river and dragged a 2.5M-chip pot. On the button again six hands later, GrimIsCool raised with [Jh] [Tc], stayed aggressive with a gutshot draw, and ended up with queens and jacks on a [Qc] [8h] [6s] [Jc] [Qh] board. cbolt21, who had played back out of the big blind and led on every street, lost at showdown with [Ad] [9h].

cbolt21’s last 724K chips went in the middle behind [Ac] [Ks] a few hands later, though they didn’t all get there until the turn of the [3h] [7s] [Tc] [5d] [Qc] board. GrimIsCool’s [Kd] [Th] had already become a pair of tens by that point, tipping cbolt21 over the edge into 3rd place ($13,458).

The heads-up duel between GrimIsCool and hipoppotamus proved to be very evenly matched. They played out the Razz and Stud levels without a decisive hand, and with most of the 160K/320K/32K Stud Hi/Lo level gone they were separated by just one small bet. Then GrimIsCool scooped the last two pots of Stud Hi/Lo, winning 1.9M with sixes and fives against hipoppotamus’s pair of tens and then 3.2M after starting with ([Ad] [Ks]) [7c] and running out four cards in a row to make a wheel.

That left hipoppotamus with 2.4M to GrimIsCool’s 7.4M as the 160K/320K Limit Hold’em began, and that dropped to 984K after the first confrontation, which saw GrimIsCool flop top pair out of position with with [Jc] [Td]. hipoppotamus finally picked up [Qc] [Qh] and got all-in before the flop against GrimIsCool’s [As] [7s], but a note-perfect [Ah] [Ac] [3c] [5d] [7c] board gave GrimIsCool a full house and the win.

Even as the third-largest share of a four-way deal, the $11,107.93 hipoppotamus took away in second place still stands as the biggest PokerStars tournament score of the Russian player’s career. And in addition to the first career SCOOP title, GrimIsCool won the extra cash on the table for a $11,619.07 prize – a new personal PokerStars best by $33. Congratulations to both players!

SCOOP-44-M ($109 HORSE) results
Entrants: 990 (745 entries, 245 re-entries)
Total prize pool: $99,000
Places paid: 128

1. GrimIsCool (United Kingdom) $11,619.07*
2. hipoppotamus (Russia) $11,107.93*
3. cbolt21 (Mexico) $13,458*
4. YaaGy (United Kingdom) $12,255.70*
5. grampabumkin (Mexico) $4,950
6. alxbanana (Norway) $3,465
7. thefish01x (Cyprus) $2,227.50
8. BOT OHO (Belarus) $1,485
*Reflects the results of a four-way deal that left $1,000 in play for the winner

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

With so many skilled poker players around these days and chip stacks so deep, it’s not at all uncommon to see a SCOOP final table stretch on for three, four, or sometimes even upward of five hours. Sometimes, though, a player comes in with a big stack, picks up a few big hands, and blitzes to a win before anybody knows what happened. dirty.brasil’s run through the final of Event #43-L started off with more chips than the other players at the table and ended less than two hours later with a second career COOP title.

The options for picking up more chips in Event #43-L, a $27 no-limit hold’em tournament, were the one re-buy available in the first two hours, the one add-on after that period, and the stacks in every other player’s hands. The 2,877 starting players combined for 1,700 re-buys and 1,793 add-ons, building a $156,383.50 total prize pool shared between the top 360 players. The majority of those who cashed collected their payouts before play paused at the end of level 36 with dirty.brasil already holding a significant lead. At 9.13M chips, the player from Canada had 152 big blinds and 3.6M chips more than second-place pitaoufmg, a WCOOP 2012 and TCOOP 2013 finalist.

Just 26 players remained after that first day of play, and they returned at 10am ET to wind their way down to a final table. dirty.brasil maintained that chip advantage through the 100K/200K/25K level, when the final lineup was determined:

Seat 1: kopakabritu (10,078,297 in chips)
Seat 2: swifterjet (1,919,924 in chips)
Seat 3: GloRyKeepah (7,526,120 in chips)
Seat 4: pitaoufmg (5,287,949 in chips)
Seat 5: BioNicle9 (8,446,816 in chips)
Seat 6: rodloiola (7,080,854 in chips)
Seat 7: LameR25 (3,881,460 in chips)
Seat 8: Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (5,554,828 in chips)
Seat 9: dirty.brasil (13,923,752 in chips)

Already a 2012 WCOOP champion, dirty.brasil’s strategy for chasing down a second career COOP title involved adopting an aggressive posture from the start, seeking to jump further ahead and build a stack to bludgeon the table. It would take a while, but that strategy would pay off handsomely. But first past MicroMillions finalist swifterjet doubled through dirty.brasil, moving in early on with [Ks] [Jc] after the leader had opened for 512K on the button. dirty.brasil called but couldn’t catch with [Qd] [Td], giving swifterjet the double to 4.5M, and an orbit later the two split a pot when both held A-K before the flop.

In the end swifterjet would be the first to go, but not by dirty.brasil’s hand. The Canadian player called all-in for 4.8M in the big blind with [9c] [9s] after kopakabritu had open-shoved in the big blind. The Brazilian looked to be in a pretty bad spot with [Th] [7s], but the [5c] [Ad] [Tc] [Td] [7c] board delivered a tens full of sevens by the river, giving swifterjet a rough ride into 9th place ($1,329.25).

That win had kopakabritu within three big blinds of the lead, and the Brazilian seized it on the next hand when GloRyKeepah’s [Ah] [8h] held up to double through dirty.brasil’s [Ks] [Jh]. dirty.brasil moved right back in front on the next hand, though, after calling LameR25’s 2.6M-chip open shove with [As] [Kd]. LameR25, a WCOOP 2014 finalist who won the Sunday Warm-Up this January, was dominated with [Kh] [9h]. After the [Qh] [5d] [Ts] [5h] [5c] failed to bring help, LameR departed in 8th place ($2,267.56).

That gave dirty.brasil 14.3M chips and the lead once again. Within an orbit the leader had already moved up to 18.8M, but the next knockout didn’t come in that stretch. Instead it came after a pre-flop raising war ended up with Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins all-in, holding [Kh] [Th] to pitaoufmg’s [9c] [9h] and catching a ten on the turn to double to 11.7M. That left pitaoufmg with 391K, which all went in from the small blind on the next hand with [Jd] [5d] after kopakabritu raised in the cutoff with [Ad] [7h]. Nothing resembling help came on the [4c] [3s] [Qd] [As] [6h] board and pitaoufmg was gone in 7th place ($3,831.39).

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Holding 12.4M chips and position on dirty.brasil, kopakabritu looked to press the advantage two hands later when both players were in the blinds, moving all-in with [3c] [3d] after dirty.brasil limped from the small blind. dirty.brasil called with [Ac] [Qs] and 6.7M behind, but the buffer proved unnecessary. The river card of the [9s] [4d] [4h] [6h] [9h] board negated kopakabritu’s treys and made nines and fours for both players. kopakabritu played the board for the [6h] kicker, though, and dirty.brasil’s [Ac] kicker ended up being the difference in the 25M-chip pot. With that, kopakabritu exited in 6th place ($5,395.23).

dirty.brasil took a stab at another knockout on the next hand, raising on the button with [Kh] [Qs] and calling when GloRyKeepah moved in for 5.5M in the big blind, but GloRyKeepah’s [Ah] [7s] caught aces on the flop and river for three of a kind to stay alive. Seven hands after that dirty.brasil opened all-in with [5d] [5h] and the only caller was past Sunday Million finalist rodloiola, who had [Tc] [Ts] in the small blind. rodloiola was drawing to two outs after the [Ac] [9c] [5s] flop but the [As] turn and [4h] river didn’t deliver, sending the last of the final table’s three Brazilian players to the rail in 5th place ($6,959.06).

theNERDguy was the only player remotely close to dirty.brasil now at 15.9M chips. But then the WCOOP 2015 PLO/8 champion and WCOOP 2014 Main Event runner-up dropped 7M to the leader a few hands later. After checking the [Kh] [7d] [9h] flop and then semi-bluffing the turn and river with [8d] [6d], theNERDguy watched dirty.brasil show down [Jc] [Js] and drag the 14.3M-chip pot.

With 36.5M chips in hand, dirty.brasil now had 19 big blinds more than the rest of the table combined and used that advantage to apply consistent pressure to the others, who were looking at a difference of more than $4,000 between being the next player steamrolled by the leader and hanging on one more spot. With 10 minutes that stack was up over 50M, thanks to another knockout. Already in for 600K in the big blind, GloRyKeepah called with [As] [3s] after dirty.brasil shoved in the small blind. That was a 2-to-1 favorite over [9c] [2d], but the turn of the [Ks] [7c] [5h] [9d] [4d] board made a pair of nines for dirty.brasil, sending GloRyKeepah to the rail in 4th place ($9,148.43).

Another 10 minutes later the leader picked up [Tc] [Ts] in the big blind and called when BioNicle9 moved in for 6.8M. The German player had [Ks] [Qs] and missed the [3d] [Ad] [Jc] [6s] [7h] board completely, bowing out in 3rd place ($13,292.59).

theNERDguy was facing a massive uphill battle and did so with a sense of humor.

Even after doubling up twice, theNERDguy was still facing a 3-to-1 chip deficit and had to stay extremely aggressive. That led to three-betting all-in with [Qs] [8s] on the final hand after dirty.brasil opened on the button, and dirty.brasil made the call with [Ac] [9d]. The turn looked like it would extend the match, but the river of the [Ks] [6h] [5d] [Qh] [Ah] board made dirty.brasil a pair of aces and closed the tournament out.

Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins fared well, weathering the storm to second place for $18,558.02. As for dirty.brasil, the win marked a second career COOP title after a four-year gap, and it came with $24,710.41 and a fancy SCOOP champion’s watch. Congratulations to both players for making so much out of a $27 tournament!

SCOOP-43-L ($27 NL Hold’em, 1R1A) results
Entrants: 2,877 (1,700 re-buys, 1,793 add-ons)
Total prize pool: $156,383.50
Places paid: 360

1. dirty.brasil (Canada) $24,710.41
2. Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (Australia) $18,558.02
3. BioNicle9 (Germany) $13,292.59
4. GloRyKeepah (Sweden) $9,148.43
5. rodloiola (Brazil) $6,959.06
6. kopakabritu (Brazil) $5,395.23
7. pitaoufmg (Brazil) $3,831.39
8. LameR25 (Germany) $2,267.56
9. swifterjet (Canada) $1,329.25

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Some players seem to do better in certain kinds of tournament structures than others, but if SCOOP final table appearances are anything to go by, SP3WMONKEY isn’t one of them. The player from the Netherlands last appeared at a SCOOP final table playing Zoom Poker back in 2013. Returning today for a Special Edition of the Thursday Thrill, SP3WMONKEY played a dozen 30-minute levels of poker before emerging with a first career COOP title.

1,559 players turned out for this Progressive Super-Knockout no-limit hold’em tournament, building a $1,559,000 prize pool split down the middle between cash for the top 180 finishers and bounties for everyone who knocked someone else out. After 19 levels of play they called it quits for the night.

The Day 2 restart came around at 1:00pm ET and the 181 players who survived Day 1 all waited to see who would be the unlucky player who waited overnight to bust on the bubble. Ansimans from the Netherlands took that dubious honor, and everybody else left in the tournament collected a minimum of $1,013.35, plus any bounties they’d claimed along the way.

The long march to the final table was on, and it was a long one indeed. It took just over 10 hours to take the field down to nine players:

Seat 1: OMGACEACEACE (1,142,379 in chips)
Seat 2: gusmaa (2,201,953 in chips)
Seat 3: Divved (2,351,695 in chips)
Seat 4: Olorionek (307,064 in chips)
Seat 5: MkMyWishFish (2,508,772 in chips)
Seat 6: mican_ludi (2,779,567 in chips)
Seat 7: Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy (817,283 in chips)
Seat 8: SP3WMONKEY (2,957,838 in chips)
Seat 9: benatias (523,449 in chips)

The first player to go was Israel’s benatias. After losing a pot with [Qd] [Qc] to Olorionek’s [Ks] [Kh] to keep the WCOOP 2011 Triple Shootout winner in the game, benatias was left with about 11 big blinds. After paying another round of blinds and seeing them coming back around, benatias opened all-in under the gun with [As] [Jh]. gusmaa called with [Kh] [Qd], caught top pair on the flop, and dodged a gutshot draw on the [Ks] [6d] [Td] [9d] [Jc] board to win the 465K-chip pot. After finishing 9th in last week’s SCOOP 2016 Super Tuesday Special Edition, benatias also exited this event in 9th place ($8,106.80 + $6,035.15 in bounties).

Nearly an hour and a half would pass before the next knockout, no big surprise given that four stacks were working with 100 big blinds and not even the shorties had less than 20. MkMyWishFish survived in that stretch with [Ts] [Tc] against SP3WMONKEY’s [7c] [7h] after both players hit sets, doubling to 3.48M, and Olorionek did the same with [Ac] [Kd] against Divved’s [Ah] [Jh] for 994K.

Aside from those situations, nobody had to put their stack on the line again until 12:52am ET, when Olorionek made the fourth bet before the flop all-in for 383K, holding [9h] [9s]. That was a big favorite against the [7d] [7s] of three-better-turned-caller Divved, but then Divved made quads on the [7c] [7h] [8d] flop. The [8h] turn and [Qd] river didn’t make runner-runner quads for Olorionek, and the Polish player was gone in 8th place ($14,810.50 + $6,921.86 in bounties).

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

After all that waiting for a knockout, the next one took just one more hand to arrive. Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy, making his fifth SCOOP 2016 final table after a win back in SCOOP 2014, was in the big blind for 36K and called MkMyWishFish’s button min-raise with [Jd] [9h] to see a [Qs] [8d] [3h] flop. He check-called a bet there, both players checked turn [Kd] turn, and then vovtroy made a straight with the [Td] river. He bet and called all-in when MkMyWishFish raised, but the Israeli player had made a flush on the same card with [Qd] [2d]. WIth that, vovtroy left in 7th place ($22,605.50 + $8,097,65 in bounties).

Following the five-minute break, only two more minutes would pass before gusmaa hit the rail. The Brazilian player, a finalist during SCOOP 2015, WCOOP 2013, and WCOOP 2015, had [9c] [9s] in the big blind and moved all-in for 1.18M over the top of mican_ludi’s 78K-chip opening raise. The Serbian player called with [Ah] [Qc] and turned a Broadway straight on the [Kh] [8h] [Jd] [Ts] [Qh] board, and gusmaa was out in 6th place ($30,400.50 + $16,738.25 in bounties).

Five ways to Saturday

Those three quick knockouts left just five players in the hunt:

Seat 1: OMGACEACEACE (2,176,704 in chips)
Seat 3: Divved (2,505,827 in chips)
Seat 5: MkMyWishFish (4,917,938 in chips)
Seat 6: mican_ludi (4,921,323 in chips)
Seat 8: SP3WMONKEY (1,068,208 in chips)

The 18K/36K/4.5K blinds and antes meant nobody was under real pressure, and everybody got their chance to shine. Accordingly, it would be almost another hour and a half before another player hit the rail.

mican_ludi set the tone early and jumped into a big lead after playing a 148-big-blind pot against MkMyWishFish. The Israeli player, a Super Tuesday finalist in 2013, originally flat-called on the button after Divved raised to 77K in the cutoff, but MkMyWishFish ended up being the only caller of a small blind re-raise to 318K from mican_ludi. The action went bet-raise-call for 539K on the [Ad] [4d] [8h] flop before both players checked the [5s] turn. mican_ludi check-called a nearly pot-sized bet of 1.75M from MkMyWishFish on the [3d] river and showed down [9d] [6d] for the diamond flush – plenty good enough to beat MkMyWishFish’s bluff with [Ts] [9s].

MkMyWishFish got it back half an hour later, surviving all-in with [Qc] [Tc] agaisnt mican_ludi’s [Ah] [7h] to get back to 4.54M. But over the hour that followed, seemingly every big pot the Israeli played took part in ended up in the opponent’s stack. MkMyWishFish would finally reach the end of the line at 2:27am ET after opening under the gun with [Ks] [Jc] and catching middle pair. Playing it safe out of position to mican_ludi, MkMyWishFish eneded up falling behind when the [5c] turn made a set for mican_ludi. The rest of the chips went in, the [8h] river changed nothing, and MkMyWishFish departed in 5th place ($38,195.50 + $17,810.52 in bounties).

At only 47 minutes, the wait for the next knockout was relatively short by this table’s standard. The pots were distributed around the table, but mican_ludi continued to find a way to win the big ones. Taking the initiative and rivering two pair with [8s] [4h] for a 3.2M-chip win against Divved helped the Serbian player get out in front of the field again. Losses to Divved and previous SCOOP Zoom PLO finalist SP3WMONKEY kept both of those players alive, though still short-stacked compared to the leader, but SP3WMONKEY found a way back into contention soon afterward.

Under the gun with [Ad] [5d], SP3WMONKEY opened for 132K. past Super Tuesday runner-up and WCOOP finalist OMGACEACEACE re-raised to 330K on the button, then called after SP3WMONKEY made it four bets and 720K to go. Both players had ample reason to get their chips in on the [5s] [2c] [5c] flop, putting SP3WMONKEY at risk with three of a kind. The flush draw didn’t come home for OMGACEACEACE after the [3h] turn and [7d] river, giving SP3WMONKEY the 5.3M-chip pot.

Left with seven big blinds, OMGACEACEACE defended the big blind an orbit later with [Jd] [7c] against a mican_ludi button raise and caught top pair on the [4c] [5s] [Jc] flop. The chips went in there, but mican_ludi walked away the winner with top pair after the [Ad] turn and [Qh] river, and OMGACEACEACE left in 4th place ($53,006 + $6,234.37 in bounties).

More than four hours of final table play were already in the books and with blinds and antes at 30K/60K/7.5K, three players still remained. mican_ludi led the way with 8.06M, with SP3WMONKEY (5.41M) and Divved (2.11M) trailing. With so much room to play, it took two players holding pocket pairs to force the action on the final hand before the break leading up to 4am ET. Divved had [4h] [4s] on the button, mican_ludi [Tc] [Th] in the small blind, and all Divved’s chips went in as the fourth bet before the flop. mican_ludi called, the tens held up on the [Kd] [9c] [As] [Js] [Jc] board, and Divved exited in 3rd place ($71,714 + $6,554.68 in bounties).

Two more players, one more hour

Heads-up play began with mican_ludi holding 112 big blinds and SP3WMONKEY 82, portending a long match – even more so when they didn’t want to talk about making a deal. SP3WMONKEY said the bounty on mican_ludi was enough extra to play for – and at more than $48,000 total, the half the SP3WMONKEY would claim for a knockout would be worth more than a 7th-place finish had been.

SP3WMONKEY turned up the heat early, winning the first nine pots, including one worth 2.94M after flopping bottom two pair on the button with [Th] [7s]. mican_ludi struck back six hands later with a pot that brought the two players’ stacks within two big blinds of each other, and that settled them into a rhythm where there was action on most hands but the pots didn’t get out of control.

A stretch where mican_ludi only took down four out of 27 pots, including four losses between 1.94 and 2.49M, turned things in SP3WMONKEY’s favor, and the Dutch player used the advantage to apply maximum pressure. Down to 17 big blinds, mican_ludi was able to double up with [Kd] [4d] against SP3WMONKEY’s [Ah] [Th] and eventually climb back as high as 5.4M, but the deficit would prove too much to overcome. The Serbian player finally moved all-in with [Kc] [8c] at 5:09am ET, and SP3WMONKEY called with [Ac] [8d]. The [9s] 5c] [5d] [6d] [Jh] changed nothing, and a marathon final table finally came to its conclusion.

mican_ludi’s knockout-strewn path to the runner-up position left the Serbian player with a $95,099 cash from the regular prize pool and another $48,602.46 in bounties. SP3WMONKEY, meanwhile, earned $130,215.58 for first place plus another $31,228.96 in bounties – about three-quarters of which came just for besting mican_ludi heads-up. At six hours and one minute, the final table accounted for three out of every eight minutes played on Day 2 of this tournament. It was a true endurance test and both players earned every dollar of their prizes.

SCOOP-41-H ($1,050 NL Hold’em, Progressive Super KO, Thursday Thrill SE) results
Entrants: 1,559
Total prize pool: $1,559,000 ($779,500 regular prize pool, $779,500 bounty prize pool)
Places paid: 180

1. SP3WMONKEY (Netherlands) $130,215.58 + $31,228.96 in bounties
2. mican_ludi (Serbia) $95,099 + $48,602.46 in bounties
3. Divved (Poland) $71,714 + $6,554.68 in bounties
4. OMGACEACEACE (Poland) $53,006 + $6,234.37 in bounties
5. MkMyWishFish (Israel) $38,195.50 + $17,810.52 in bounties
6. gusmaa (Brazil) $30,400.50 + $16,738.25 in bounties
7. Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy (Russia) $22,605.50 + $8,097,65 in bounties
8. Olorionek (Poland) $14,810.50 + $6,921.86 in bounties
9. benatias (Israel) $8,106.80 + $6,035.15 in bounties

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

It looked like a Brazilian was going to win the PSKO. xXOLIVATOXx was on pace to go wire-to-wire in Event #41-M, but ran out of gas three-handed. It came down to Canada’s cmu92 vs. Peru’s Diego ‘Die Ventura’ Ventura, otherwise known as the guy who is #…

On Monday, May 20 at 16:00 ET SCOOP-45-L: $27 NL Hold’em [3-Max, Turbo, Progressive Knockout, Zoom], $100K Guaranteed ($19.64 + $4.91 + $2.45) kicked off, and players immediately flocked to the tables. In fact, 8,577 entrants joined the fray to more th…

SCOOP time is running out for those players who prefer their games all mixed up. Only two more mix-game events remain on the schedule, three tournaments each, with 8-Game Event #40 setting the table for the big H.O.R.S.E. race this weekend. The medium …

SCOOP-High tournaments are without a doubt some of the most entertaining poker in the world to watch these days. With deep stacks, slow structures, and small fields full of the world’s best poker players, they produce the kind of epic battles that used to come around every few years on a near-daily basis. And when an off-the-wall variant is the game of choice, the likelihood of one of those epic battles going down seems to grow exponentially. Paul “paulgees81” Volpe found himself at one of those final tables today in Event #39-H and fought his way through some heavy hitters to lay claim to his second career SCOOP title.

A $2,100 No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo tournament with up to three re-entries per player, Event #39-H drew the biggest names in the game and cruised past its $100,000 guarantee. With 135 entries and 107 re-entries, the prize pool swelled to $484,000. At Day 1’s end there were 35 players remaining in the field, just five shy of the first payout.

It took just a half hour for lasagnaaammm to bust in 31st place on Day 2 and start the parade of heavy hitters. James “Andy McLEOD” Obst (30th), Marco “NoraFlum” Johnson (28th), omaha4rollz (26th), Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovskiy (24th), Shawn “buck21” Buchanan (19th), and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (16th) all cashed in this tournament. So did two Team Online pros, Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara (15th, $5,566) and Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome (12th, $8,470).

When Nick “FU_15” Maimone busted in 7th ($13,794) after nearly eight hours of Day 2 poker, this murderer’s row took their seats at the final table:

Seat 1: Paul “paulgees81” Volpe (245,048 in chips)
Seat 2: Mark “SHIPP ITT” Herm (737,625 in chips)
Seat 3: Nick “TheTakeover” Schulman (660,919 in chips)
Seat 4: Adam “Adamyid” Owen (301,451 in chips)
Seat 5: Niklas “Lena900” Astedt (98,803 in chips)
Seat 6: Team PokerStars Pro Jason “JasonMercier” Mercier (376,154 in chips)

It was as experienced a final table as you’d expect from a SCOOP-High tournament. In Seat 1 was Paul “paulgees81” Volpe, a past winner of WCOOP and SCOOP titles and a Sunday Million who made the final table of Event #28, $2,100 FL Triple Draw just three days ago. That event was taken down by the occupier of Seat 3, Nick “TheTakeover” Schulman, who earned his first COOP title to go along with his big bag of WSOP and WPT titles. Between them sat Mark “SHIPP IT” Herm, a past Sunday Million winner and SCOOP 2014 NLO/8-Medium champ.

Adam “Adamyid” Owen, owner of Seat 4, was making his 19th cash (sixth in an Omaha variant) of SCOOP 2016, including a runner-up finish in Event #03-H and another final table yesterday in Event #34-M. Seat 5 occupant and past Super Tuesday champion Niklas “Lena900” Astedt was appearing at his second SCOOP 2016 final after Event #14-L, another NL Omaha tournament. And in Seat 6 was one of the single most successful players in SCOOP history, Team PokerStars pro Jason Mercier, collecting his 26th cash of the series and ninth in an Omaha variant.

Mercier picked up a huge pot early on after opening under the gun with [As] [Ac] [Jh] [7c], being re-raised by SHIPP ITT in the cutoff, and jamming for 344K. SHIPP ITT called with the other two aces [Ad] [Ah] [Ts] [4h] and had a slight edge in equity before Mercier hit the [Jd] [2s] [Js] flop and hit it hard. The [5s] turn held out hope for a wheel to scoop the pot or at least a low card for a split, but the [Ks] on the river gave Mercier the double to 699K.

About 15 minutes later Lena900, who’d been unable to make anything happen so far, defended the big blind with [As] [Td] [6c] [5d] after paulgees81 opened with [Ac] [7s] [3s] [3d] and check-called all-in after the [4s] [7h] [4c] flop. Lena900’s open-ended straight draw there was still alive after the [7d] on the turn gave Volpe trip sevens, but the the [Qd] river closed it off and sent Lena900 to the rail in 6th place ($19,844).

Four minutes later it looked for a brief moment like Adamyid would be joining Lena900 on the rail. He raised all-in from the big blind for 200K with [Kc] [Kd] [3d] [2h] over the top of a Jason Mercier raise, and Mercier called with [Ah] [As] [Qs] [2c]. At 71.8 percent, Mercier’s chances were about as good as they could get before an Omaha flop, but when it came [Jd] [3c] [Qd], Owen had himself a diamond flush draw. That draw came home on the [Ad] turn, giving Mercier outs to a full house, but the [6h] on the river wasn’t one of them.

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

Adamyid doubled to 407K with that win, still the short stack but now holding about 68 big blinds. Short of an action flop forcing two players to go to war, the flow of play made it seem unlikely that anybody would be knocked out soon, and in fact such a flop never showed up. There wouldn’t be another situation where a player had his tournament life on the line until 11:19pm ET.

The stacks were deep, and the blind levels advanced so slowly as to exert almost no pressure. And while there was plenty of action, there simply weren’t many showdowns – where you might expect more of them, there was a lot more deliberate folding, and more often than not it a hand ended with the winner dragging the pot sans showdown. There wasn’t much to separate the players, making the game as much an endurance contest as a test of Omaha skill.

As chaotic as NLO/8 has a reputation for being, this particular game looked less like the Tasmanian Devil of poker variants and closer to something like an old-school no-limit hold’em world championship final table. And that wasn’t lost on the participants, either.

All that action had failed to produce either an overwhelming leader or a clear short stack. Instead SHIPP IT and Nick Schulman found themselves within two big blinds of each other, at 386K and 362, respectively, when the first all-in situation in over two hours finally arose. SHIPP IT open-shoved with [Ac] [8d] [5h] [3h] in the cutoff and Schulman called with [Ad] [Qd] [5s] [2s]. The board came down [5c] [6d] [Jd] [4c] [Ks] and the two players split the 373K-chip high pot with a pair of fives, ace kicker, but Schulman alone took the low with 6-5-4-2-A.

Left short enough after that loss that a steal of the blinds and antes represented a 10-percent stack increase, SHIPP ITT began to move all-in before the flop for the better part of an orbit. Jason Mercier, holding [Ad] [Kh] [8d] [5h], looked him up in the small blind the fourth time he shoved pre-flop, but this time SHIPP ITT was holding [Ac] [Ks] [Jh] [2c]. A near-perfect flop of [Tc] [Kc] [Qh] gave him a Broadway straight, and though Mercier picked up flush outs on the [6h] turn, the 542K-chip pot was SHIPP ITT’s after the [3d] came on the river.

Mercier managed a few all-in steals of his own before the flop in the next few orbits, and Nick Schulman looked him up the fourth time with [As] [Kc] [9s] [2c]. Mercier’s [Ah] [Ad] [Kd] [Qh] had a 10-percent edge, and even after the [Js] [Qs] [5h] flop the there was just a 1.6-percent difference in equity for Schulman and Mercier. The PokerStars pro moved ahead on the [7d] turn, but the [4s] river gave Schulman both a spade flush and a low to scoop the pot. After battling through more than two and a half hours of five-handed final table play, Jason Mercier was denied his fifth SCOOP title in 5th place ($29,040).

With Mercier gone and the table four-handed, Schulman had the advantage in chips:

Seat 1: Paul “paulgees81” Volpe (514,178 in chips)
Seat 2: Mark “SHIPP ITT” Herm (662,342 in chips)
Seat 3: Nick “TheTakeover” Schulman (838,208 in chips)
Seat 4: Adam “Adamyid” Owen (405,272 in chips)

Aside from one split pot between paulgees81 and SHIPP ITT and another between paulgees81 and TheTakeover, the only pot to top 10 big blinds in the next hour of play was a 277K-chip pot taken by SHIPP ITT without showdown after a bet on the river. It was the same brand of smart, attacking poker that had been on display from the whole table for four hours, and it finally provoked another standoff when SHIPP ITT opened for 33K on the button with [Ac] [As] [9c] [4s]. He called Adamyid’s all-in re-raise to 497K in the big blind and Adamyid’s [Ad] [Tc] [6s] [5c] was live the whole way, but without a low possible on the [4h] [7s] [4d] [Th] [Qd] board, SHIPP ITT won the pot with trip fours. With that, Adam “Adamyid” Owen left in 4th place ($38,720).

That 1.01M-chip pot on the 8K/16K level gave SHIPP ITT more chips at 1.24M than both Schulman and Volpe combined. Then minutes later Volpe would bring his count a little closer to SHIPP ITT’s by taking out Schulman. After opening on button for effectively a min-raise, Schulman jammed for 439K. After thinking it over and typing, “not sure if I should be calling, lol,” Volpe finally did call Schulman’s re-raise and showed [Ah] [Jd] [9c] [2h], a slight underdog against Schulman’s [Ad] [Qd] [Qc] [8s]. Volpe made two pair on the flop and held on through the rest of the [9s] [5s] [As] [7h] [3h] board to scoop the pot, sending Nick “TheTakeover” Schulman to the rail in 3rd place ($58,080).

The last two players standing quickly agreed to split the remaining prize money up according to ICM, leaving $2,000 on the table for the winner. Then, after SHIPP ITT won the first pot back for 383K after flopping trip aces, they agreed to skip the 12:55am ET break and continue playing. They split three pots in 20 hands after the deal before the turning point, which started with Volpe limping on the button with [Qc] [7c] [4s] [3s]. SHIPP ITT re-raised to 60K in the big blind with [Ah] [Th] [9d] [5h] and then called after Volpe jammed for 671K total to set up a standard Omaha coin flip situation. There was no low possible on the [9c] [Qd] [4c] [7d] [Tc] board, so Volpe’s club flush scooped the 1.34M chips in the pot.

Four hands later Volpe was on the button again, this time with [As] [9d] [9h] [5h], and opened all-in. SHIPP ITT called for 950K as a 60.7-percent favorite with [Ah] [Kh] [Qs] [2s], but the deuce on the [8h] [Td] [2c] flop gave Volpe the better low draw to go with a better pair for the high. The [Th] turn kept SHIPP ITT’s hopes alive with a flush draw, but the [4d] river gave Volpe the scoop – and the SCOOP.

After an epic four hours and 29 minutes, Paul “paulgees81” Volpe had overcome a stacked final table lineup to take down his second career SCOOP title and $93,300.26. Mark “SHIPP ITT” Herm had to settle for second place but took the largest prize of the tournament with his $95,459.74 share of the heads-up deal. Congratulations to everyone who made this final table for putting on an entertaining show in an under-appreciated poker variant, and to Paul Volpe on grabbing champion’s watch number two.

SCOOP-39-H ($2,100 NL Omaha Hi/Lo, 6-Max) results
Entrants: 242 (135 entries, 107 re-entries)
Total prize pool: $484,000
Places paid: 30

1. Paul “paulgees81” Volpe (Canada) $93,300.26*
2. Mark “SHIPP ITT” Herm (Canada) $95,459.74*
3. Nick “TheTakeover” Schulman (Turks and Caicos Islands) $58,080
4. Adam “Adamyid” Owen (United Kingdom) $38,720
5. Team PokerStars Pro Jason “JasonMercier” Mercier (Canada) $29,040
6. Niklas “Lena900” Astedt (Sweden) $19,844
*Reflects the results of a two-way deal that left $2,000 in play for the winner

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

“Let’s gamble.”

Poland’s luk45zp uttered those words heads-up when Belarus’ Oledjan offered to chop the money in Event #39-M $215 NL Omaha 8. Oledjan was running out of gas after a remarkable comeback three-handed in which Oledjan was super-short and…

Players are running out of chances to earn an Omaha event this series, only a few more remain on the 2016 SCOOP schedule as the series winds down towards completion. Event #39 combined some split pot, four-card poker with the excitement of no limit bet…

The 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker was winding down and players hit the middle portion of the final week with a simple No Limit Hold’em tournament for Event #38. Nine-handed tables, standard structure, no frills but big fields. alejorojas57 w…

It takes a special kind of person to like playing Razz, a game where the goal is to make the worst hand to win the pot. Unofficial research shows more chairs have been kicked over thanks to Razz hands than any other game. But a lot of players love it a…

Clarkson7 had been close to COOP success a few times in recent memory. Excruciatingly close, really, with runner-up finishes in both WCOOP and TCOOP events during 2015. It looked for a time tonight like a final table appearance in Event #35-M would end without a chance to go that far, and then it looked like a third COOP runner-up finish would be added to Clarkson7’s PokerStars tournament resume. Then everything changed in a span of minutes, and the third time became the charm for COOP success that Clarkson7 had been looking for since early last year.

A $109 no-limit hold’em freezeout, this tournament drew 4,596 players on Day 1, which would last for 28 levels, all but the first four of which were 20 minutes long. The top 585 players shared in the $459,600 prize pool, the top 142 of whom returned to play a second day of poker. It took seven and a half hours to reach the final table, and it would take nearly four more to determine a champion.

Seat 1: krousmenos46 (3,967,624 in chips)
Seat 2: JulieBRIGHT (5,256,571 in chips)
Seat 3: frayjuniper (7,398,946 in chips)
Seat 4: Go0se.core! (5,095,464 in chips)
Seat 5: Clarkson7 (2,919,461 in chips)
Seat 6: Jamaikaner04 (2,505,356 in chips)
Seat 7: Prof. Shark (1,334,419 in chips)
Seat 8: Jordan “JWPRODIGY” Westmorland (1,625,259 in chips)
Seat 9: NemesisMsop (15,856,900 in chips)

With four players holding less than 25 big blinds each, there action early and often. Germany’s Prof. Shark found a double-up with [Qd] [Qs], dodging a straight draw on the river to beat frayjuniper’s [5h] [5d] for 3.94M chips. But fellow German short stack (and past Sunday Million runner-up) Jamaikaner04 wouldn’t fare as well. Sitting in the big blind with [As] [Qd], Jamaikaner04 called all-in for 1.94M after Go0se.core! opened for 301K on the button and past SCOOP/TCOOP /WCOOP finalist Clarkson7 re-raised all-in for 2.99M in the small blind. Go0se.core! folded, and Clarkson7 turned over [Ah] [Ks]. That was good for kings full of aces after the board had run out [6d] [Kh] [Ad] [Jh] [Kc], knocking out Jamaikaner04 in 9th place ($3,676.80).

frayjuniper took a second shot at knocking out a short stack in a coin flip on the next hand, this time with [Ad] [Qd] for the overcards to Jordan “JWPRODIGY” Westmorland’s pair. [6d] [6h] held up on the [9s] [9d] [Ks] [5h] [8h] board, and JWPRODIGY climbed to 4M. That turned to 8.1M for the EPT10 Sanremo finalist and past Super Tuesday winner an orbit later after opening on the button with [9c] [9h] and then calling all-in following krousmenos46’s shove from the big blind with [Ah] [9s]. That left krousmenos46 with 1.01M chips, and two hands later JWPRODIGY would get those, too, min-raising with [Ac] [8s] and then calling for 908K total when krousmenos46 jammed on the button with [Kc] [Qd]. The [2s] [Tc] [9s] [3s] [4s] board was no help, and krousmenos46 left in 8th place ($5,745).

JWPRODIGY had gone from short stack to contender in short order, and soon enough he topped that by becoming the chip leader. After min-raising to 320K on the button with [Ah] [3s], he called JulieBRIGHT’s re-raise to 640K from the big blind to see the [5d] [8c] [4d] flop. JulieBRIGHT led for 480K into the 1.5M pot, and JWPRODIGY’s call was paid off with the [2h] on the turn for a wheel straight. He flat-called 800K there and then moved in over the top of JulieBRIGHT’s 960K bet after the [Qd] hit the river. JulieBRIGHT called with [Td] [8h] for a pair of tens and departed in 7th place ($10,341).

That 9.9M-chip pot moved Westmorland into the lead by 15 big blinds over NemesisMsop, the former leader. He extended it to 85 big blinds in a heads-up pot with the Brazilian player, semi-bluffing on a flush draw with [9c] [3c] and backing up into three of a kind with runner-runner treys. NemesisMSOP called smallish bets on the flop and turn before calling 2.97M on the river and mucking with 7.25M chips remaining.

Clarkson7 opened the next hand under the gun with [Ad] [Jc] and called when Prof. Shark moved all-in for 1.75M with [4h] [4s], taking down the pot with a pair of jacks on the [Jd] [Qd] [Ks] [6h] [Ts] board, sinking Prof. Shark in 6th place ($14,937).

Go0se.core! picked up a much better pocket pair on the next hand but ended up with the same result. The player from the United Kingdom made a small three-bet to 585K from the big blind with [Kd] [Ks] after frayjuniper opened for the minimum in the small blind. frayjuniper called with [Qd] [8c] and hit gold on the [Qs] [8h] flop, check-raising to 807K there and then jamming on the [2c] turn. Go0se.core! called all-in, frayjuniper made queens full on the [Qh] river, and Go0se.core! left the tournament in 5th place ($19,533).

Want to compete for your own online championship? Click here to get a PokerStars account.

NemesisMsop departed shortly afterward in 4th place ($26,427), taking the table up to the 10pm ET break with JWPRODIGY holding a slim lead at 19.1M chips over frayjuniper’s 18.8M. Clarkson7 was trailing with 7.8M chips but at 42 big blinds was still in manageable territory. The three remaining players chose to play through the break, which would end up meaning no breaks in over two hours of poker for all of them, aside from some brief discussions for a potential deal that broke down.

The next 40 minutes saw the status quo roughly maintained before Clarkson7 made a big call. Having defended the big blind with [Ac] [8s] and caught a vulnerable top pair in a three-way pot, Clarkson7 called on the flop and checked the turn, which both larger-stacked opponents checked behind. Clarkson7 checked again on the river, as did JWPRODIGY, and frayjuniper bet 1.9M into the 3M-chip pot. Clarkson7 called, JWPRODIGY folded, and the short stack clawed back to within sight of the leaders when frayjuniper showed down [Th] [9h] – a pure bluff.

In the next 40 minutes JWPRODIGY slowly moved ahead of the other two players before frayjuniper pulled back to within 10 big blinds, while Clarkson7 dropped back to a distant third. Then JWPRODIGY went on a tear on the 200K/400K/50K level, winning 12 of 13 hands to double his stack and take out frayjuniper. The latter started the final hand with 6.7M and was a big favorite after raising on the button with [4c] [4h] and then calling JWPRODIGY’s all-in re-raise with [2h] [2s], and it looked like three-handed play might have another 40 minutes over the horizon with the board reading [8h] [6s] [7s] [9s]. Then the [2d] hit the river, giving JWPRODIGY a set of deuces and bringing frayjuniper’s run to an abrupt halt in 3rd place ($37,917).

JWPRODIGY held 36.3M chips to Clarkson7’s 9.6M as heads-up play began at 11:18pm ET and applied continuous pressure through the first ten minutes of their match, whittling the two-time COOP runner-up’s stack down to 6.4M. Then Clarkson7 picked up [Kh] [Ks] on the same deal as JWPRODIGY’s [Ah] [4s] and got right back in the game. The two traded pots for the next 20 minutes, with Clarkson7’s stack slowly dropping back to 10.1M before another confrontation. This time Clarkson7 was on the wrong end of it pre-flop, having jammed with [Kh] [Js] after JWPRODIGY opened with [Ah] [Kc], but a Broadway straight on the river of the [Qh] [Ad] [9h] [8s] [Th] board extended the match.