Flowers are in bloom, the skies are blue, and tens of millions of dollars are up for grabs, too.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

The Spring Championship of Online Poker begins this weekend and there’s a reason we’re so excited about it here at the PokerStars Blog. The biggest names in the game routinely turn out for SCOOP tournaments, earning eye-popping prizes against the world’s very best competition.

There are other things like it, but nothing really tops SCOOP. Here’s what you can expect from the next two weeks here at PokerStars.

ALPHABET SOUP

SCOOP was the first PokerStars tournament series to offer tiered buy-in levels for every event on the schedule. Same game, similar structure, three different buy-in levels.

Look in the SCOOP lobby in the PokerStars client and you’ll notice there are three tournaments labeled “Event #1.” First is #1-L, with a $2.20 buy-in. Then there’s #1-M, with a $22 buy-in. Finally there’s #1-H, with a $215 buy-in.

This is the beauty of SCOOP: players of every bankroll level are able to challenge themselves again huge fields of players from around the world with the possibility of booking a massive return on their investment.

SERIOUSLY BIG MONEY

You’re gonna need a bigger case for all the money SCOOP is awarding

SCOOP always brings out the big guarantees. This year is no different in substance, only in scale:

• SCOOP 2019 features $75 million in guaranteed prize pools — the most of any PokerStars series ever held
• Every day on the SCOOP 2019 calendar features at least one tournament with a minimum guaranteed prize pool of $1,000,000
• The three Main Events are guaranteeing a combined $11.5 million
• Special Editions of favorite tournaments like the Sunday majors, Super Tuesday, and Thursday Thrill

THE DAYS ARE JUST PACKED

Two weeks of poker around the clock

There’s never a dull moment during SCOOP. Each day’s schedule is packed with poker goodness. The opening day features a schedule of 18 tournaments and no single day has less than nine tournaments.

Not only does SCOOP give you a chance to win big money on almost any bankroll, you can win playing almost any variety of poker. Besides the standard No-Limit Hold’em tourneys, titles are up for grabs in a variety of Omaha, Stud, Draw, and mixed-game disciplines. This year, for the first time, that variety includes tiered Pot-Limit Omaha Main Events.

DEEP STACKS AND SLOW STRUCTURES

In many respects SCOOP tournaments have more in common with major live poker tournaments than they do with other online poker tournaments. Many SCOOP events are two days long, and they all feature deep stacks and slow structures that lend themselves to intriguing, entertaining poker. They’re just as much endurance contests as they are tests of poker skill.

THE STARS WILL SHINE BRIGHT

Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt took two SCOOP titles in 2018

With so much money up for grabs, everybody shows up for SCOOP — especially the world’s best players. Count on seeing lots of familiar names in the daily reports. Then count on seeing them again before the series is done — double winners are relatively common. (Ten players, including world-beating crushers like Lena900 and RomeOpro, achieved this feat last year.)

You can also count on those familiar names turning up in all sorts of tournaments as they chase the prizes for winning the SCOOP Leader Board.

BRILLIANCE FROM CALVIN “CAL42688” ANDERSON

No one has crushed SCOOP as consistently as Calvin Anderson

More than any other player’s, Calvin “cal42688” Anderson‘s name has become synonymous with SCOOP success. If we knew you had a crystal ball that could see the future and you told us it said Anderson was going to win four events this year, we might raise our eyebrows a bit higher than usual — but we’d still believe you. That’s how good his track record has been during SCOOP.

Anderson won the SCOOP Player of the Series award in 2014. He nearly did it again last year, when he collected the ninth and tenth SCOOP victories of his career, extending a record that was already his alone. He also collected more knockout bounties than anybody else during the two weeks of SCOOP en route to finishing second behind Finland’s “calvin7v” on the overall Player of the Series leaderboard.

SATELLITES, SATELLITES, SATELLITES!!!

A robust satellite schedule is your SCOOP ace in the hole

With all these tournaments on the schedule, you’d better believe there are satellite feeders that can give you the full SCOOP experience for just a fraction of the cost.

One of the fastest ways to qualify for SCOOP is to play in special Spin & Go tournaments awarding tickets for SCOOP events. For as little as $2, you can battle with two other players for SCOOP tickets in a hyper-turbo, winner-take-all format. Players in the $215 version can win $1,050 or $10,300 SCOOP tickets, and they also have a shot to play for a cool million dollars.

There are also MTT and sit & go satellites running around the clock for almost every event on the schedule. Bottom line: if you want to play a SCOOP event but you’re on a budget, it isn’t hard to find a way to get in the game.

“Who is Evy Widvey Kvilhaug,” you might be asking yourself, “and why is she the featured guest on the latest episode of Poker In The Ears?”

That would be a dead giveaway that you weren’t paying a lick of attention during our coverage of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event last week, in which case: a) we’re resisting the urge to say shame on you, and b) it’s time to make up for your mistake by having a look back at what you missed.

Take your time. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. We’ll wait.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, the next thing you’re probably asking yourself is, holy crap, what in the world was it like to go from qualifying for €55 to knocking out three players in a row on the TV table at an EPT Main Event?

“There was so much going on there,” she tells Stapes and Hartigan, starting at 24:20 of the episode, of her insane start to Day 4. “What was going on in my mind was, ‘Oh no, I’m all-in on the first hand!’ When [my pocket jacks] held up I was thinking, okay, I can relax a bit.”

Then she picked up pocket aces. “It was an easier call, but I was thinking, ‘Is someone joking with me? What is happening?'” And then, after the aces held, it was jacks again. “It was such a shock, there were so many emotions going through me, that I don’t remember much of it, actually.”

Check out Episode 152 of Poker In The Ears — including a full #EPTMonteCarlo recap at 13:20 and a Breakfast Club-themed installment of “Superfan vs. Stapes” at 50:25 — on Soundcloud, iTunes, or Spotify. And if you want to help the boys out, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast.

From next week, you’ll find short deck 6+ Hold’em Sit & Go’s, as well as regular tournaments, on the PokerStars client. It’s another first for the industry.

PokerStars launched online 6+ Hold’em cash games back in January. The game uses a “short deck” with cards lower than a six removed from the deck. It plays out like regular hold’em, with a few exceptions. All players post an ante, and a flush beats a full house.

It makes for a game that’s typically full of action, and popular among both high and low stakes players.

You can look forward to seeing these 6+ Hold’em “side events” as SCOOP gets into full swing. Here’s what to expect.

• 6+ Hold’em games start May 17 at 14:30 ET
• Buy-ins of $22, $215 and $2,100
• On-demand Sit & Go’s will be available during the month at $2.50, $7 and $15

The first ever live 6+ no-limit hold’em tournament was played at the PokerStars and Monte Carlo® Casino EPT last month.

Italian pro Dario Sammartino won the event, collecting a first prize of €23,100. You can read more about how he did that here.

It serves as an additional feature over the next two weeks of SCOOP, which starts this Sunday.

• $75 million guaranteed in SCOOP events, with $115 million guaranteed during the series on PokerStars
• 67 events with three tiers of buy-in, meaning 201 tournaments in total
• A $1 million guaranteed event every day over the two-week Series
• $5 million guaranteed Main Event

PokerStars Ambassadors will be among those up to their elbows in SCOOP action.

Felix Schneiders will be there from the very start for the Sunday Kickoff SE: “I like to start a series with the first event that will be played. This one is especially action heavy since it’s 8-Max.”

Lex Veldhuis will also be taking advantage of the opening Sunday.

“Sunday tournaments are already the biggest ones of the week,” he said. “Now imagine SCOOP Sundays. Nobody misses these, and I mean nobody. SCOOP Sundays are what tournaments are all about. Poker players plan their year around these. Just talking about them gets me really fired up. You’ll see me out there grinding all of them.”

The new 6+ Hold’em games will initially be available to PokerStars players on dot com and dot eu. Games will be rolled out across different regions in future.

You can learn more about 6+ Hold’em here. And check out the SCOOP homepage for tournament schedules over the next two weeks.

PokerStars Ambassador Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg takes down the $27 Deepstack and $33 Bounty Builder in back-to-back nights, both streamed live on Twitch.

It’s always nice to get a win under your belt and give your bankroll a welcome boost, especially with just two days before the start of the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP).

But you know what’s even better? Two wins in two days.

Spraggy kicked off his winning ways on Wednesday night when he took down the $27 Deepstack for $1,249. On the final table, he made it look easy…easy to make quads, anyway.

Not long after that he took it down. “Obviously we’re just making a lot of very strong hands,” he said, as he turned two pair in what proved to be the final hand.

“It feels good to win a tournament again,” Spraggy said after that victory. “Obviously it’s not an absolutely massive one, but it feels good to take down the first place.”

He wouldn’t have to wait long to take down a massive one.

Last night (Thursday May 9) Spraggy went at it again.

He managed to build a big stack early in the $33 Bounty Builder, locking up more than three times the buy-in bounties before the tournament even reached the money bubble.

He made some great reads along the way, including this value shove in a spot where many players might have opted just to check back. He even called his opponent’s hand correctly.

Fast forward all the way to heads-up, and Spraggy had a 2:1 chip lead. When he got it in with Q♥Q♣ versus his opponent’s K♥3♦ and a king hit the flop, though, he was ready for a long heads-up battle.

Thankfully a long battle wasn’t needed when a queen hit the river.

For that victory, Spraggy banked $5,365 plus $4,371 in bounties.

Now it’s SCOOP time. Keep those trophies coming, Spraggy.

Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

November 12, 1993 was the first time the world was exposed to the UFC. That night changed the way the world thought about fighting when a skinny Brazilian ran through the field, winning three fights by quick submission.

Royce Gracie put jiu jitsu on the map, in what was an event created largely to prove the effectiveness of the Gracie style of fighting. He was, in fact, selected for his unimposing physique.

The first wave

Asked in 2013 why he chose his brother to represent the family in that initial tournament, Rorion Gracie said: “By putting someone like Royce in the cage, with a skinny body and totally physically unimpressive, we showed everybody that little guys can be tough too if they know Gracie jiu-jitsu. People say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ That was the message we wanted to put across, and it worked out great.”

Royce would win the tournaments at UFC 1, 2 and 4 — failing to win the third event when he had to withdraw after winning his opening round bout.

His performances, and the ease with which he dispatched men who “looked the part” of vicious fighters, had done the trick. Not only for his family’s legacy, but in establishing the UFC as the new home of fighting. It also showed Brazil to be home to some of the toughest and most technical men in the world.

Other Brazilians would rise up in the post-Gracie UFC. Marco Ruas won the UFC 7 tournament but Vitor Belfort was the next Brazilian to truly cause a stir.

Belfort blasted through the four-man UFC 12 heavyweight tournament. He used boxing skills and hand speed previously unseen in the Octagon. He returned at UFC 13 and stopped fan favorite beer-bellied brawler Tank Abbott in 52 seconds. Belfort would compile a 5-1 record between 1997 to 1999. He would return for two additional stints in the UFC before retiring in May 2018.

As the fighting world adapted to (and adopted) jiu jitsu, Brazilians stayed at or near the top of the rankings.

The greats

In addition to the first wave of Brazilian fighters, other men would establish themselves as among the best fighters the world has ever seen.

Anderson Silva burst onto the UFC scene as the living embodiment of a video game character. He won the UFC middleweight championship in his second bout in the Octagon. Then won 16 straight UFC bouts, usually doing anything and everything he wanted to his opponents.

Wanderlei Silva’s best days came in the PRIDE ring in Japan, but he was one of the most feared fighters on the planet for most of his career.

Until the arrival of Conor McGregor, Jose Aldo was the best featherweight to ever compete in mixed martial arts. He was also arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.

Cris Cyborg, Lyoto Machida, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (and twin brother Antonio Rogerio Nogueira), “Shogun” Rua, Jacare Souza… the list of true fighting greats from Brazil is long, and their accomplishments too numerous to count.

Brazil (15) is second only to the United States (68) in division champions in UFC history.

Uh Vai Morrer

But Brazil is not special in the world of MMA for its fighters alone.

The fans are ravenous and create an entirely unique atmosphere unmatched in the world.

One of the defining traits of Brazilian crowds is chanting “Uh Vai Morrer” at foreign fighters competing against Brazilians. The chant translates to “You are going to die.” Only in the world of the UFC is this somehow a charming quality, but it’s expected to the point of being a demand of crowds when the Octagon rolls into town.

MMA website BloodyElbow.com put together a great feature on the history of the chant:

UFC 237

This weekend, the UFC returns to Brazil for UFC 237. The event will be held at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, and will feature some iconic Brazilian fighters.

In the main event, Jessica Andrade faces off with strawweight champion Rose Namajunas.

Living legend Anderson Silva faces off with Jared Cannonier in the middleweight co-main event.

Jose Aldo, the previously mentioned former pound-for-pound king, will look to run his winning streak to three when he faces Alexander Volkanovski.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira fights for only the second time since November 2016 when he takes on Ryan Spann.

And plenty more men and women will enter the Octagon Saturday as they look to continue a UFC tradition that dates back to UFC 1 – the skinny kid fighting to sell his family’s art to the masses.

The “Uh Vai Morrer” chants will be flowing in Rio.

UFC 237 takes place Saturday at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro. It features two talented women battling for the strawweight championship on the main event, and a host of legends fighting on the rest of the card.

So, what do you need to know heading into the event? Let us guide you through.

The main event

At UFC 217, Rose Namajunas (8-3 MMA, 6-2 UFC) did what many thought was unthinkable. She defeated Joanna Jedrzejczyk to capture the UFC strawweight title. Jedrzejczyk had been  14-0 coming into the bout and was a massive favorite over the then 6-3 Namajunas.

Namajunas not only won the bout by first round knockout, she won the rematch at UFC 223 by unanimous decision. It removed any doubt as to her status as the strawweight queen.

The first bout with Jedrzejczyk was actually Namajunas’ second shot at the strawweight title. It came after losing to Carla Esparza in the final bout of season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter — a bout which crowned the first ever champion at 115 pounds.

Her UFC 237 opponent is familiar with the same taste of defeat in a title fight. Jessica Andrade (19-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC) fought Jedrzejczyk for the gold at UFC 211. She lost a clear cut unanimous decision one bout before Namajunas knocked off the then-champ.

Since the loss, Andrade has rattled off three consecutive victories. In the last she knocked out Karolina Kowalkiewicz, the last woman to beat Namajunas, in under two minutes.

Namajunas sits as a slight betting favorite ahead of the event, something she recently theorized about:

“I think maybe because I wear my heart on my sleeve, I take my emotions and I think maybe some people take that for weakness,” Namajunas told MMAjunkie.com. “Also I’m long and lengthy so maybe some people think I’m not strong or whatever, but it’s also more than that. I am strong, but it’s also being mentally strong, spiritually strong, everything. The whole package.”

The legends

While the story of many on the card is far from told, we do know there are three sure-fire UFC Hall of Fame talents fighting Saturday.

Anderson Silva (34-9 MMA, 17-5 UFC) is one of the greatest fighters to ever walk the Earth and is the greatest middleweight of all time. He won his first 16 fights in the UFC, and won the middleweight title in his second bout. He successfully defended the championship 10 times.

Silva is only 1-5 (with a no contest due to a drug test failure overturning another win) since he lost his middleweight title to Chris Weidman in July 2013. Time is cruel to all, but especially cruel to fighters. Still, Silva has shown he can still go and has guts to spare.

In his previous four bouts, he lost a competitive decision to Hall of Famer Michael Bisping. Then lost after stepping in very late notice to face Daniel Cormier at light heavyweight to save a major UFC 200 bout. Then defeated Derek Brunson, and lost a gutsy decision to Israel Adesanya (who went on to win the interim middleweight championship in his next bout).

Silva appears to have no strong push to become champion again, but loves the sport and wants to continue competing. Oh, and he really, really wants a fight with Conor McGregor.

His opponent, Jared Cannonier (11-4 MMA, 4-4 UFC) said he has designs on knocking out the legend and running his winning streak to two and attempting to stabilize an up and down Octagon career.

“I know I can knock him out,” Cannonier recently told MMAFighting.com. “All I gotta do is touch him. He’s no different from the next man. He can get knocked out, too. All I gotta do is touch your chin or hit the up side of your head, you know? Or I can just wrap my arms around your neck and choke you out.”

The other Brazilian legend on the card is Jose Aldo (28-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC), who takes on Alexander Volkanovski (19-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC).

Aldo once owned an 18-fight winning streak, 15 of which came in the UFC and it’s now-defunct sister promotion WEC. After winning the featherweight championship he successfully defended the title nine times, stamping himself as arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world before catching a knockout in just 13 seconds against Conor McGregor at UFC 194.

Aldo has a 3-2 record since that loss, beating UFC legend Frankie Edgar and losing twice to current featherweight champ Max Holloway.

He’ll have his hands full with the powerful Volkanovski.

B.J. Penn (16-13-2 MMA, 12-12-2 UFC) is already in the UFC Hall of Fame. His .500 record in the UFC is not an appropriate measure of his overall place in the promotion’s history. Penn has lost six consecutive fights, placing him in a tie for the very dubious record of longest losing skid in UFC history. If you mix in his draw prior to those six losses, he is on the longest winless stretch in company history.

But in his prime, Penn was a dominant force in the lighter weight classes of the UFC. One of the few men to make his pro debut in the UFC Octagon, Penn was the lightweight division’s early star but failed twice to win the lightweight title. First he lost to Jens Pulver in an upset at UFC 35, and then battled Caol Uno to a draw at UFC 41.

At UFC 46 he jumped to welterweight for a title bout and pulled off a massive upset of hyper-dominant welterweight champion Matt Hughes to capture gold at 170 pounds. He would then leave the promotion for two years before returning and losing two welterweight title opportunities. Then he returned to lightweight, finally capturing the 155-pound belt that had eluded him in his early career.

Penn’s career was defined by taking on the best the sport had to offer and capturing two major championships. Now 40, battling a massive winless skid dating back to November 2010 and being dogged by domestic abuse allegations, he’s looking for some bright spot during a massive life downswing.

Penn faces fellow veteran Clay Guida (34-18 MMA, 14-12 UFC) in a bout Guida says should have happened a decade ago.

The full card

MAIN CARD

• Strawweight Championship – Rose Namajunas © vs. Jessica Andrade
• Middleweight – Anderson Silva vs. Jared Cannonier
• Featherweight – Jose Aldo vs. Alexander Volkanovski
• Welterweight – Thiago Alves vs. Laureano Staropoli
• Lightweight – Francisco Trinaldo vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Light Heavyweight – Antônio Rogério Nogueira vs. Ryan Spann
• Lightweight – Thiago Moises vs. Kurt Holobaugh
• Women’s Bantamweight – Irene Aldana vs. Bethe Correia
• Lightweight – B.J. Penn vs. Clay Guida

EARLY PRELIMINARY CARD

• Women’s Flyweight – Luana Carolina vs. Priscila Cachoeira
• Welterweight – Warlley Alves vs. Sérgio Moraes
• Bantamweight – Raoni Barcelos vs. Carlos Huachin

Don’t forget our other casual fan resources ahead of UFC 237 including our Idiot’s guide to the UFC and UFC Glossary.

Due this July, Purposeful Practice for Poker by Dr. Patricia Cardner and Gareth James provides poker players a wealth of concrete advice about the “right sort of practice” they should pursue in order to improve their games.

Building on the work in her earlier books Peak Poker Performance and Positive Poker, Cardner shares knowledge gained while earning two doctorates (including one in psychology), working as a licensed professional counselor, and her time at the poker tables where she’s earned more than six figures’ worth of cashes in tournaments.

In Purposeful Practice for Poker, Cardner collaborates with tournament coach Gareth “Gazellig” James to show players how to make the most out of their study time away from the tables. They present and explain “purposeful practice” and how it can apply to poker, providing numerous techniques and exercises players can do to start improving right away.

Here’s an excerpt in which the pair explain the difference between “passive” and “active” learning, and how the latter is much more beneficial to those seriously looking to up their games.

Passive Versus Active Learning

Think back to the last time you learned something new in poker. Not when you had a Twitch stream on in the background while you played a Sunday session, passively listening to the streamer discuss their strategies or when you listened to a poker podcast on your daily commute. That is passive learning. You’re not doing anything but listening. We’re talking about the time you took a deep dive into a poker concept, theory, or idea and you were so curious and motivated that you actively took steps to understand it more. You took the time to actively link what you learned to your own game. During your sessions you would see similar situations pop up time and time again. You made mistakes, you learned from them, you made the connections between what you were learning and what you were experiencing. You posted the idea in your study group. You spent time discussing the concept with your poker friends. You did everything you could to deepen your understanding.

If you haven’t ever learned something in an active way, then that is about to change.

The Learning Cone (Dale’s Cone of Experience)

Source: Adapted from E. Dale, Audiovisual Methods in Teaching, 1969, NY: Dryden Press

During the 1960s, Edgar Dale theorized that learners retain more information by what they do rather than what they hear, read or observe. The least effective method of learning is at the top of the cone. This includes learning from information like reading strategy articles and forum posts and listening to podcasts. If you’re reading this book, you’ve probably consumed educational poker content at some point in your poker career. If you read a lot of strategy articles and listen to a lot of poker podcasts you’re probably not making the most of your time and are employing the least effective method of learning. Dale believed that people generally remember 10% of what they read and 20% of they hear. As the co-hosts of the popular Poker On The Mind podcast we obviously don’t want you to stop listening but, instead, want you to recognize that it is less effective than other methods. Having said that, we do encourage discussion of the ideas we present and a lot of our show concepts and topics can be used as a starting off point for your own learning. Listening to podcasts is great, but it’s not the most effective way to learn unless you do some work to transform it into an active process.

The cone looks at the average retention rate for various methods of teaching and learning. The closer you get to the bottom of the cone, the greater the learning and the more information you are likely to retain. It really highlights the importance of active learning over passive learning. According to Dale, we should design educational activities that build upon more real-life experiences. In poker, this means learning from real hands that you play. While it’s certainly educational to watch the Super High Roller games on TV, learning about why they do something and then trying to apply it at your local $100 bar league game might not be the best thing to do. You can work out why the best players in the world are doing what they’re doing, but also recognize that they are doing it because they are playing against the best players in the world.

Active learning is how adults learn best. You can make your learning more active by discussing hands with friends, collaborating with them, thinking critically about hands, spots and situations, solving problems and connecting your new learning and understanding to the games you play.

Here are some examples of passive and active learning in poker:

Passive

• Reading an article or forum post
• Listening to a podcast
• Watching live streams
• Watching a training video

Active

• Joining a study group and participating in discussion
• Contributing constructively to a forum or Facebook group
• Teaching what you know to someone else
• Running simulations

Watching training videos and live streams are a more effective way of retaining information and learning, but they are still examples of passive learning. Taking notes on the video or stream, though? Now we’re talking. We’re starting to get to the most effective way of learning… active learning.

The Learning Cycle

“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” – David A. Kolb (Kolb, 1984, p. 38).

Extending Dale’s Cone of Experience idea that we learn and retain more from what we do rather than we read, see or watch, Kolb’s Learning Cycle takes the experiential learning idea and puts it into a continuous sequence of development. He says that to learn effectively, a learner must actually have a concrete experience. They would then reflect on this experience to review what has been done and experienced. This is followed by the process of making sense of what happened, drawing comparisons between what they already know and drawing on theory to further their understanding. The final stage encourages learners to work out how they are going to apply their newfound knowledge and put it into practice. As Dale’s Cone of Experience also explained, it’s important to place the learning in context that is relevant to you.

Source: Adapted from D. Kolb, Experiential Learning, Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, 1984, N.J.: Prentice-Hall

As you can see, taking an active role in the learning process takes some effort. It is far easier to passively consume learning materials, but in the end you don’t really learn much and it actually wastes time! Having said that, let’s get into how to plan out your study sessions so that you can increase your knowledge as quickly as possible.

Purposeful Practice for Poker is available for pre-order in paperback and as an e-book at D&B Poker.

D&B Publishing (using the imprint D&B Poker) was created by Dan Addelman and Byron Jacobs 15 years ago. Since then it has become one of the leading publishers of poker books with titles by Phil Hellmuth, Jonathan Little, Mike Sexton, Chris Moorman, Dr. Patricia Cardner, Lance Bradley, Martin Harris and more, all of which are available at D&B Poker.

A few years back I looked at my phone to see a former champion of a major MMA promotion calling the day after losing a high-profile fight.

The second I answered he launched into a frustrated line of questioning that began, “Can you explain to me how judges score these fights?”

It was frustration boiling over after being on the losing end of a close decision.

But if it’s hard to a man who has worn championship gold around his waist to understand the motivations of the judges, it’s easy to see how a casual observer could wind up confused on fight night.

So, how do judges score fights?

The criteria

Rounds are scored on a “10-point must system,” which was explained in our Idiot’s Guide to the UFC:

Under this scoring system, the winner of each round must be awarded 10 points (unless there is a rule violation) while the loser of the round is awarded nine or fewer points depending on the level of dominance displayed over the course of five minutes. In the event a round has no clear winner, a judge may score a round 10-10.

The Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) judging criteria emphasizes three main areas on which each round should be judged. That determines not only the round winner, but also the appropriate score.

The first (and most important) criteria is “effective striking and grappling.” The judging criteria states this should be “the deciding factor in a high majority of decisions when scoring a round.”

“Effective” is the key word and mainly focuses on successful actions with a likely chance to bring the bout to an end. A big punch that hurts your opponent and buckles their legs is worth more than several lighter blows. Similarly with grappling, attacking with submissions is worth more than simply laying on top of your opponent and holding them down.

If a judge sees the striking and grappling to be equally effective, they are then to decide which fighter had more “effective aggression.”

This somewhat nebulous criteria revolves around which fighter was more effective in aggressively attempting to finish the fight. Simply rushing forward throwing heavy punches that come nowhere near landing is not “effective aggression.”

Finally, if the judges also see the effective aggression as even, they are to look at “fighting area control.” That is, who is controlling the pace of the fight as well as where the fight is taking place. A fighter forced to fight with his back against the cage could find himself penalized in a very close round.

All three of these criteria must be considered even for judge score a round at 10-10. Most rounds will be scored at 10-9. But some rounds are dominant enough to be scored 10-8. And in rare cases you may even see a 10-7.

A 10-8 round is usually awarded when the action is 100% in favor of one fighter. Or, if there was sufficient dominance that also included a near finish.

As stated in the ABC guidelines:

Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent.

A score of 10-7 would suggest that a fighter spent most of the round in danger of being finished, all while taking significant damage.

Again, from the guidelines:

It takes both overwhelming DOMINANCE of a round, but also significant IMPACT that, at times, cause the judge to consider that the fight could be stopped.

Not a perfect science

Of course, whenever winners are decided by the subjective opinions of other humans, there will be controversy. And UFC history is littered with controversial decisions.

For example, in a June 2014 bout between Ross Pearson and Diego Sanchez, only one of 14 media outlets found a single round to award to Sanchez. However, two of the three judges awarded the victory to Sanchez in one of the worst decisions in the sport’s history.

It was so bad that two different UFC legends put it at the top of their worst decisions list:

While winning by decision is a perfectly valid and acceptable form of victory, it’s also the one method where the power does not rest in the fighter’s actions. And you can not trust three human beings to all see a fight the same way … or the sane way.

This is why one of the most used phrases through the career of UFC President Dana White has been telling his fighters “never leave a fight in the hands of the judges.”

Rose Namajunas looked like she had the perfect gameplan to dispatch Jessica Andrade and keep a nightmare night going for the Brazilian fans at UFC 237. But a slam which will feature on highlight reels for years to come ended the fight in an instant.

Namajunas and Andrade met in the main event of the card, which took place at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro.

Namajunas came out utilizing her reach in the early part of the first round. Dancing around outside and popping jabs and overhand rights, she immediately split the eyebrow of the Brazilian challenger.

The early success of the champ led Andrade to try to get inside and work big takedowns. This resulted in a massive slam, but Namajunas was able to quickly recover from and resume her powerful straight punches.

Wow! What a start!!

Rose Namajunas vs. Jessica Andrade is delivering early at #UFC237! pic.twitter.com/Qps8fRWQrL

— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) May 12, 2019

The first slam may not have had much effect, but in Round 2, Andrade took Namajuanas for another ride, picking the champ up and slamming her to the mat on her head and neck.

The way Namajunas landed was frightening. Andrade dropped a few punches on her defenseless foe before the referee called a halt to the bout at the 2:58 mark of the second frame.

Namajunas did not appear to suffer any significant injury. She was quickly making her way back to her feet while the Brazilian celebrated, capturing gold at 115 pounds.

AND NEWWWWWWW!!!@JessicaMMAPro #UFC237 pic.twitter.com/7jl1IKN4Qp

— UFC (@ufc) May 12, 2019

It was a rough way to go out for Namajunas, especially after winning almost every second of the bout prior to the slam that brought an end to the bout.

Andrade has a host of potential challenges in front of her. Holding on to the title will be difficult with potential bouts with Tatiana Suarez, a rematch with Joanna Jedrzejczyk (who defeated Andrade in a title bout in 2017), and a potential rematch with Namajunas.

Silva falls to leg injury

Legends had a rough night at UFC 237. Anderson Silva (34-10 MMA, 17-6 UFC) — one of the greatest fighters to ever live — was the last legend up. He took on Jared Cannonier (12-4 MMA, 5-4 UFC) in the evening’s middleweight co-main event.

Silva has undoubtedly lost a step from the days when he operated several levels above the rest of the 185-pound division. But his recent losses have come against some of the best of the best in the UFC, dating back to a pair of losses to Chris Weidman in 2013. In the second of those losses, Silva saw his leg snap in half after throwing a kick.

The bout with Cannonier brought back chilling memories of that moment. This time around Silva went down with a leg injury after being on the receiving end of the kick.

Silva looked good in the early stages of the fight, moving well and firing off kicks with a surprising speed for a 44-year-old. But the first round had not yet ended when a Cannonier kick crashed into the knee of Silva, dropping him to the ground where he was clearly in agony.

The fight was stopped immediately. It was clear Silva’s knee had suffered significant damage.

An injured Anderson Silva limps out of the Octagon. So unfortunate. pic.twitter.com/34U5d4Skgg

— Guilherme Cruz (@guicruzzz) May 12, 2019

The hometown crowd was not happy with the way things had gone for Silva and they showered Cannonier with boos during his post-fight interview. Rather than play into the “fun” of fighting in front of a hostile crowd, Cannonier reacted simply.

“If they don’t respect me I ain’t got no respect for them and that’s it,” he said.

Aldo fails to keep up with Volkanovski

In front of a ravenous hometown crowd, Jose Aldo (28-5 MMA, 10-4 UFC) put his #1 contender ranking in the featherweight division on the line against #4 contender Alexander Volkanovski (20-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC).

Aldo is a UFC legend and there are few spectacles like watching him walk to the cage in Rio. Unfortunately for the former two-time featherweight champ, his entrance walk was the highlight of the night as he could not match the pace of the more effective Volkanovski.

Volkanovski was quick moving in and out on Aldo while landing strikes. Down the stretch, when Aldo needed to headhunt and look for a knockout, Volkanovski smothered him against the cage to take away any hope of a crowd pleasing Hail Mary knockout.

When the official scorecards were read after three rounds of action, all three judges awarded Volkanovski the 30-27 shutout.

Notes from the night

• • Laureano Staropoli (9-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) outworked veteran Thiago Alves (23-14 MMA, 15-11 UFC) over three rounds to score a unanimous decision victory on the main card.
  • In a bantamweight bout to kick off the main card, Irene Aldana (10-4 MMA, 3-2 UFC) scored a third round submission of Bethe Correia (10-4-1 MMA, 4-4-1 UFC) in what proved to be a tough fight. Aldana agreed to go forward with the fight after Correia missed weight by five pounds.
  • UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn (16-14-2 MMA, 12-13-2 UFC) now holds the unfortunate record of longest losing skid in UFC history after coming up short against Clay Guida (35-18 MMA, 15-12 UFC). Penn looked solid early, but ran out of gas in the second round, when Guida and his endless gas tank took the fight over.
  • This was a beautiful knockout early in the night:

She’s a STRAWWEIGHT!@ViviAraujoMMA wins her Octagon debut – at bantamweight – by KO! Wow! #UFC237 pic.twitter.com/j5phUibTXB

— UFC (@ufc) May 11, 2019

Full details are now with us for the EPT Open Madrid, which is playing out from June 22-30, 2019 at Casino Gran Madrid Torrelodones, on the outskirts of Spain’s majestic capital city.

The same venue played host to a memorable EPT Grand Final in 2011 and PokerStars Live returns for a 22-tournament festival including a €1,100 buy-in Main Event, with three starting flights.

PSPC Champion and PokerStars Ambassador Ramon Collilas will be the star attraction, but he can’t win them all. Time for you to put him in his place.

For full details look at our EPT Open Event Hub or the EPT Open Madrid page at PokerStars Live.

Here’s an overview, as well as details of a few added treats:

Festival dates: June 22-30, 2019

Main Event: June 26-30 – €1,100 buy-in (unlimited re-entries)

Other events include:

June 23-24: NLHE €2,200 single re-entry (two-day event)
June 29-30: NLHE €5,300 single re-entry high roller (two-day event)

Click for full event schedule

QUALIFY ONLINE

Online satellites are running regularly until June 16

On the .com and .eu platforms, qualifiers have a €162 buy-in
Two packages worth €2,700 each guaranteed every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Satellites from as little as €1

On the .fres platforms, qualifiers have a €50 buy-in
One package of seat & expenses, worth €2,100, guaranteed every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
Satellites from as little as €1

Spin&Go qualifiers are running to June 17
Full package worth €2,700
.com/.eu: €2.50 buy-in; .fres: €15 buy-in

PACKAGE DETAILS

Full package includes:

Main event buy-in: €1,100
Hotel: Six nights in 5-star hotel Meliá Princesa in central Madrid
Expenses: €379
Total: €2,700

ADDITIONAL EXTRAS

• Player’s Party: June 27, 8pm – “Spanish Fiesta” theme
• Thee Best Hands loyalty programme: 30 minutes free massage for every 10 hours booked
• Free merchandise to all Main Event players
• Designer VIP Shopping Experience: VIP Experience offered free to PokerStars qualifiers at Las Rozas Village, which has over 100 luxury fashion & homeware boutiques at up to 60% off retail prices. Visitors will receive complimentary drinks and a welcome from the staff, as well as a VIP shopper’s card.

GIVEAWAYS

If you weren’t already following all the PokerStars social media accounts, now is a good time to follow Ramon “@Mr__Boxes” Collilas on Twitter and Steve Enriquez on Instagram. Rumour has it there will be a couple of giveaways coming from those accounts over the coming weeks.

Here’s the first of a daily round-up of all that’s happening in the world of SCOOP 2019:

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• SCOOP 2019 kicks off with 18 tournaments starting on Sunday
• 105,954 entries on opening day; prize pools already more than $8.5 million
• First three champions from Costa Rica, Sweden and Finland
• Spraggy is Spraggy

MORE ABOUT SCOOP 2019
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS | LEADER BOARD

TODAY’S RESULTS

07-L $22 NLHE Turbo
JohnnyPorn, Costa Rica, $19,846.22
Entries 6,984 Prize pool: $139,680

07-M $215 NLHE Turbo
Anton720, Sweden, $51,538.26
Entries: 1,699 Prize pool: $339,800

07-H $2,100 Turbo
Erä_Koira, Finland, $91,913.31
Entries: 239 Prize pool: $478,000

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

The $2,100 Turbo brought the stars to the party, and Ole “wizowizo” Schemion and Sam “SamSquid” Grafton were among those to book an early final table. But Finland’s “Erä_Koira” landed the top prize, claiming a third COOP. Erä_Koira adds this to victories in the TCOOP from 2013 and WCOOP a year later. And now here’s a SCOOP title, worth the best part of $92,000.

The guarantees were smashed in all of 18 tournaments that got started on the opening Sunday, with three tournaments boasting prize-pools of more than $1 million.

The most popular event of the day proved to be SCOOP 03-L $11 Progressive KO. There were 21,255 entries.

Ole “wizowizo” Schemion: Wizo indeed

FOLD OF THE DAY

Hats off to Benjamin “spraggy” Spragg for this exceptional fold. Keep the good times rolling, Spraggy:

The first day of competition meant we could chalk up a host of “firsts” for the 2019 SCOOP.

First player to cash in SCOOP 2019: “grabble86” finished 2,591st place in Event 02-L, earning $9.62

First bubble in SCOOP 2019: “grabble86” succeeded where “WS Lynx”, of Russia, failed. WS Lynx finished in 2,592nd and bubbled.

First champion of SCOOP 2019: The high buy-in version of SCOOP 07 concluded first, with “Erä_Koira” thereby becoming the first champion of the year at 10.41pm ET.

First player knocked out of SCOOP 2019: Japan’s “jiro1201” was the first player knocked out of SCOOP 02-L, finishing in 15,809th place.

Special mention: Lex Veldhuis was knocked out in 1,119th place (out of 1,122) in SCOOP 02-H.

First million dollar prize pool: The 1,025 entries into SCOOP 03-H built a prize pool of $1.025 million, even before the official Sunday Million, typically the biggest of poker online tournament, completed registration. Tim “Tim0thee” Adams and Charlie “Epiphany77” Carrel are in the top 10 ahead of the restart.

STAR TRACKER

Ole “wizowizo” Schemion put in the hours on Day 1 of SCOOP and will need to do the same on Day 2. Schemion finished seventh in Event 7, for $18,077, and he is currently 19th of 64 returning for the $1,050 PKO Day 2.

PokerStars’ pre-eminent streamer Lex Veldhuis finished the day in second place in the $215 buy-in SCOOP 05-M PLO event, with 59 players left of a starting 1,538. He’ll be back at it today, streaming on Twitch as he hunts a title.

It’s been a few months now since Ramon Collilas joined Team PokerStars Pro, basking in the warm glow of his platinum pass-gilded triumph at the PSPC. Colillas is now playing his first SCOOP as a member of the team, and picked up his first cash in SCOOP 02-H. He finished 83rd for $1,444.40.

Ramon Colillas: First SCOOP cash as a member of the team

TWITCH WATCH

After Spraggy’s momentous fold of the set of fives (see above) it’s only fair to show some more of his skills. Here’s the bullying Brit barrelling three times with seven high. It’s hall of fame stuff.

SCOOP 02 – NLHE – Buy-ins $5.50, $55 and $530
Brazil take the top three spots in the high buy-in event, with “rodckz” leading the way. The highest non-Brazilian is Poland’s Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich.

SCOOP 03 – NLHE Progressive KO – Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050
In the high buy-in event, Argentina’s “El Pulgoso” is a massive chip-leader with 8,305,596, while second place (Lebanon’s “hotmark777”) has 4,788,765. PokerStars Ambassadors Leo Fernandez and Igor Kurganov both cashed this one. Fernandez finished 66th for $1,428 plus $375 in bounties, while Kurganov placed 108th for $1,100.79 plus $1,562.50 in bounties.

SCOOP 04 – NLHE – Buy-ins $22, $215, $2,100
Otherwise known as the Mini Sunday Million, the Sunday Million and the Sunday High Roller, SCOOP 04 generated two $1m+ prize-pools. In the High Roller, Dutch player “bookie87” has big chip lead with 4,497,290, followed by Chris “BigHuni” Hunichen with 3,013,938. The chasing pack includes: Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, Sergio “zcedrick” Aido and Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky.

SCOOP 05 – PLO – Buy-ins $22, $215, $2,100
It’s tight at the top of the high buy-in event, with three players sitting with more than 2 million in chips. “justnl2”, from Cyprus, is ahead, but Andras “probirs” Nemeth and Philippe “takechip” D’Auteuilare are on his tail. In the medium buy-in, all eyes are on Lex Velduis, who sits in second overnight.

SCOOP 06 – NLHE Big Antes – Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050
Big Antes? Big prize-pools more like. Ireland’s Tomas “luckymo32” Geleziunas leads the high buy-in event, looking to add a second SCOOP title to his collection. He won the $55 PLO re-buy event this time last year. There’s nearly $80,000 on offer for the winner of this one.

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 3
Tournaments ongoing: 15
Entries so far: 105,954
Prize pool so far: $8,575,737

TOP TWEETS:

It was a decent start to SCOOP for @fishunterik, who found aces and stacked two opponents. He went on to cash in 458th place, for $17.99.

Good start first hand in #scoop pic.twitter.com/in54mJdKM3

— fishunterik (@fishunterik) May 12, 2019

STARTING TODAY:

SCOOP 08 – NLHE Buy-ins — $5.50, $55, $530
SCOOP 09 – 2-7 Single Draw — Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050
SCOOP 10 – NLHE Win The Button – Buy-ins $11, $109, $1,050

There was news both in and out of the UFC Octagon in Rio over the weekend.

While Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade headlined UFC^® 237, a PokerStars press conference announced details of three new PokerStars Ambassadors from the world of UFC.

The three new names were unveiled as:

• Voice of the Octagon Bruce Buffer
• UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier
• No 12 ranked light heavyweight Johnny Walker

Each of those names will be familiar to UFC fans. They’ll be part of various project and promotions coming up in the coming months. That should fascinate UFC and poker fans alike.

A warm Rio welcome

Given this was Rio, it seemed only right that the new ambassadors received a warm welcome from local poker hero Andre Akkari.

“For me and for many Brazilians, poker and MMA are passions,” said Akkari. “To give poker fans opportunities to engage with the UFC and to give UFC fans more ways to engage with what they love is really exciting. It’s an honour to have such incredible athletes in our corner.”

Bruce Buffer, who is already an accomplished poker player, had this to say:

UFC announcer Bruce Buffer joins team PokerStars

“This partnership brings together two heavyweights of the entertainment world and, luckily for me, two of my great passions,” said Buffer. “I’ve been a poker player all my life. I’m a regular at the tables in my hometown and I remember seeing Moneymaker’s legendary performance back in 2003 right before he became a member of team PokerStars. To join him alongside this great line-up of athletes and poker pros is a great honor for me.”

Johnny Walker picked up on the challenges that make good fighters and good poker players:

Andre Akkari introduces Johnny Walker, Daniel Cormier and Bruce Buffer at the Rio press conference

“I’m thrilled to represent PokerStars on their journey with the UFC. I love a challenge and any opportunity to sharpen my game,” said Johnny Walker. “PokerStars are the best at what they do. Just like the UFC. It makes sense to bring such world class acts together to offer more exciting opportunities to fans around the world.”

It all preceded UFC 237 which took place at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio over the weekend. It was a dramatic night, as you can read about on the PokerStars Blog. Catch up on everything on the night here.

A Mega Freeroll ran a couple of weeks ago on PokerStars as part of the 200 billion hands celebration. You might have even picked up a ticket for it yourself.

If you decided against playing it, though, you might not want to read on. Three guys used that very same freeroll ticket and turned it into multiple thousands of dollars after a super hyper-turbo structure saw an enormous field of 200,000 people whittled down to just three.

They made a deal and played it out to a winner. The Netherlands’ Bart “Sepiver” de Jonge took it down for $7,781, while runner-up finisher “galalauzinho” of Brazil banked $8,284, and Mexico’s Fernando “unsen1” Sánchez came third for $6,636.

We caught up with de Jonge and Sánchez a week after their huge victories to find out more about them, and their plans for the future.

1st place: Bart “Sepiver” de Jonge ($7,781)

PokerStars Blog: Congratulations Bart. How did you hear about the freeroll?

Bart de Jonge: I first read about the 200B hands celebration in the client. At the time I was just excited about this as it promised a lot of giveaways, but I didn’t read up on the specific events. When I was awarded the ticket for the mega freeroll, that was actually the first time I noticed it.

Were you always planning to play it, or did you just decide at the time?

When I got the ticket I was, of course, excited for the freeroll and planned to play it, but I only registered for it the afternoon of the freeroll when I was reminded by a friend.

Were there any tough spots for you in the tournament?

I don’t remember any particular tough river spots from this tournament. However, with two or three tables left I reshoved pocket eights from the big blind over a button open from the table chipleader and he called off with Ace-Queen off. This was a huge pot for me in the tournament, and after that, I could apply some ICM pressure and get to the final three relatively easy.

What tournaments do you usually play?

I usually play some micro stakes MTT’s, but mostly 6-max hyper Sit & Gos (SNGs) lately. I think this also helped me in the late stages of the freeroll as everyone was super short and I am quite comfortable at that stack depth due to the SNGs.

What do you like about poker?

One of the main things I love about poker is on the surface it’s quite a simple game, you can learn the rules in 15 minutes. However, when you dive into it there is actually so much strategy and statistics going on, and you are never done learning new techniques. I like playing online poker as playing for real money just gets me more involved in the game and gives more motivation to become better, and playing online makes playing for real money accessible. It’s also nice that you can play a very high volume at the same time. I tried various different sites, but I like PokerStars because of a number of reasons. First of all, its the only site left with reasonable traffic on hyper SNGs, secondly the field sizes, in general, are very good and a lot of different micro stakes MTT’s are offered. The client software feels really smooth and you get used to this very rapidly.

How did it feel when you won the money?

It felt unreal, my previous highest cash was about 10% of this, so coming into the FT I already matched this. After this the pay jumps were huge and everything went pretty quickly. This also meant quite a bit of stress as I had never played for this amount of money before. After dealing three-way I could relax and hang out with the observer chat (shoutout to them, this was the first time anyone was rooting for me in an online tournament) while playing it out. I took until the next morning to fully realize what crazy event happened the last night before (infinite ROI btw).

Do you have any plans on how you’ll spend the money?

A part of it will remain in my account and be used to play in the future. To celebrate I bought a new watch and some sunglasses, but the rest will be set aside to help me get started on buying a house in a couple of months after I graduate.

What’s your life like outside of poker?

I’m still in university, and currently graduating on cybersecurity for the computer science masters on the TU Delft. Because of that, I’m living in a student dorm near my campus. I have a side job as a software engineer, and my other free time is usually spent playing poker, gaming, drinking some beers with my friends (while playing poker) and hanging out with my girlfriend.

3rd place: Fernando “unsen1” Sánchez ($6,636)

Fernando Sánchez wins again. (Nice hoodie, Fernando!)

PokerStars Blog: Congratulations Fernando. Were you looking forward to playing the freeroll?

Fernando Sánchez: Yes, I had planned to play it and I registered two days beforehand, but that day I forgot completely until my friends told me that I was sitting out. I logged in almost an hour late with just four big blinds!

What tournaments do you usually play?

Sit&Go Hyper Turbo 6-Max $7.00.

What draws you to poker?

I like that there is always something to learn. You have to study and upgrade yourself if you want to be a winner. I like playing on PokerStars because they have the best software, security and plenty of options to play.

How did it feel when you made the deal?

Very happy. I couldn’t believe that I’d finished third in a tournament of more than 200,000 people.

Any plans for the money?

I’ll use it to move up stakes, play MTTs, and I’ll buy an effects pedal for my guitar.

What’s your life like outside of poker?

Poker is my full-time job. I live in Mexico City. My hobbies include playing the guitar and listening to rock music. I used to stream on Twitch, but I left to focus more on my game. Although this time I streamed the final table.

If it’s possible, I would like to send thanks to PokerStarsSchool in Spanish, Donk School, Ezequiel, Xago, ArSergio, El Cogui, EllocoBee and all the people who were supporting me that day.

Don’t miss out on the next Mega Freeroll! Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

Check out the latest news and results from SCOOP on our results page. This though is the alternative look at SCOOP.

Here you’ll find where to get the most fun from SCOOP today. Starting with SCOOP events played for very specific purposes:

• Money is no object
• Money is the object
• There is no money

PLUS…

• Inspiration from the real world, which you might have missed while immersed in SCOOP.

AND…

• How to fill the time while waiting for the next SCOOP event to begin.

But first.

Today is #TopGunDay

Today is officially Top Gun Day, marking the day that hit movie Top Gun was released all the way back in 1986.

Only it isn’t today exactly. It was actually May 16. But that also happens to be Iron Eagle Day, which as everyone knows was a slightly less awesome movie along similar lines, involving F-18s rather than F-14s, but which obviously got it’s afterburners on early to register it’s “official day” on social media first.

But in honour of Maverick, Iceman, Slider, Goose, and the Danger Zone, here are the Top Gun-themed SCOOP players still in contention for titles in events resuming today.

Hat-tip: SlyderS1, Admiralmd, Aviator321, Dangerr44, MagicPilot, IceStream, hopezACE, ShootTheSky, Striker33333, and of course Corny1313 and OverTheTop43.

Events starting today

Remember there are three tiers of entry for every SCOOP event. So, in keeping with that, we’ve graded today’s events based on our own three criteria.

The three levels of SCOOP event available today

Starting with:

Money is no object (biggest buy-ins)

Of the nine tournaments (three events) starting today, three have buy-ins of more than $500. If you prefer to swagger into SCOOP rather than tiptoe, here’s what you’re looking for:

SCOOP 08-H: $530 NLHE. Starts at 13:00 ET.

SCOOP 09-H: $1,075 NL 207 Single Draw. Starts at 14:15 ET

SCOOP 10-H: $1,050 NLHE (8-Max, Win the Button). Starts at 15:30 ET

(Click the links about to find satellites for these tournaments)

Money is the object (biggest prize pools)

The biggest prize pool today is in SCOOP 08-H. That has $1 million in the pot. But there’s more money to be won out there that doesn’t require a four figure buy-in.

SCOOP 08-M: $55 buy-in and a $400K guarantee

SCOOP 10-M: $109 buy-in and $200K guaranteed

There is no money (smallest buy-ins)

This is more like it. Where to get the most bang for the dollar from today’s tournaments? Not organised fun exactly, but tournaments that have a shorter recovery period if things don’t go as planned.

The obvious starting place is SCOOP 08-L.

For just $5.50 (about the price of a Top Gun DVD on eBay) you can play hold’em for a prize pool of $100K Guaranteed. That’s absurd.

There’s more. You can have up to two re-entries, in case Plan A and Plan B require Plan C.

To register, go straight to the SCOOP tab in the PokerStars Lobby, or download the PokerStars software.

Inspiration from IRL

If you happen to dream about poker hands they might be worth paying attention to today.

The BBC had the story of this man today, who managed to win the Australian lottery using numbers that came to him in a dream.

Obviously, we believe wholeheartedly that poker is a skill game. In fact, we’d encourage everyone to practice and apply a little effort, maybe at PokerStars School. But we still don’t walk under ladders.

There’s just one snag with this. The man in question dreamed up the numbers 13 years ago. So you will need to refer to hands dreamed up in 2006.

Just not this one.

How to spend the time between tournaments today

Take part in the SCOOP Battle of the Poker Songs on the PokerStars Twitter account.

You can vote for your favourite poker themed song. Or, use tactical voting to get your own back on Kenny Rodgers.

Battle of the Poker Songs. The only contest to throw Elvis up against Bob the Builder

It’s played on a round-by-round basis until we have a winner. Pretty sure you can win things too.

Here are some of the results so far…

It was bad news for Frank Sinatra, whose classic Luck be a Lady lost out to Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley (those under 60 will need to look those up)

The same went for Lazy Poker Blues, by Fleetwood Mac, which lost out to Eric Clapton’s Little Queen of Spaces (those under 50 will need to look those up)

And for LL Cool J, whose seminal Mama Said Knock You Out somehow missed out by 0.8 per cent against Salt n Pepa’s Push It (Those under 40 will need to look those up)

Other songs went the same way. Including Baby Shark by Super Simple Songs, which was battered by Big Fish Little Fish, by the poet and rock legend Bob the Builder (those over 10 will need to look those up).

We know, we know. Just remember, there are prizes.

Got time to read (and practice)?

Practicing your game is a great idea as you wait for the next SCOOP event. But are you practicing your game properly?

Read em and reap

That’s the subject of Purposeful Practice for Poker, which we featured an excerpt from on the blog last week. In it, authors Dr Patricia Cardner and Gareth James examine what makes good active practice – the kind that will make you a better player – as opposed to passively trying to absorb information.

You might not realise it, but this book could change your game, and your life. Start with what you can learn in the extract here.

You can check out all the results and news from the day from our Day 1 post. And remember, unlike in Top Gun, in SCOOP there actually are points for second place. You can check out the leader board page to find out how many.

It’s tough to win one SCOOP event, let alone two. Yet most years someone manages to come along and do the double. So when can we expect our first double winner of SCOOP 2019?

JohnnyPorn is in the hunt on Day 2

It could be as early as today, if Costa Rica’s JohnnyPorn has his way.

Costa Rica’s “JohnnyPorn” has two shots today to become SCOOP 2019’s first double winner

JohnnyPorn won Event #7-L ($22 NLHE, 8-Max, Turbo) yesterday and is still going in two different restarts as of this writing. He’s currently in 9th place with 40 players left in Event #5-L ($22 PLO), which resumed at 2:15 ET today. He’s also in 24th place with 55 players remaining in Event #6-H ($1,050 NLHE, Big Antes), which restarts at 3:30 p.m. ET.

But given that JohnnyPorn is the only opening day winner still left in today’s Day 2 finishes, and that the odds are still against him given the dozens of competitors he has to get past to win a second title, how soon will we likely see a SCOOP double winner if he comes up short today?

Say JohnnyPorn misses…what then?

Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky was SCOOP 2018’s first double winner

Between the three buy-in tiers there are 201 events on this year’s SCOOP schedule. That’s a lot of opportunities for somebody to grab two wins. More importantly for our purposes here, it’s also more opportunities for a double win than there have ever been before.

Given how many more events we have on this year’s schedule, how common it is for top players to grind these events throughout the schedule with each passing year, and how many winners take shots at bigger tournaments, it certainly seems likely that we’ll have a double winner sooner rather than later.

In 2018, the past year most similar to this year’s schedule, we had 10 different double winners. The first of them pulled off the feat on Day 4, when Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky won the $5,200 Turbo High Roller title in Event #16-H to go along with his victory in Event #2-H.

If that seems a bit early to you, well, there’s a good reason. Historically speaking, it is. Only one other player in the last six years has pulled off the SCOOP double earlier in the schedule.

It also seems likely that any double-clinching win will come in a High-tier event. The fields are smaller, especially in Draw and Stud tournaments, and past double winners’ victories, aside from youngblood51’s Medium-tier win in 2014, have come in those events.

So what you’re saying is…

Put all this data together and a double winner seems not just likely but a near-lock. And given the way these things have fallen in the past, the first one is likely to come before this week is out. Assuming we don’t get news tonight that JohnnyPorn has indeed won a second event, we’re setting the over/under for tournaments with a Sunday finish — Events 18 through 22.

The 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is now two days old. Here’s what’s happening:

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Russia claim three titles; Brazil and Sweden win twice
• Platinum Pass winner Julien “L1VeYRdrEamS” Perouse wins big
• Lex Veldhuis narrowly misses PLO final table
• Satellite winners hit the big time

TODAY’S RESULTS

†Including bounties
*After deal

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Brazilian players completed the first 1-2 of this year’s SCOOP when “nophilings” edged “MachadinhaRS” in SCOOP 06-M Win The Button, worth a combined $70K.

Canada’s Julien “L1VeYRdrEamS” Perouse, who won a Platinum Pass after winning the Turbo Series Main Event, was back among the champions, winning the $2,100 Sunday High Roller for $177K. He took the most of a three-way deal, after Sergio “zcedrik” Aido had departed in fourth.

Julien “L1VeYRdrEamS” Perouse back in the big time

Costa Rica’s “JohnnyPorn” followed up yesterday’s outright victory in Event 07-L (in which he topped a 6,984-entry field) with a sixth place finish in Event #5 L, with 5,883 runners. He has therefore outlasted 12,826 players in two events.

Russian players “BilFray”, “nafnaf_funny” and “zPYCJIAHz” all won on Monday, giving Russia an early lead in the countries leader board. Already winner have come from 14 countries.

MORE ABOUT SCOOP 2019
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS | LEADER BOARD | THE DAILY SCOOP

Serbia’s “mican_ludi” won the high buy-in SCOOP-03 PKO and his total haul of $160,227.44 included an extraordinary $76,535 in bounties.

IN ON THE CHEAP

Satellite winners are already winning big at this year’s SCOOP, with some ROIs spiralling into six figures — and some free-rollers also making the money.

Hats off first to Russia’s “nafnaf_funny” who satellited in to SCOOP 05-M $55 PLO Six Max for $22 and won the whole thing for $46,927.14. He’s the first outright winner. However, the ROI king so far is Ukraine’s “CBUHOKOHb-1“, who paid only $2.85 for his satellite entry to SCOOP 04-L and then finished sixth for $6,914.56. That’s an ROI of 242,616 percent.

Junker617, rivermaster9194, awt1, Mikrant, AaronNimzoVIsch, masik6, DRICA71, sds_DEN, daknik, gorbunov02 can beat even that, however. All of those 10 freerolled into SCOOP events this weekend and made the money, representing an ROI of infinity.

The spin-up hall of fame:

TWITCH WATCH

Streamer extraordinaire Lex Veldhuis streamed for more than seven hours on Day 2 of SCOOP, with more than 14,000 concurrent viewers at one point, but he would have liked to have stuck around even longer. The Dutch pro made it to eighth in the SCOOP 05-M: PLO, narrowly missing the final table. Veldhuis won $3,741 for that, but it was day of frustration. Here’s an example: full house over full house for heaps. Lex’s silence says it all:

TOURNAMENTS ONGOING

SCOOP 08: No Limit Hold’em – Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530

SCOOP 09: 2-7 Single Draw – Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb and Ole “wizowizo” Schemion are both in two Day 2s in this event. Deeb is through in both the low and medium buy-ins, while Schemion is in the medium and high.

SCOOP 10: NLHE Win The Button – Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 18
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Entries so far: 164,302
Prize pool so far: $1,247,873.97

READ! READ! READ!

It’s tough to win one SCOOP event, let alone two. Yet most years someone manages to come along and do the double. So when can we expect our first double winner of SCOOP 2019? Jason Kirk investigates…

STARTING TODAY:

SCOOP 11: 5 Card PLO Progressive KO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
The perfect tournament for players who think there aren’t enough cards in Omaha.

SCOOP 12: NLHE Tuesday Specials
Buy-ins: $109, $1,050, $10,300
It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time to dig deep. The medium buy-in is the Super Tuesday tournament, but there’s also the first $10K of this year’s SCOOP.

SCOOP 13: 2-7 Triple Draw
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
One of the most fun games to play, whether you’re used to it or not. Read a quick primer, then get involved.

The internet calls this “Chicken Dance Day”. We call it Day 2 of SCOOP 2019.

So, while you perform your own rendition of the “Yeltsin Chicken Wing” in the comfort of your own home, allow us to explain how you can turn a few dollars today into a SCOOP fortune… from the comfort of your own home.

There are 14 tournaments on the SCOOP schedule for Tuesday. But if you’re looking for some instant gratification at the affordable end, look no further than this one:

SCOOP 11-L: $5.50 5-Card PLO [6-Max, Progressive KO], $20K Gtd: 16:45

You’ll find SCOOP 11-L has everything.

A buy-in that won’t pummel your bankroll with a heavy stick, and a guaranteed prize pool of $20,000. That means the top finishers could add something like three zeroes to that original five dollars.

It’s a 5-Card PLO tournament too, which means action all the way. And because it’s a Progressive KO format, you can earn money for busting players, as well as for going deep.

It kicks off at 11:45 ET, or 16:45 UK.

That’s give everyone on the Eastern side of the Atlantic enough time to get home from work while late registration stays open.

If you’re on the other side, you’re going to need the afternoon off. Or a manageable dose of that, err… “336-hour virus” that’s been knocking around. Reassure your boss you should be fine about a week on Monday.

So play it, and then let us know on Twitter (@PokerStarsBlog) how you get on. Especially if, having clicked the link above for “how to play 5-Card PLO,” you figured “nah, I’ll figure it out”, and jumped right in.

And something to do while you wait

While you’re waiting convalescing, check out the SCOOP latest on the PokerStars Blog today.

There’s a win for former Platinum Pass winner Julian Perouse, and a near miss for team pro Lex Veldhuis.

PLUS, we try to predict the future by asking when we’ll see the first double SCOOP winner of the year.

You can read it here. But it’s you. Of course, it’s you.

And to work out which other SCOOP events you’re going to win this year, check out the full Series schedule here.

Finally, you’re right, they’re wrong, and that’s the end of it

Our Battle of the Poker Songs plays on on Twitter.

We’re down to the semi-finals which will pitch Lady Gaga’s Poker Face against Johnny Cash’s Big River. Meanwhile Motorhead’s Ace of Spades will take on House of the Rising Sun by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

It’s the kind of thing that only takes place on social media, so check it out next time you’re there.

Lindsay Demelo lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Chronic illnesses have led to her being on a permanent medical leave, so she’s at home a lot of time out of necessity, but she doesn’t spend her time alone.

Along with her husband, she runs an AirBnB that has hosted nearly 100 families from countries all around the world. And when she’s not busy learning about other cultures and sharing stories of travel and life with her guests, she’s an active member of the Twitch and PokerStars School communities.

Spin of the Day freeroll winner Lindsay Demelo

“Being home a lot could easily become depressing but playing tourneys, watching various poker streamers, and being connected with some others in the poker community really helps in my quest to stay positive in life,” Demelo told the PokerStars Blog via email. “It brings fun, joy, excitement, and importantly something positive to look forward to. It helps distract from health issues and keeps me setting goals to be a better player and to keep as physically and mentally strong as possible.”

All that time at the PokerStars tables has made for some good results in the past, especially in her favorite tournaments, the micro-stakes Bounty Builders, where she’s made a few final final table appearances in the last month. There have also been deep runs at the local casino and in the PokerStars play money charity tournament. By far the largest field she’s conquered, though, came last month in a Spin of the Day freeroll.

Her friends from the community were railing her when she played and won the freeroll, defeating a field of 10,000 players. The fast structure, poker friends cheering her on, and PokerStars School strategy contributor Dave “TheLangolier” Roemer’s stream pulled up in another window made for a fun experience, she says. “It also helped to keep me from getting too nervous, which would have caused me to tighten up my game and not take spots that were necessary in the process of getting to the final table.”

Demelo says she thinks she played “fairly well” in the freeroll. Like any tournament winner she admits to some luck here and there, such as the hand at the final table where she flopped four of a kind, or being fortunate enough to pick up A♣K♦ against A♠Q♦ on the second hand of heads-up play.

Unlike a lot of winners, she also humbly admits to to making some mistakes along the way — at least partly because she used the freeroll as a chance to work on implementing some of the strategies she’s taken from streamers like TheLango and PokerStars School’s Pete “Carroters” Clarke, and to solidify other strategies she’s already been using on her own.

“Mostly I think that what I learned is the value of having a poker ‘tool belt’ of different strategies to use at different stages of the tourney,” she said.

Every tournament brings new chances to hone those tools more finely. And whatever the result, the community is always there to share in it.

The whole world has gone Game of Thrones crazy, and it seems it’s also infected the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). Read on…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• “Daenarys T” adds SCOOP triumph to Anniversary Sunday Million success
• Brazilian PokerStars School tutor wins title
• Globetrotting Jordan “JWPRODIGY” Westmorland bags first COOP
• Deeb aims for Triple Draw title as stars come out
• Two more $1m+ prize pool tournaments start

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

While most folk of Westeros have endured a tough and bloody week, at least one resident has been finding the time to play SCOOP. And good for them. “Daenarys T“, whose poker-playing namesake is originally from the Netherlands, returned to the top of the PokerStars podium in the SCOOP 10-H event last night, winning not just the button but also $89,337. Daenarys T is one of the only players for whom that top prize might seem a little small: he/she previously won the Sunday Million Take 2 Anniversary special last April, where his victory was worth $1 million. It was after that event that we enjoyed one of the most memorable interviews we’ve conducted. “First I ran around the room for a little bit,” it began. Read the rest. For added measure, “Daenarys T” is also currently sitting sixth in the $2,100 buy-in NLHE 6-Max, with Chris “Moorman1” Moorman and Steven “SvZff” Van Zadelhof, among others, for company.

MORE ABOUT SCOOP 2019
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS | LEADER BOARD | THE DAILY SCOOP

The biggest prize of the night — $176,864.32 — went to “holy h3ll”, who beat 2,406-entry strong tournament in SCOOP 08-H. Currently representing Costa Rica, “holy h3ll” has previously been based in Israel, from where he won the Sunday Million in 2015 and the Super Tuesday a year later.

Jordan Westmorland, pictured in Sanremo

We’ve encountered Jordan “JWPRODIGY” Westmorland many times over the past decade, everywhere from Macau to Monaco, Seoul to Sanremo. He is one of a large group of itinerant American online poker players, who has set up home in various countries around the globe. Wherever he’s been, he’s been winning.

Westmorland is currently playing out of Indonesia and it’s from there that JWPRODIGY won the SCOOP 10-M even last night, for $48,606.17.

It’s been four months since the PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC) played out in the Bahamas, and for most of us, the dust has now officially settled on Ramón Colillas’ breakout score.

For Colillas, however, life remains in the whirlwind caused by such a mind-blowing result. He did win $5.1 million, after all.

You’d never guess it by talking to him, though.

“There haven’t really been any big changes in my life,” he tells us during a chat at European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo earlier this month. But the truth is that a lot has happened to Colillas since January 10th 2019, the day he turned a free $30K Platinum Pass package into life-changing money and one of the biggest tournament scores in poker history.

GOING THROUGH CHANGES

First off, the attention he’s been getting from fellow players and the media during his first major outing wearing the Team Pro patch is something Colillas is still getting used to.

“There are so many new things happening for me,” he says. “It’s strange but nice.”

He’s not only become an inspiration to poker players everywhere (particularly in Spain and his hometown of Barcelona), but he’s also become a PokerStars Ambassador.

Kalidou Sow in action at EPT Monte Carlo

“It’s very special being here as a PokerStars Ambassador,” he says. “I met all the Team Pros for the first time here at the EPT. I haven’t had much time to have a beer with everyone yet though.”

Colillas was announced as a PokerStars Ambassador three months ago— around the same time as France’s Kalidou Sow—and Colillas says the two look forward to spending more time with the whole team.

“I’d actually met Kalidou prior to this because we’ve played at the same table in tournaments before,” Colillas says. “Later in the year, I’m sure there will be more opportunities to meet everyone when there’s more time to talk. It’s not an easy thing to come [to an EPT] and meet them in person because all the players are focused on poker tournaments. They are here to play.”

Colillas himself put in a busy schedule in Monaco, something his healthy bankroll now affords him. “The obvious [change] is the buy-ins I can now play. Before the PSPC I only played up to a certain amount, but now I can play bigger tournaments like this €5K Main Event,” he says.

It’s actually online where Colillas cuts his teeth for most of the year though, and he’s regularly spotted battling in the PokerStars High Roller Club and big Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP) events.

“I’m an online player originally, so playing online is my bread and butter,” he says. “I’ve tried to go to live events and do the same, but it’s not the same. Playing online with the best players in the world is an awesome thing. I have a chance not only to play online from home but to also improve my game by playing the best.”

Despite his love of online poker, Colillas still plans on putting in plenty of travel for poker stops. The good news for him is that he’ll have his girlfriend alongside every step of the way.

“For both of us, this is a whole new thing,” he says when we point to one of the screens scattered around the Sporting Club (home of EPT Monte Carlo) playing a video featuring them both. “At the same time, it’s good because she’s a lot more talkative than me, so it’s comforting for me to have her with me. We’re experiencing this thing together. When we started seeing each other I was just a random player. She didn’t travel with me, but now we’re living this together. It’s nice.”

Colillas in the Bahamas after his $5.1 million PSPC victory

FATHER AND SON

Aside from his girlfriend and family, the one person Colillas looked forward to celebrating his PSPC victory with was his elusive “poker father”.

We first heard this story right after his win. Colillas prefers to keep the identity of the man he calls his “poker father” a secret, but he credits him for turning his game around during a rough spell at the tables.

“I had a bad streak during the first months of 2018 and this person gave me some gifts to not only improve my game but also help me improve how I manage things. That helped me a lot. I’ve been on a good streak since then,” he says.

We wondered how those two might have celebrated the $5.1 million windfall.

“I met him a few weeks ago and we had some time to talk. He’s very proud, of course.

“There was not a big celebration, just a nice dinner together. He was very busy with some personal things, but he’s eager to see me again at a live event when we have more time to discuss our lives and share some thoughts.”

PLANNING AHEAD

After leaving Monte Carlo, Colillas headed straight for the Spanish Poker Championship in San Sebastian. (“I’m a former champion of it, and I love it there,” he says. “It’s always marked red on my agenda every year, I can’t wait to go back there.”)

Then it’s off to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker.

“I haven’t made plans yet, but I’d like to play all of the big tournaments in the main casinos like the Aria, Rio and Venetian. I’ll be in Vegas for a month and I want to play as much as I can.”

Colillas proudly reps the Spanish flag (and the red spade)

There will be a slight detour during Colillas’ trip though, as he’ll be heading back to Spain for the EPT Open Madrid (kicking off on June 22). He wouldn’t miss it.

“I’m obviously making an effort to be there,” he says. “As it’s a €1K tournament I think there will be many people playing, and it’s a big opportunity for them.

“It’s a great decision by PokerStars to run that tournament in Madrid because it’s an amazing place. There are a lot of poker players there and they will all be talking about it. I hope to meet a lot of them in person there.”

One person he knows for sure will be there with him is his good friend (and recently announced PokerStars Twitch streamer) Steve Enriquez (who we interviewed here).

“It’s very helpful having him on the team with me because we’re the same age and we met each other playing the same events together. It’s going to be fun.”

Of course, the world of Spanish poker really heats up in August when the EPT Barcelona rolls around. That just so happens to be Colillas’ hometown.

“If San Sebastian has a red mark on my agenda every year, then Barcelona has the biggest mark,” Colillas says. “I grew up as a man in Barcelona, and as a poker player at Casino Barcelona. The tournament has been growing over the years and now I have the opportunity to be there representing PokerStars as a Spanish Ambassador. I’m really looking forward to it and I hope to put in a good performance in Barcelona.”

Putting in a good performance is really Colillas’ only plan for the rest of 2019, whether it be at the WSOP, EPT Barcelona, or when he’s speaking English.

“I would like to learn English in order to do more of these interviews,” he laughs. “I hope to learn as soon as possible. I’ll have a personal teacher, but right now because I’m travelling a lot I’m doing online lessons, and while I’m playing at the tables I try and participate in some short conversations in English. My mobile phone translator comes in handy though, just in case!”

Whatever happens, Colillas’ name will forever be etched in the poker history books. “Legacy” isn’t really something he worries about, though.

“It’s nice to think about, but the truth is over the coming decades there will be far bigger events, I’m sure. Poker is growing every single year and I’m sure there will be bigger winners than I was. For now, I’m just enjoying the dream and living the life.”

Has Ramon’s story inspired you to start playing poker? You can play for free. Click here to open a PokerStars account.