The internet calls this World Facilities Management Day. We call it Day 3 of SCOOP 2019.

Hotel SCOOP

So, while we acknowledge the hard-working staff of every hotel and hospitality facility the world over, we also salute those poker players who, shall we say, operate at the other end of the hotel booking spectrum.

Not the end that has complimentary slippers, satellite TV and room service.

More the basic variety. At the side of a motorway perhaps, with two working channels, windows that don’t open, and a service station opposite selling microwave snacks.

But they get the job done.

Which brings us to the affordable end of today’s SCOOP schedule, for players who want to trash the place and then move on, pocketing the complimentary custard creams on their way to the car park.

Today presents another corker…

Let’s start by breaking all of that down.

SCOOP 17-L is a 2-day hold’em event with a buy-in of just $11, and a guaranteed prize pool of $75,000.

It starts at 15:30 ET, which is 20:30 UK, with Day 2 tomorrow (Thursday) starting at those exact same times.

There’s also 2 hours 45 minutes of late registration today if you’re late to sign up. But the clock is ticking. Sign up here.

If you’re up for this one, let us know on Twitter (@PokerStarsBlog). Then tell us how you got on. Especially if you win it and cash out a first prize with three zeroes on the end.

Battle of the Poker Songs rages on to a winner

We mean the Ace of Spades. The song by Motorhead. Which is up against Lady Gaga’s Poker Face in the finale of our Battle of the Poker Songs.

It’s all taking place on Twitter somewhere, which you can check out on the main @PokerStars account.

It’s close too. As of now the scores are:

It’s too close to call. Vote NOW!

Can you even believe it?

Good luck in SCOOP today. Find out who won everything yesterday in our results post. And if you want the full schedule you can find it here.

“It feels fresh to get a win in regular poker after so much Power Up grind.”

Those are the first words Sebastian said to me as we started our conversation on Discord earlier this week. The occasion was his $8,700 win in SCOOP Event #2-Low, the $5.50 Mini Sunday Kickoff Special Edition.

A 27-year-old from Paracatu, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Sebastian spends his workdays grinding Power Up tourneys as “iloveyurmom” on PokerStars. He’s a member of the OP-Poker community and has been playing Power Up since the very beginning.

“I decided to delve into it as soon as I saw PokerStars was gonna start real money games,” he said. “I play the highest stakes PokerStars offers for the moment — $15 — but I’m still hoping they release higher stakes in the near future.”

The final day of Sebastian’s journey, just before leaving Montevideo for Punta del Este, Uruguay

If it seems like Power-Up is a bit of a niche pursuit for a pro, consider the trip that he took late last year. He began in São Paulo, the heart of Brazil, and over the next 81 days traveled to Punta del Este, Uruguay, documenting the trip on his Twitter and Instagram accounts and his own website. He said, “I started with a $90 bankroll and it became $3,500 by the end of the trip, solely through playing Power Up.

“It is a great game and people are really missing out on how fun it is.”

As you might have guessed, focusing on Power Up doesn’t leave a lot of room for MTTs. He plays during all of the big series and once finished as the runner-up in a Big $22, but he approaches them in what he calls “a quasi-recreational mindset” because his schedule doesn’t normally allow for the full days of grinding required to take down a SCOOP event.

The beginning of this year’s schedule had an opening perfect for the kickoff event, so Sebastian entered. He held a comfortable stack for most of Day 1, but fell short at the end and actually started Day 2 with a little under 10 big blinds. “I started feeling really good about it as soon as I got to 30 big blinds on Day 2,” he said. “Then when there were less than 50 players left I was feeling very comfortable playing my stack and my opponents. And at the next-to-last table, I was sure the tournament was mine.”

Soon enough it was, marking the first victory for Brazil during SCOOP 2019. There was no huge celebration, though, just an appreciation of the positive things he already has in his life. “I just texted my girlfriend saying we would eat fancy that night,” said Sebastian, “and then went for a walk with my dog in the park. Poor doggo had been waiting a couple hours to go out, so it was good getting her there.”

Sebastian’s dog is a good role model for poker players everywhere — she knows all about being rewarded for her patience. Exhibit A: this video from when he returned home after his trip to Uruguay last year.

This video of @riagotiao getting reunited with his pupper last night (after MONTHS of travelling) really warmed my heart!! So sweet 😭😭😭🐶💖 pic.twitter.com/Ad3BdWw0Sd

— EVAisOP (@EVAisOP) February 18, 2019

(“She was acting like she just won a SCOOP title!” said Sebastian.)

So, what’s next for this traveling poker pro? No big expenditures, that’s for sure. “I haven’t really planned anything with it yet. I am not a big spender, so I’m just gonna put it aside and wait for whenever an opportunity or necessity comes around,” he said. “Maybe PokerStars will release some higher stakes for Power Up, in which case it would be better to have some dollars in storage!”

Taking a shot at becoming a double winner sounds like fun, too. Sebastian said, “For sure I am gonna play additional SCOOPs, but nothing crazy. I was planning on only playing the Sunday ones, but now I might step in on other days!”

With that in mind, Sebastian issued a challenge to PokerStars: if he wins a second SCOOP title live on stream, they host a “much-awaited proper Power Up Championship event.”

Thx, OP! PowerUP players are on another level, and we’re here do prove it😀
Hey @PokerStars! There has never been a 2x SCOOP champion. So, whatya think of a challenge? If I get another win ON STREAM, would you be down to giving us a much awaited proper Power Up Championship event? https://t.co/dULVvCVB1u

— 𝒔𝒆𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒏 (@riagotiao) May 14, 2019

No word from HQ on the chances of that happening just yet. We’ll check back in when Sebastian wins that second SCOOP title. Until then, look out for him at the Power Up tables — and maybe in another SCOOP event or two.

We’re four days into the 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). Have you won one yet? Whether you have or not, here’s what else is going on:

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Huge tournaments and huge names winning them
• Multiple double and triple COOP winners on Day 4
• Naza114, RunGodlike, merla888, MLS20 and krakukra win again
• Biggest single prize goes to gordon0410 of the UK

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

We’re back to pick out the best value (and cheapest) tournament of the day on SCOOP. We’ve reached Thursday, which has a $5 tournament to tempt those looking for action and a decent payday.

(Suggested entry)

It also happens to be Notebook Day. A good chance to update your journal with your inner most feelings about life, love, and that ******* outdraw you’re still grieving from opening day.

Alternatively, try today’s distraction from the real world.

It’s a barnstormer of a tournament. It costs a humble $5 to play, but promises a big return. You might call it the type of tournament you could be writing about in CAPITAL LETTERS this time tomorrow.

So, open your supermarket notebook to the next page and make a note of the following. High rollers, please feel free to open your leather-bound executive diary to do the same.

Today’s pick…

This is a $5.50 re-buy tournament played in no-limit hold’em.

The unlimited re-buys for the first two hours make this an action filled event, so plan accordingly. And that six-figure guarantee will appeal to high and low rollers alike.

It starts at 20:30 UK time, which is 15:30 ET. But late registration is open for 1 hour 35 minutes.

That means if you’re east of the Atlantic and home late, or west of the Atlantic and home early, you can still join the fun.

For everything else SCOOP related, including other events on the schedule today, check out the SCOOP homepage. You can also catch up on all the overnight scores, including wins for Naza114, RunGodLike, merla888 and more, in our news round-up.

Two of the biggest and best TV shows on right now, Game of Thrones and Barry, come to an end on Sunday night. So what in the world are you going to watch next? Let Sam Greenwood–poker’s very own Roger Ebert–tell you.

We’ve written up countless hands played by Sam Greenwood over the years. We’ve also watched him crush many a tournament on live streams.

While you’re probably familiar with his poker prowess (he has $18.6M in live earnings and $6.7M in online winnings at the time of writing, including a $1.1M score at the Triton Series in Montenegro on May 16), what you might not know is that before Greenwood became a bona fide super high rolling beast, he wrote a TV and movie blog reviewing the latest releases.

But what does Greenwood watch when he’s finished at the tables? We caught up with the 2019 PCA Super High Roller champ to talk about his favourite films and shows, plus a little bit of poker, too.

DON’T CALL IT THAT

“I always liked movies and TV growing up as a kid,” Greenwood tells us. “After I graduated university I just wanted some sort of outlet to write, and [writing about movies] seemed like as easy a thing to do as anything.”

In 2009, Greenwood set up a blog under the title ‘Don’t Call It That‘. While his previous attempts at blogging included topics ranging from “why the Toronto Blue Jays should have kept Alex Rios” to “masturbatory self-reflection”, this new version would focus solely on TV and movies.

“Hopefully this will allow me to convert all the brain-rotting tv has done into something productive,” Greenwood wrote at the time.

While he never considered screenwriting or filmmaking as potential career paths (“The type of stuff I did well in were things like math, so I figured that would be the path I would go down rather than doing something artistic”), Greenwood liked the idea of writing as a form of finishing something.

“I was trying to give myself shorter things that I could complete as opposed to trying to do something big which I’d then put on the back burner and give up,” he says.

As the years went on, however, the blog posts became few and far between. Greenwood’s most recent entry–a review of The Big Short–came in 2016, by which point poker success and the constant study it requires had taken centre stage in his life.

“Poker just takes up too much of my time at the moment,” he says. “Also, for everything I write, I only see the mistakes and it can get frustrating. There might be an idea clear in my head, but when I read back what I’ve written I realise I haven’t expressed the idea, and often I wouldn’t know how to fix it.”

Sam Greenwood in action at EPT Monte Carlo

Before we get to Greenwood’s top picks for TV shows and movies, we couldn’t resist talking a little about poker. When we spoke to him at EPT Monte Carlo, he was deep in the €5K Main Event (in which he’d ultimately finish 12th for €45K). That score paled in comparison to one he’d already enjoyed on that trip, however, as he’d finished third in the €100K Super High Roller for €731K a couple of days previously (the same tournament he won at the PCA in January 2019 for just shy of $1.8M).

What was interesting about the Super High Roller final table in Monaco was that Sam’s twin brother, Luc, also made it. We’ve been familiar with the Greenwood family for some time now–even interviewing their parents back in 2014–but we couldn’t recall a time when they’d both made a major final table.

Sam and Luc Greenwood at the SHR final table

“It’s kind of cool for us to both go deep in a tournament like that,” Greenwood says. “It was a little disappointing to see that he ended up soft-bubbling. In the high rollers, the fields are small so it’s more likely we’ll both go deep, but I still don’t think it’s happened with Luc yet where we’ve both cashed a big tournament together, other than Main Events.”

A Greenwood vs. Greenwood heads-up match in a $100K would be riveting, that’s for sure.

“Yeah, the idea that you could have an incredibly successful day and one of your brothers, friends, or somebody you respect does, too… it’s nice that you get to share that with other people.”

NO SPOILERS

When Greenwood eventually busted that Super High Roller in third place, he immediately went back to his hotel room to watch S8 E3 of arguably the most water-cooler TV show of all time: Game of Thrones. Somehow, 24 hours after it had aired, he’d avoided all spoilers (“I was playing a €100K so it’s not like I was checking social media or whatever,” he laughs. “I watched Thrones as soon as I busted.”)

The whole idea of this article that you’re currently reading came from a tweet that Greenwood then put out into the world.

The action in last night's Barry > The action in last night's Game of Thrones

— Sam Greenwood (@SamGreenwoodRIO) April 29, 2019

While almost everyone seems to be watching Game of Thrones, it was Greenwood’s interest in Bill Hader’s incredible black comedy series Barry that really grabbed our attention.

“Barry is probably my favourite show that has new episodes on right now,” Greenwood says, and we couldn’t agree more. “What I like about Barry, and what I guess I liked about The Sopranos, is that I feel a lot of dramas investigate what it is to be a good person and what it is to be a bad person. But then they ultimately give the characters a cop-out like: ‘Oh yeah, sure they do some bad things, but overall they’re nice” and I think in Barry it’s clear that [the title character] is trying to improve, but what he has done is unforgivable.”

Bill Hader writes, directs, and stars in HBO’s Barry

Now, we wouldn’t dream of giving away any spoilers, but when the show makers HBO describe Hader’s character as a “depressed, low-rent hitman from the Midwest”, it doesn’t take a genius to know he’s done some pretty bad stuff.

“I think everyone has that in their day-to-day lives,” Greenwood continues. “Not murdering people, obviously, but the idea of what you think you should do, and what you actually do. How do you rectify what you view yourself and your beliefs as against what your actions say you are?”

Both the final season of Game of Thrones and Season 2 of Barry finish on Sunday night (May 19), and you might then find yourself looking for a new TV show to binge. We asked Greenwood for a few recommendations.

The first show he suggests is Veep, Armando Iannucci’s critically-acclaimed political satire that follows Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ journey as Vice President of the USA. “I like Veep a lot,” Greenwood says. “You watch for half an hour and it packs in a lot of laughs, you can’t beat that.”

“My girlfriend and I have also been watching Brockmire which we really liked a lot.”

Brockmire stars Hank Azaria (of The Simpsons fame) starring as a once-famed major league baseball announcer who suffers an embarrassing on-air meltdown due to marital problems. Azaria’s performance has been widely praised, but there’s another show on Greenwood’s radar that he’s been hearing rave reviews about.

“I haven’t watched it yet but everyone is talking about this Tim Robinson sketch show on Netflix which is supposed to be amazing. It’s called I Think You Should Leave. It’s only like six 15- or 20-minute episodes. A bunch of people have said it’s incredible.”

If you like surreal dark comedy, I Think You Should Leave is definitely one for you.

THE BIG SCREEN

“You know what’s funny?” Greenwood says when we ask him for his top five films of all time. “There was a meme at one point going around asking people for their favourite movies, and I tweeted out my answers. But as soon as I tweeted mine, I was like: ‘Oh, actually…I don’t know.'”

It’s a hard question, we’ll give him that, but travelling poker players are always in need of entertainment when they get back to their hotel rooms after a long day on the grind. After some thinking time, Greenwood’s list begins.

Blazing Saddles

“I’ll start with Blazing Saddles. I watched it a lot with my dad as a kid and I have a lot of fondness for it.”

If you haven’t seen Mel Brooks’ 1974 American satirical Western film, starring the late great Gene Wilder, then give it a try (if only for what Empire magazine described as “the god of all fart gags”.)

“Every time I see it it’s still very funny, and I’m a big Mel Brooks fan.”

The next film on Greenwood’s list is Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 period drama, Barry Lyndon.

Barry Lyndon

“I like movies like Barry Lyndon where I watch them and I think: ‘Is this supposed to be a serious movie? It seems like it’s trying to be a comedy.’ And then afterwards people reassure you it’s a comedy and it’s ironic or whatever and you think: ‘Oh good, at least I was on the right track’. The Stanley Kubrick museum came through Toronto recently, that was fun.”

“Then there are the movies that you only have to watch once and they will stick in your mind forever.”

For his final three, Greenwood rattles them off quickly.

Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet
Twin Peaks creator David Lynch’s 1985 American neo-noir mystery film, which blends elements of psychological horror with surrealism and hard-boiled noir.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver
Martin Scorcese’s 1976 classic, also in the psychological noir genre, which follows Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a loner cabbie in New York with hopes of cleaning up the city.

Jaws

Jaws
Steven Spielberg’s 1976 thriller about…sharks, obviously. C’mon, are you telling me you haven’t seen Jaws? Sort it out.

“I will also say to Americans and Canadians, you should subscribe to the new Criterion streaming service. I’ve looked through the selection and it has lots of amazing old movies,” Greenwood adds.

So there you have it. The next time you need something to watch, come back to this page and pick out one of Greenwood’s picks.

Come Monday, when both Barry and Game of Thrones have come to an end, we’ll be doing just that.

As part of their partnership with UFC, PokerStars was in Rio for UFC 237 last weekend, with some facinating art installations that caught the attention of local and fight fans alike.

Together we’re stronger. 💪
Fans at #UFC237 in Rio were treated to a unique experience, including the opportunity to meet some of our new @ufc ambassadors, @brucebuffer, @dc_mma and @Johnnywalkermma. #UFCPokerStars pic.twitter.com/Spn4A2ittx

— PokerStars (@PokerStars) May 15, 2019

I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don’t remember all their names… Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile? Faith. In myself. In Daenarys T. I was born to rule…and I will.

— Daenarys T, probably*

The last time PokerStars Blog caught up with “Daenarys T” was in the spring of last year. The Dutch player had just won the Take 2 Sunday Million for a life-changing, million-dollar score — one that came literally the day after his previous all-time best cash of $19,000.

“I slept for one hour,” he told us at the time, still riding the adrenaline high of having punched the kind of ticket every poker player dreams about. “I just bought a Rolex. I haven’t told my parents yet so I’ll tell them on Thursday.”

In the poker business we talk a lot about life-changing money. “Daenarys T” actually laid hands on it. So when he locked down his second major PokerStars title this week by winning SCOOP Event #10-H for $89K, it was a perfect chance to see what living those changes has been like — and what mom and dad had to say when they got the news.

Winning a SCOOP title is something Daenarys T has “dreamed of [his] whole life.” Next up: taking a shot at winning the SCOOP leader board.

It’s pretty funny, they had actually read in the papers already that someone from the Netherlands won a million. They were really happy of course. They didn’t believe in poker much before, but they do now. I actually had a lot of problems with them over poker because they thought I was just gambling (which I was in the beginning). They thought I was throwing my life away. Turned out pretty good in the end, though!

You told us at the time that you were “literally clueless” about what you were going to next, other than go to Ibiza with your girlfriend and grind more. How has the grind treated you since winning the Milly, and how has having a bigger bankroll affected your game selection? Do you still maintain the same mix of live and online play as you did before?

At first the only thing I did was to move up from $200 Zoom to $500 Zoom! I was pretty hesitant to move up because I was never that good with bankroll management. But I moved up eventually, and actually this year I have been swinging pretty hard. I play a lot more online these days — when I play live I’m always drinking and punting. But my dream is to play Super High Rollers, so maybe one day I’ll try to take it serious again.

A guy could get used to winning a major title every year…

Aside from poker, that sort of win must have made a big difference in the rest of your life, too.

It definitely turned my life upside down for a while. It was something that I had dreamed about all my life and to finally fulfil that dream was an amazing experience. For a while all I was doing was having fun and partying, but pretty quickly I was back to playing. Now my life is pretty normal, just trying to live healthy, grinding a lot and spending time with my girlfriend, with the occasional live trip or splurge.

Let’s talk about your latest win, which came in the first Win The Button event on this year’s SCOOP schedule. Is this a format you’ve explored much in the past?

Actually I never play Win The Button, but I had fun changing it up. I feel like you get rewarded for playing aggro, so that suits me pretty well.

Walk us through your progression in this tournament.

The first day, I was on another big SCOOP final table so I can’t recall too much of that — I think I built up a medium stack [by the end of Day 1]. On Day 2 I was swinging really hard and got lucky in all of my all-in situations. I was making a lot of mistakes, but better lucky than good!

At the final table I couldn’t do much in the beginning because of ICM considerations. But eventually some guys busted and I won two big hands in a row where people made real crazy hero calls against me. After that I just played really aggro and won the important flips. Heads-up was a battle but I managed to drag it out in the end.

Daenarys T plays a SCOOP 2019 Omaha event with some kids from the local neighborhood

Winning $89K is obviously not nothing — anyone would love to win that much money playing poker — but it’s also not the same sort of enormous life-altering moment that your Milly win was. Put it in perspective for us: what does it mean for a poker player to win $89K when you’ve already scored $1M?

When I won the Million, I was very emotional, crying and stuff. [This time] I was really happy, of course, but it wasn’t super special [in the same way].

But it means a lot to me. It’s something I’ve dreamed about all my life, and it’s the second biggest score [of my career] so it’s still a very big deal. And as I said before, I was down on the year while I was playing a lot and working on my game, so I’m really happy to get rewarded like this.

Now that you have a title in your pocket, have you set a new personal goal for the rest of SCOOP?

I’m in the Dominican Republic with two friends who are also playing SCOOP. Now I’m first in the High leader board, so I’m gonna try playing everything and win that.

Any expectations for the rest of the series?

I’ve run so fucking hot these first four days, so no expectations.

Thanks again to Daenarys T for agreeing to another interview with the Blog, and congratulations to him on adding a SCOOP title to his growing poker resumé!

* – With apologies to George R.R. Martin and the writers at HBO. 

We’re only just a working week through the 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) but prize-pools have ticked past $20 million. What else? All this…

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Three titles for Brazilians on day of dominance
• Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser on fire
• Biggest prize-pool so far in Thursday Thrill
• 6+ on the SCOOP calendar
• SCOOP goes rebuy crazy!

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Vamos Brasilia

Brazilian players won three titles at the SCOOP tables yesterday, with success in SCOOP 15-L, SCOOP 15-H and SCOOP 17-M. Of those, Cassio Pisapia de Almeida Kiles, otherwise known as “cassiopak” picked up the most, with a $189,820.91 score in the NLHE High Roller. Brazil now has eight SCOOP wins, two more than any other country. Brazilians also dominate tournaments currently ongoing. For instance, in SCOOP 22-L, seven of the top nine places overnight are occupied by Brazilian players.

After winning his first SCOOP title of the year yesterday, Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser is in position to make it two. He sits third overnight in SCOOP 18-H, the fixed limit Omaha 8 tournament, and 13th of 23 left in the medium buy-in tournament. He also finished 18th in SCOOP 20-H.

Andrei “Premove” Skvortsov made mincemeat of SCOOP 16-H, beating a stacked final table to win $47,793. Skvortsov won two WCOOP titles last autumn, triumphing in a NL08 and in a 2-7 Single Draw event. Now he’s added a NL Omaha Hi/Lo title.

Players built the biggest prize pool of SCOOP so far last night, when there were 703 entries to the $2,100 Thursday Thrill, putting $1.4 million on the line. There’s $121,806.54 up top.

A late addition to the SCOOP calendar, Event 68 starts today: 6+ Hold’em. It’s the variant taking the high-stakes world by storm, and now you can play it for a SCOOP title. Buy-ins are $22, $215 and $2,100. All you need to know about 6+

The first rebuy event of SCOOP is through its first day, and the time-honoured rebuy tradition remains hugely popular. In SCOOP 21-L, there were 14,119 re-buys, from 9,382 entries, of $5.50; in SCOOP 21-M, there were 3,739 re-buys (2,728 players) of $55 each, and in SCOOP 21-H, there were 607, from 402 players, of $530.

TODAY’S RESULTS

*denotes deal

READ! READ! READ!

PokerStars Blog’s Jason Kirk tracked down “Daenarys T” to hear about the Dutch player’s superlative start to SCOOP 2019, and find out how they went about celebrating a $1 million WCOOP win — starting with informing the parents. This is a fun interview.

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

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 48
Tournaments ongoing: 15
Entries so far: 270,796
Prize pool so far: $24,668,887
First-place prizes awarded: $3,092,601.49

THE BIG SPIN UP

Time to raise a glass to Canada’s “ImDaBest514”, whose outright victory in SCOOP 16-L (the no-limit Omaha 8 event) came after he or she won a satellite costing $1.10. “ImDaBest514” turned that buy-in into $7,350 and a standout victory. That’s an ROI of 668,219 percent.

Don’t forget 11 players have also freerolled their way into the money so far in this year’s SCOOP, and the ROI king remains Germany’s “skater@pro20”, who got into the Super Tuesday for 11 cents, and won $2,314.55 for 170th place.

TWITCH WATCH

No clips today, but plenty of reason to watch some of Twitch’s finest in action today as both Lex Veldhuis and Arlie Shaban go deep into Day 2 of SCOOP events.

SCOOP 19-H $2100 NLHE PKO (Thrill SE): Lex made Day 2 with 1,530,766 chips (21st of 40 remaining) in the Thursday Thrill. (That’s 39 BBs.)

Meanwhile Arlie made Day 2 of SCOOP 21-M $55+R with 1,086,778 chips (8th of 196 remaining), 77 Bigs.

TOURNAMENTS ONGOING

SCOOP 18 — Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050

Dzmitry “colisea” Urbanovich

Dzmitry “colisea” Urbanovich is third in the medium buy-in event, with previous SCOOP winners Era_Koira and RunGodlike in 12th and 13th respectively. Meanwhile, the high buy-in Day 2 is stacked. Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira leads RunGodlike (3rd), Joao “Naza114” Vieira (4th), Calvin “calvin7v” Anderson (5th) and Vladimir “vovtry” Troyanovsky (8th).

SCOOP 19 — Progressive KO
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
As noted above, Lex Veldhuis is alive in the high buy-in version, sitting in 21st of 40 left.

SCOOP 20 — Limit Stud Ho/Lo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
The medium buy-in of this event is where the action is. Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb (4th), leads WCOOP crushed Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov (5th) and Adam “Adamyid” Owen (9th). Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser finished 18th.

SCOOP 21 — NLHE Rebuys
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
PokerStars streamers GJReggie, MajinBoob and Fintan “easywithaces” Hand all cashed in this one, in 223rd, 443rd and 744th, respectively.

SCOOP 22 — NLHE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Arlie “Prince Pablo” Shaban is 8th of 196 remaining in the medium buy-in. In the low, seven of the top nine places in the overnight leader board are occupied by Brazilian players, with “gisfuc” leading. The top three in the high buy-in are from Brazil.

STARTING TODAY

SCOOP 23 — NLHE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
There’s a $1 million guarantee on the high buy-in version of this one.

SCOOP 24 — HORSE
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Time to get on the HORSE. Fortunately, even for new riders, we have a primer of the rules and PokerStars School can help you out with some strategy tips.

SCOOP 68 — 6+
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Play poker like a Macau high roller!

SCOOP 25 — PKO Zoom
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
It’s got progressive bounties. And it’s Zoom. It’ll be heaps of fun.

PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE:

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4

The day he won the very first WSOP bracelet event he’d ever played. The day he won $8.2M in one poker tournament. The day he installed a golf simulator in his home.

Yep, Daniel Negreanu has had some very special days in his life. But none more so than today.

For today is the day that Kid Poker and Amanda Leatherman tie the knot.

Congratulations guys, from everyone at PokerStars. Have an amazing day!

The two got engaged on New Year’s Eve, with Negreanu sharing the news on his Twitter feed.

She said yes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! pic.twitter.com/PXDCYdEwnt

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) January 1, 2019

And here’s a peek at where the ceremony will take place.

View this post on Instagram

We made it! Place is beautiful but the weather is not cooperating. Suspecting 25 mph winds for an outdoor wedding AND dinner. Going to need to cover @radioamanda in a parka to keep her warm. #ALovesTheD #MayWedding

A post shared by Daniel Negreanu (@dnegspoker) on May 16, 2019 at 3:33pm PDT

Best wishes to the happy couple!

Five new SCOOP events, and more than $5 million added to schedule, including one event to test Friday Feeling…

A few years ago, a British company set out to examine what effect Friday had on the working day.

You can’t argue with facts

They talked to more than 2,000 office workers across Britain. What they found was that the worker “switched off” at 2:39pm on Friday afternoon.

So not long after lunch, and shortly before afternoon tea.

It meant in the business sense, Friday afternoon was a complete write off. The “Friday Feeling,” as they put it, was simply too strong to resist.

Well, far be it for us to quibble with scientific research.

Today we’re adding five new events to the SCOOP schedule. One of which takes advantage of the Friday sweet spot, with a start time that put this theory to the test.

The others will create some bonus buzz during the second week, with 15 new tournaments in total, and more than $5 million added to the combined prize pool. There’s also a $25K event to turn some heads.

Before we get to details, here’s where the new events will fit in.

5 New Events for the SCOOP Schedule

Monday, May 20 (10:30 ET/ 15:30 UK): 9-Max NLHE  

Buy-ins: $11/$109/$1,050

Gtd: $75K/$200K/$400K

Thursday, May 23 (16:00 ET/ 21:00 UK): 8 Max NLHE

Buy-ins: $215/$2,100/ $25,000

Gtd: $500K/ $1M/ $1.5M

Thursday, May 23 (17:30 ET/ 22:30 UK): 8-Max NLHE Turbo

Buy-ins: $22/$215/$2,100

Gtd: $100K/$200K/$400K

Friday, May 24 (10:30 ET/ 15:30 UK): 6-Max NLHE PKO       

Buy-in: $11/$109/$1,050

Gtd: $100K/$250K/$400K

Friday, May 24 (16:00 ET/ 21:00 UK): 6+ Hold’em

Buy-in: $55/$530/$1,050

Gtd: TBD

What does that add up to?

These add up to another $5,125,000 added to the total SCOOP prize pool. That figure will be even more when the guarantee for Friday’s 6+ event is confirmed.

We’re also running a 5-seat guaranteed satellite to the $25K event. Find details of that over in the PokerStars lobby.

Here’s a look at those events in full…

Monday 20 May: 9-Max NLHE at 10:30 ET/ 3:30PM UK

Suits those with a paper round

Previously the earliest you could play SCOOP in Europe on Monday was 6pm UK (7pm CET). Now you can start playing in the afternoon.

That makes this event almost perfect if you work nights, or early mornings.

If you’re a breakfast radio DJ, for example, or a farmer. Or maybe you still have a paper round. This event is for you.

Thursday 23 May: 8-Max NLHE at 16:00 ET/ 9pm UK

This event starts at 9pm UK (10pm CET) so you’ll need to skip any prior engagements. Skip the Pilates class or the ballroom dancing lessons.

Skip it this week

If you’re on Eastern Time you’re into: “boss I need to leave early” territory. Or take advantage of late registration and a good 4G signal on the commute home.

Then again, with buy-ins starting at $215 (L), then switching up to $2,100 (M) and $25,000 (H), it’s unlikely you have a boss you need to run this by.

But there’s more for Thursday…

Thursday 23 May: 8-Max NLHE Turbo at 17:30 ET (10:30pm UK)    

This event follows immediately afterwards, so you can continue the poker binge. Albeit at Turbo speed, so you’re done at a respectable hour. You don’t want the “Friday feeling” ruined by “Thursday night” feeling.

Buy-ins start at $22 (L). Then go up to $215 (M) and $2,100 (H).

Friday 24 May: 6-Max NLHE PKO at 10:30 ET (3:30pm UK)  

This one tests the Friday Feeling theory.

If you’re one of the 2:39pm crowd, then this one starts at 3:30pm UK time. Buy-ins are $11 (L), $109 (M), and $1,050 (H).

The guarantees are on the big side, ranging from $100K, to $250K to $400K.

By the way, the study mentioned above also found that you’re most likely to be in the pub at this point. So playing this event is like having a super power.

Friday 24 May: 6+ Hold’em at 16:00 ET (9pm UK)        

Amazing

Ideal for anyone whose plans for Friday night involve a night in rather than a night out.

This 6+ Hold’em events follows events already scheduled. It has a buy-in to suit a Friday night as well.

Entry starts at $55 (drinks for ten). Then up to $2,100 (bottle service for ten) and $25,000 (rent the bar for ten).

That’s five new events, and 15 new tournaments added to the SCOOP schedule. Plus more than $5 million added to the prize pool.

You can find details of those, as well as how to qualify for these and every other SCOOP events, on the SCOOP homepage.

*Of course, if you’re on Eastern Time the survey doesn’t count. Unless it turns out most people over there, regardless of where they work, clock off on a Friday at some point after breakfast.

Today the internet tells us to unite and salute International Virtual Assistant Day. It’s a nod towards those people behind a screen somewhere, frantically doing the legwork work for us.

We’ve never met one of these people ourselves. But we’re also not in the business of questioning the internet.

So we’re are happy to take on a version of that role and assist you with planning your SCOOP weekend.

There’s plenty to get to grips with over the next three days. Starting with…

FRIDAY 17 MAY

You get a lot for your $5.50, not least the number of words in the event name.

This is a Hold’em event with $50,000 guaranteed. It also happens to be played heads-up, with a Turbo structure, which means six minute levels.

To make things even quicker, it’s a Zoom event, so opponents will fly by. And as it’s a Progressive Total KO, you’ll pick up prize money for everyone you eliminate.

It starts at 15:30 ET or 20:30 in the UK.

SATURDAY 18 MAY

Two events for Saturday…

This time it’s an 8-Max hold’em event. The value comes in the Deep Stack structure, which gives you lots of chips and plenty of time to play with them.

There’s also $50,000 guaranteed. That’s decent prize money if you make it all the way to the end.

It’s a 10:30 ET start, which is 15:30 UK.

Later on, there’s this event.

This has a slightly bigger buy in, but is straight forward hold’em. It’s a Progressive KnockOut, so there’s money on your head, and on everyone else’s. It means you can win money even if you don’t make the money… I think that’s right.

It’s starts at 13:00 ET, which is 18:00 UK and there’s a $175K Guarantee.

SUNDAY 19 MAY

Wrap up the weekend at Turbo speed and a share of $40,000. The start time is a late one, but you’ll never find out how much you need to win to make no sleep painless at work on Monday morning. Is it a min cash? Is it the lot?

Let us know. It starts at 18:00 ET (not so bad) and 23:00 UK. Which is nearly Monday.

Other things to know going into the weekend

This weekend would usually mark the halfway point in SCOOP. But not quite.

Breaking news today

Today we added five new events to the SCOOP schedule for next week. That’s 15 new tournaments in total, and more than $5 Million added to the combined prize pool. There’s even a $25K event if these five dollar Low events have been going your way big time.

There’s something for everyone. You can learn when these new events fit into the week here.

For everything else SCOOP related your best place to start is the SCOOP homepage. That’s where you’ll find the complete schedule, as well as satellite information. $5.50 might be the lowest buy-in for SCOOP, you can win your way to some of the bigger events for even less.

Lastly, you can read up on all the SCOOP results from overnight in our daily news round-up. We’ll also be posting updates over the weekend, so you won’t miss anything.

That’s all from International Virtual Assistant Day. Good luck at the tables this weekend.

Rankings are vital to a combat sport such as the UFC, providing fans with a glimpse into the overall state of a weight class and creating the structure to define challengers to championships.

But the concept of pound-for-pound rankings, or ranking that attempt to define the best fighters in the world regardless of weight class can be frustrating in their ambiguity. Still, they’re a fun exercise and simply making it onto such a list is an accomplishment for any fighter.

Let’s take a list at five of the absolute best in the Octagon today.

Daniel Cormier (heavyweight champion)

Former Olympian and Olympic team captain, Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Champion, Jon Jones’ biggest adversary, “champ champ,” PokerStars ambassador, and now arguably the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet.

That’s a partial list of the accolades of UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier.

Cormier (22-1) currently sits at the top of the UFC’s own pound-for-pound list, one spot ahead of the only man he’s been unable to defeat: Jon Jones. Jones defeated Cormier by decision at UFC 182 in January 2015, defending his light heavyweight championship in the process. Two and a half years later, at UFC 214, Jones knocked out Cormier in the rematch only to have the result overturned following a failed drug test for the steroid metabolite turinabol.

In between those fights, Cormier had become light heavyweight champion, winning the belt after Jones had been stripped following his involvement in a hit-and-run accident.

Following three successful defenses of his title (and the aforementioned no-contest against Jones), Cormier jumped to heavyweight and took less than one round to knock out Stipe Miocic. Miocic came into the fight as the man with the most defenses of the heavyweight title (3) in UFC history.

After a successful heavyweight title defense against Derrick Lewis, Cormier relinquished the light heavyweight belt.

Next fight: Heavyweight title defense vs. Stipe Miocic at UFC 241 – August 17, 2019

Jon Jones (light heavyweight champion)

One only has to read the brief bio of Cormier to know Jon Jones’ toughest opponent has been himself.

Jones (24-1) has never truly been bested in an MMA fight. The lone blemish on his resume came via a controversial disqualification for illegal strikes thrown against Matt Hamill in a situation where replay and Hamill’s deafness caused some confusion in a situation which could easily have been rendered a no contest.

Despite a nearly perfect in-cage career, Jones has repeatedly found himself in hot water. He failed a drug test for presence of a cocaine metabolite ahead of his first fight with Cormier, but was not stripped of his title as cocaine was not a banned substance outside competition by USADA (the UFC’s drug testing agency partner). He then was stripped of his title for a hit-and-run incident only to return, win the interim light heavyweight championship and lose it following his positive steroid test after the second bout with Cormier.

There have also been DUI cases and other less than perfect out-of-cage behaviors on Jones’ part.

Yet, he remains one of the most spectacular competitors to ever set foot in the Octagon.

When Jones fights, it’s art. His size, strength and speed — combined with a legitimate wrestling background — allows him to do things seemingly unique in the sport.

Next fight: Light heavyweight title defense vs. Thiago “Marreta” Santos at UFC 239 – July 6, 2019

Khabib Nurmagomedov (lightweight champion)

Conor McGregor sat comfortably at the top of the pound-for-pound list before his own combination of self destructive tendencies, a decision to box Floyd Mayweather and the dominant MMA skills of Khabib Nurmagomedov shuffled him away.

While McGregor still sits at #9 on the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings despite a single fight — a loss — since 2016, Nurmagomedov (27-0) is ranked #3.

Nurmagomedov was already a known force at 155 pounds when he stepped into the ring against McGregor. McGregor a slight underdog coming into the fight, but was roundly dominated before submitting to Nurmagomedov in the fourth round.

Nurmagomedov has fought 27 professional bouts and picked up 27 wins. There’s very little a man can do to prove his dominance more than that.

Much as the story of Cormier’s career will always be tied in some way to Jones, Nurmagomedov and McGregor defined at least a portion of each other’s story.

After trash talk from both camps, McGregor attacked a bus carrying Nurmagomedov ahead of UFC 223, throwing a metal equipment dolly into one of the bus windows.

After Nurmagomedov defeated McGregor at UFC 229, the two camps engaged in a wild brawl in and out of the cage, leading to a nine month suspension for Nurmagomedov. He will be eligible to fight again in July.

Fights with interim lightweight champ Dustin Poirier, Tony Ferguson or a rematch against McGregor would all be thrilling bouts and could cement Nurmagomedov’s place in MMA history.

Next fight: No fight scheduled pending end of suspension

Henry Cejudo (flyweight champion)

Cormier was an Olympian. Henry Cejudo was an Olympic gold medalist.

Cejudo (14-2) made a fairly seamless transition to MMA following a career as one of the world’s best freestyle wrestlers.

His current status as flyweight champion may be an even more impressive accomplishment than Olympic gold, however.

That’s because Cejudo had to knock off Demetrious Johnson, a man who set the UFC’s consecutive title defense record with 11 straight wins in defending his 125 pound belt.

Cejudo toughed out the win at UFC 227 and then scored a 32-second knockout win over former two-time bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw in Dillashaw’s bid to drop a weight class and win another title.

A win there could vault him up from his current #4 spot in the UFC rankings.

Amanda Nunes (bantamweight and featherweight champion)

Pound-for-pound shouldn’t discriminate by gender and you can’t talk pound-for-pound without mentioning Amanda Nunes, the only fighter currently holding two belts.

Nunes (17-4) is the first woman in UFC history to win belts in multiple divisions and her current eight-fight winning streak has established her in many minds as the best female MMA fighter in history.

The two other women who have long been the center of that argument (Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg) lasted a combined 99 seconds in their bouts with Nunes, who currently sits at #6 in the UFC’s official pound-for-pound rankings.

Nunes defeated Miesha Tate by first round submission at UFC 200 to win the bantamweight title, then took 48 seconds to knock out Ronda Rousey in her first title defense at UFC 207.

Following the win over Rousey, Nunes scored her second career win over Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 215. Shevchenko has gone on to become the UFC’s first ever women’s flyweight champion.

Following a UFC 224 knockout of Raquel Pennington, Nunes jumped up to featherweight to take on Cris Cyborg and her 20-fight winning streak. It only took 51 seconds for Nunes to dispatch of the feared Cyborg and become “champ champ.”

Next fight: Featherweight championship defense vs. Holly Holm at UFC 239 – July 6, 2019

“Please send me your questions. Actually my native language is Russian, but I think I can answer in English.” So said the man who won this year’s first Low-tier SCOOP title in pot-limit Omaha when the PokerStars Blog first reached out to ask him about his victory.

Roman, who lives in Riga, Latvia, and plays on PokerStars as “PAARTYPAN,” is right at home in situations that make other people uncomfortable. Back when he was 19 years old and working as a DJ at a disco bar, someone told him you could play a game of cards for money on the internet. His second $50 deposit stuck and he never looked back from there, even though he had never played a hand of poker in his life.

The old city in Riga, Latvia, home of SCOOP PLO champion PAARTYPAN

“Now I’m 32, I have a beautiful family with two kids, and I’m a professional poker player,” he says. “For most of [my time in poker] I played Omaha hi/lo cash games and MTTs. Last year I started to play low-stakes PLO cash games. I play every series at Pokerstars, they offer the best series, especially for me because I love all games except no-limit hold’em.”

There are a couple of close calls on his resumé that testify to Roman’s love of non-hold’em games. Twice in 2013 he finished within sight of a major PokerStars title, only to watch someone else take home the top prize. During that year’s SCOOP he took seventh place for $10K in a $1,050 pot-limit Courchevel hi/lo event. Then, during WCOOP, he finished third for $27K in a $320 pot-limit Omaha hi/lo tournament.

“We wanted to chop when the game was four-handed,” he remembers. “I had the biggest stack and one guy wanted more money than he was offered. So we did not chop and I finally received $10K less.”

This week those memories metamorphosed from his biggest tournament finishes into the stepping stones that led him to his first SCOOP title. Roman entered Event #5-L, a pot-limit Omaha tournament, for $22. Other than one hand where he caught a break on the river with kings against aces, he says he cruised through Day 1. The second day was just as breezy, even once the final table arrived. When the table was six-handed he and one other player were running neck-and-neck for the chip lead.

Winning this SCOOP title was easy breezy for PAARTYPAN

“I won a pot against him, realized I had a lot of chips, and started to raise almost any hand. Nobody wanted to finish next, so the game [became me] raising 90% of hands and stealing all the blinds. Once we were heads-up I remember I had about 15 or 20 times more chips than my opponent. It was the easiest final table in my life!

“It was at night and my kids were sleeping, so I couldn’t get too noisy. It was like…finally, I won it! I was happy and tired. I could not imagine that I had beaten almost 6,000 opponents. It should be a good starting point for the series.”

Roman says this $16K score will fund more SCOOP entries, plus a little bit of travel and and some spending on his family. “And of course some part of winnings will go for my bankroll to play a bit higher stakes. This game is crazy but I love it!”

The 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker rolls onward, with a busy Friday producing many more winners and an exciting weekend on tap. 

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• 21 more titles won, including three more for Brazil
• Dario Sammartino scoops top prize in 6+
• Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt adds another title to his collection
• Mixed games grab spotlight with FLO8, Stud Hi/Lo, and HORSE

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

A busy day of SCOOPing saw 18 tournaments crown winners, including three in 6+ hold’em events. glam6300 topped a 4,000-plus entry field in SCOOP 68-L to claim an $11,483.36 first prize, while Tripleeeee won the medium version of last night’s 6+ event, topping 553 to win SCOOP 68-M and $19,510.06.

Dario “Secret_M0d3” Sammartino

Meanwhile EPT stalwart Dario “Secret_M0d3” Sammartino again showed why his skills are no secret after winning SCOOP 68-H, beating out 113 tough competitors to win the top prize of $56,202.58.

Among the other winners on Friday was another familiar figure, Sweden’s Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt who topped a 132-entry field in SCOOP 18-H, the $1,050 buy-in fixed-limit Omaha Hi/Lo event, to claim a $27,707.18 first prize. That adds still more the $15 million-plus in the recorded online cashes claimed by Åstedt over the years, according to PocketFives where he’s currently ranked the No. 1 online player worldwide.

Speaking of PLO8, for fans of non-hold’em games there were other options yesterday, including Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo in which twofaces1982 (SCOOP 20-L), zilbeee (SCOOP 20-M), and MUSTAFABET (SCOOP 20-H) all claimed titles. The HORSE events (SCOOP 24) all drew big fields as well, exceeding the guarantees in the low, medium, and high.

TODAY’S RESULTS

†including bounties
*denotes deal

READ! READ! READ!

If you hadn’t heard already, the already mega-sized SCOOP schedule got even more mega with five more events — that is, 15 tournaments total — added next week. You can read about the added events which add another $5 million to the SCOOP combined prize pool in “Five New Events Added to SCOOP 2019 Schedule.”

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

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 69
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Entries so far: 327,834
Prize pool so far: $27,798,487
First-place prizes awarded: $3,955,315.82

THE BIG SPIN UP

A quick search among yesterday’s cashers reveals Germany’s “SiggySm@llz” enjoyed a nice return on investment after finishing fourth in SCOOP 19-M. Having satellited into the $215 buy-in NLHE Progressive KO event for a mere $11, “SiggySm@llz” managed to walk away with a handsome $26,097.56 prize, to realize a cool 237,251 percent ROI. More than $3K of those winnings came via bounties, and one has to imagine each of those the German knocked out said some version of the following upon exiting:

“You’re killing me SiggySm@llz!”

We also must note how the winner of SCOOP 22-H ($1,050 NLHE), “Kaggis” of Norway, won entry via a $109 satellite as well. That means the $53,305.65 first prize was a 48,904 percent ROI.

TWITCH WATCH

Both Lex Veldhuis and Arlie Shaban had short Day 2s yesterday, each claiming 33rd-place finishes — Lex in Event #19-H ($2,100 NLHE PKO) and Arlie in Event #21-M ($55+R NLHE). Watch how Big Slick failed Lex to end his run:

TOURNAMENTS ONGOING

SCOOP 23 — NLHE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050

Denmark’s Pharfar leads the 224 left from a 20,069-entry field in the low, while madtechno of Switzerland has the biggest stack with 197 returning today from 5,301 entries in the medium.

Meanwhile FeriBo of Bulgaria tops the 55 left from the 977-entry high, with Team PokerStars Pro and Dutch Poker Hall of Famer Fatima Moreira de Melo also returning to a short stack.

SCOOP 24 — HORSE
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100

kurtWSOP will try to add to the Brazilians’ already impressive SCOOP résumé today, returning to the chip lead among the 50 left from the 2,304-entry low.

Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes

Meanwhile in the medium where 436 entered, Patrick “pads1161” Leonard is first in the counts among the final 24, with Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins also lurking in ninth position with an above average stack.

Meanwhile sitting atop the high HORSE with 12 left from 89 entries is Tobias “Senkel92” Leknes who is no stranger to collecting ‘COOP titles. After all, last fall he won two WCOOPs inside of a week. “nilsef” (second), João “Naza114” Vieira (fourth), and Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins (7th) are all still in the mix as well.

STARTING TODAY

SCOOP 26 — NLHE (8-Max, Deep Stacks)
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
If you like to play deep, this is the one for you, with starting stacks of 50K (L), 100K (M), and 250K (H). The mid and high buy-in versions also feature slower structures, ending with half-hour levels.

SCOOP 27 — NLHE (Progressive KO)
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Half the prize pool goes to the top finishers, and the other half for collecting those knockout bounties, with the latter getting progressively bigger as you go.

SCOOP 28 — PLO (High Roller)
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Big buy-ins and big action today for all the Omahalics. It’s a crazy game but many love it, including Event #5-L (PLO) winner Roman of Latvia, a.k.a. “PAARTYPAN,” who told us all about himself and his triumph this week.

SCOOP 29 — NLHE (8-Max, Turbo)
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
It’s turbo time. Be sure to wear your seat belt.

PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE:

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5

The SCOOP grind is now well under way, which means thousands of men and women across the world are spending hours on end in front of their computers. While it’s fun, it’s not necessarily all that healthy, and so this article might be the most important one you read to help you stay fit in body and mind as you play online.

“Sitting on a chair all day, even one with professed lumbar support, is detrimental to our bodies in several ways,” says Lauren Gasser, a London-based yoga instructor, who focuses particularly on mental health and well-being. “We are compressing our vertebrae, restricting movement in the hamstrings, putting huge pressure on our hips and encouraging our shoulders to roll forwards.”

She adds: “In Asian countries, where it is still customary to sit cross legged or squat on the floor, older generations have far superior mobility and spinal health than those of us who always sit on chairs or sofas.”

Gasser visits offices across the capital and offers a chance for workers to break away from their desks at the end of an eight-hour shift, and help to undo the damage done by a sedentary lifestyle. But she also says that it’s possible to do some stretching exercises while sitting at a desk that can help with circulation, strength and flexibility — as well as all-over well-being.

“Aside from the obvious suggestion of getting up more often, and the often unworkable option of swapping your chair for a stability ball or cushion, just moving will make a big difference to your physical wellbeing, even while seated,” Gasser says. “Muscles and joints want to move, they need to stretch and be worked in order to stay healthy and keep functioning as they should. So rolling the shoulders back, twisting the spine, stretching the hamstrings, will all help to prevent the body from essentially stagnating.”

Gasser provided five simple exercises for poker players — or for anyone who spends too long sitting down — that can be done while either seated at an office chair, or during the five-minute tournament break every hour. Getting into new healthy habits is something worth doing immediately, and you can thank us — and Lauren — in about 30 years from now!

The backwards arm cross

Crossing your arms in front of your chest is a common resting posture and something many of us do without even realising. But the weight of those relaxed arms is actually rolling your shoulders forwards and putting added strain on the neck and upper back.

Next time you go to cross your arms, try to cross them behind your back instead. You might only be able to reach your wrists or forearms with each hand, but hold them there for as long as you can and you’ll start to feel a stretch across the front of the shoulders, chest and down the spine. This small change of habit can make a big difference to your posture and alleviate aches and pains.

Saturday saw nine more titles won as the 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker wound up a busy first week of action.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

• Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert takes down SCOOP 29-H for almost $95K
• More than 400,000 entries during SCOOP’s first week
• SH-rookie-AS earns $164K for winning SCOOP 23-H
• Joao “Naza114” Vieira nabs his second title of series in SCOOP 24-H
• krakukra and ImluckNuts lead the “most cashes” category

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

There have been more than 400,000 entries in SCOOP events during the first week, with more than $33.5 million won.

Kenny Hallaert

Yesterday Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert was one of those claiming one of the biggest shares of those riches — $94,989.94 of it, to be exact — after outlasting a tough 247-entry field in SCOOP 29-H, a $2,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em turbo tourney.

At the final table with Hallaert were several recognizables, including Andras “probirs” Nemeth (second), Rui “sousinha23” Sousa (third), and 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Martin “M.nosbocaJ” Jacobson (sixth), just to name three.

The day’s biggest winner was SH-rookie-AS of China who claimed a big $164,397.70 first prize for taking down the 977-entry SCOOP 23-H no-limit hold’em event.

Meanwhile Joao “Naza114” Vieira won his second SCOOP title in a week after taking down SCOOP 24-H, the $2,100 buy-in HORSE event. Vieira earned $48,505 for topping the 89-entry field.

While a busy Sunday awaits (see the schedule below), don’t forget that even more SCOOP events have been added — 15 tournaments total. Read about those additions in “Five New Events Added to SCOOP 2019 Schedule.”

TODAY’S RESULTS

*denotes deal

CONSTANTLY CASHING

In the “most cashes so far” category, two Russians are leading the way after seven days of SCOOP.

krakukra has cashed 28 times (from 102 entries), earning a handsome $223,358.51 in prizes to this point, while Max “ImluckNuts” Pisorenko has made the money 26 times (from 100 entries) to earn $67,146.64.

They are currently followed by ArtHouse and TruthBeTold7 (both with 19 cashes), Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb (with 17), and biszibosz and Dzmitry “Colisea” Urbanovich (with 16).

READ! READ! READ!

Sunday is here, which means today is all about the Sunday grind. That probably means a lot of hours at the computer, which also presents a physical challenge some may not appreciate.

You know you’re itchin’ to do “the pigeon”

First, read this: “Five-Minute Filler: Yoga for poker players.” Then, armed with knowledge of the “backwards arm cross,” the “heavy head,” the “seated twist,” the “pigeon,” and “legs up the wall,” fill your remaining breaks unwinding your body from the tight knot caused by all of those poker puzzles you were solving the other 55 minutes of each hour.

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

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 78
Tournaments ongoing: 9
Entries so far: 402,793
Prize pool so far: $33,518,907
First-place prizes awarded: $4,439,835.35

THE BIG SPIN UP

Looking through yesterday’s results for cashers who satellited their way into events, kuzya1993 earns special attention. Not only did the Russian beat out a huge field of 8,340 entries to win SCOOP 29-L (8-Max, Turbo) and the $16,832.63 first prize, but kuzya1993 made it into the event for less than a third of the buy-in after having won a $7.50 satellite. That’s only a 224,435 percent return on investment.

There were several others who final-tabled their events yesterday also won their seats via satellites. In the $109 buy-in SCOOP 23-M (NLHE 8-Max), both TheTeacherAY (third, $37,127.72) and Adrluiz (eighth, $6,319.26) won their seats on the cheap. GusRus finished sixth in the $22 SCOOP 24-L (HORSE) for $1,382.40 after winning a seat for $1.10. And in SCOOP 29-L ($22 NLHE 8-Max Turbo), both kirbyi17 (fifth, $6,045.16) and volfer (seventh, $3,071.73) paid less than the buy-in after satelliting in.

TOURNAMENTS ONGOING

SCOOP 26 — NLHE (8-Max, Deep Stacks)
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530

MagicZ SIro of Brazil enjoys a slight lead over Greece’s panick13mick to start the day in the low, where 172 players return from a 15,245-entry field and a cool $8,434.04 awaits the winner. kanme11 leads the medium, tops of 142 left from 5,212 with more than $37K up top.

The high version saw 794 entries create a guarantee-busting $397K prize pool, with the UK’s Manuel “J0hn Mcclean” Saaverda coming back to the biggest stack among the 46 players left. Also near the top are Ramino “ramastar88” Petrone of Uruguay (third) and Sergi “srxakgirona” Reixach (fifth) playing from Mexico.

SCOOP 27 — NLHE (Progressive KO)
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050

In the low, Malta’s gringo909 will lead the 193 returners when this one resumes today, all that’s left from a 29,201-entry field. There are 138 remaining from 8,852 in the medium, where nefartovaya of Russia leads. And Joni “bustoville” Jouhkimainen will have a small lead over Thomas “WushuTM” Muehloecker to begin the high version of this one — they are the big stacks of the 67 players left from 1,326.

SCOOP 28 — PLO (High Roller)
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,020

In this one, John_Fishboy reeled in a huge stack yesterday during Day 1 of the low, amassing more than 9 million chips — twice as much as the nearest competitor to lead the 34 returners (from 3,305 entries). Also making Day 2, albeit with one of the shortest stacks, is Fintan “easywithaces” Hand of Team PokerStars Online.

Joao Vieira

There were 709 entries in the medium, and with 26 left pantri leads though has some tough competition with Joao ”Naza114” Vieira in second position seeking his third SCOOP title of the series and Ari “BodogAri” Engel close by in third.

And in the high there were 201 entries with 24 making Day 2 and Andreas “Skjervøy” Torbergsen topping the counts by a wide margin with more than twice what Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser currently has in second position.

STARTING TODAY

SCOOP 30 — NLHE (Progressive KO)
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
The day kicks off with more bounty-collecting fun. High rollers get a “slow” structure with 20-minute levels for the first 36 and half-hour levels thereafter.

SCOOP 31 — NLHE
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Here the medium will be starring in the role of this week’s “Sunday Warm-Up SE” (for “Special Edition”), while the high version sports an eye-catching a $1M guarantee.

SCOOP 32 — NLH (8-Max)
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
Starting at 13:00 ET, this one gets the top line on the Sunday marquee, with the low designated as the “Mini Sunday Million SE,” the medium as the “Sunday Million SE” proper, and the high the “Sunday High Roller SE.”

SCOOP 33 — PLO Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
If two cards aren’t enough, try four. And if vying for just one pot isn’t enough, come battle for two in this split-pot variant.

SCOOP 34 — NLHE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Another chance to get behind the wheel of the Cadillac of Poker.

SCOOP 35 — NLHE (Progressive KO)
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Bookending the day, a lower buy-in, turbo version of the event that started your Sunday.

PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE:

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6

Uri has been playing poker professionally since 2011. Grinding on Pokerstars as “holy h3ll,” he started his journey in the micro-stakes and worked his way up to the top levels of online MTTs, earning wins in the Sunday Million and Super Tuesday along the way.

These days Uri lives in Costa Rica, where he plays online, and travels to play live events around the world. After eight years of success, a $176,864 SCOOP win this week brought him full circle to where it all began for him in his first year as a pro.

We caught up with Uri this week to talk about the nuts and bolts of booking his SCOOP title, what it was like to have to go abroad to keep playing online poker, and how it feels like finally to capture a SCOOP win after chasing it for most of the last decade.

Tell us a bit about yourself — the basics of “holy h3ll,” if you will.

My name is Uri. I’ve played poker for a living since 2011. I started out playing micro-stakes and slowly grinded my way up. I’ll be 31 in June and I’m currently single. Most of my time and energy is devoted to poker whether it be playing or reviewing. I have a good group of friends (Israeli guys) who travel/talk poker together.

Your previous major PokerStars title wins (in the Sunday Million and Super Tuesday) came while playing from Israel, but now Costa Rica is your home base. How long have you been there?

I was born in Israel but I also have German citizenship and I grew up in Stuttgart Germany from ages 7-18, attending an international school. I’ve never felt particularly from any one place. But after attending university in Scotland, I moved back to Israel in 2009 as most of my family had eventually made their way back there.

Uri has been based in Costa Rica since leaving Israel, where he was based when he won his Sunday Million and Super Tuesday titles.

I played from there until 2016, when legislation issues made it impossible to play from Israel on Stars. This was pretty mind-blowing and our own Black Friday — my life at the time basically revolved around PokerStars. A few months later I moved to Costa Rica to reopen my account and lived/played from there.

Nowadays I play a lot more live and on Party as well, not living in Costa Rica full-time but sometimes traveling in order to play.

You made a SCOOP final in a $5.50 Low event back in 2011. What’s your overall approach to playing SCOOP today and how has it changed over the years?

I definitely remember the SCOOP Low final table pretty vividly — not specific hands or anything, but I had sold a package on the 2+2 forums for the first time, with total buy-ins of around $600-700, only from the Low tier SCOOP events. I was very serious in the past detailing how I felt the tournaments were good value and I’d been working on my game. It’s amusing now, and also I’m proud looking back at the excitement and seriousness I put into it.

I’ve been playing SCOOP every year since then, shifting the last few years from the Low events exclusively to nowadays only playing the Mediums and Highs. My approach has always been volume more than any tournament-specific ideas — variance is a huge element of MTT poker and ultimately volume is a necessity.

Let’s talk about how you won this tournament. How did you finish Day 1? You only fired one bullet — was there ever a point where you were in danger of needing to re-enter the event?

I don’t remember any specifics in the early stages of the tournament, I guess it went pretty smoothly I had a good stack for most of Day 1. There was one hand near the end of the day, where I made a, how shall I say, low frequency play — I three-bet A♣2♣ against an early position open, he four-bet me, and I raised all-in. He called with A-K and I ended up winning the hand for quite a huge pot.

Were there any specific parts of your game plan that you thought you were executing well throughout the tourney? At what point did you see a win in sight?

When Day 2 started I was about 6th of 99 players left, I think. The day started horribly. In the first hour I won I think one single hand and was down to 2 million chips from the 5 million I’d started with. But then it turned around and never looked back. From the final 2 tables I had a big stack all the way through and I was able to apply a lot of pressure. In big final tables there is a very big advantage to the bigger stacks, so I was just able to utilise that pretty well.

The heads-up match lasted a while and went back and forth a few times. There were a few coolers both ways and a key hand near the end where I had J-J and my opponent had A-A, but he chose to slow-play and ended up winning only a medium-sized pot. In the last hand I also got it in with A-T against [my opponent’s] A-J. I still would have had [chips] if I lost, but a ten came on the turn.

If anyone ever denies that you need a lot of luck to win a tournament they would be very wrong!

Uri’s latest tournament title came in the series that was the site of his earliest major success as a poker pro

Given your history with this specific tournament series, was there any extra satisfaction in winning this title? How did it compare with winning the Sunday Million or Super Tuesday?

I’ve been playing SCOOP for so many years that there is definitely a great satisfaction/happiness that comes with finally winning one. But it’s hard to compare winning this to winning the Sunday Million.

[When I won the Million] it was sort of life-changing, in that I had significantly more money than before and was able to play on my own, as opposed to [being] staked). The SCOOP win won’t be as impactful as I’ve had other successes along the way, but it’s still incredible to win such an amount in a single tournament.

There is definitely also a large sense of pride. PokerStars isn’t to me what it used to be, but it’s still a title I’ve wanted for many years.

Your prize was one of the bigger ones in the series so far. Do you have any plans for the money? And does a win like this alter your plans for the rest of SCOOP?

The money won’t go to anything specific. I’ve never been a very lavish person and I already am able to sustain the life that I like.

The win definitely affected my plans, though. I was actually on the way back to Israel, planning to miss SCOOP for the first time. I’m not 100% sure, but pretty sure I haven’t missed one since 2011. My friends convinced me to stay a few more days in Cyprus to play, and then it went extremely well! I’ll probably end up staying for the full series now even though it means not a lot of rest before Vegas, what can you do?

Any final notes?

Poker is my life, whether I’m studying or playing. I’ve dedicated [myself to the game] the past years and I truly feel that I (and a couple of friends) can take on the best. Shout-out to the Israeli poker crew and my amazing supportive family!

Thanks to Uri for sharing his story with the PokerStars blog, and congratulations to him on adding another major title to his résumé in Event #8-H!

Zach has a knack. He turns small buy-ins into big prizes.

Two summers back he bought into a $3.30 MicroMillions Stud tournament, playing as “ImDaBest514,” and walked away at the end with $835 for first place. Before this year’s SCOOP began, he played a bunch of satellites and turned one of those into a $22 ticket. And a few days ago he turned that ticket into a SCOOP No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo title and $7,350.

It’s been an interesting ride for Zach, who says poker is his newest serious pursuit in life after the end of a professional athletic career overseas. Basketball took him from his home in Canada to the Philippines and later to Thailand, where he played the game professionally. Now he’s back in Canada, visiting family and dedicating himself to poker.

“I originally started playing poker during the poker boom on and off, mostly playing for fun,” he told PokerStars Blog via email this week. “I was tired of being a break-even player or someone that wins but busts due to bad bankroll management. I decided if I’m gonna invest a lot of time into playing then I should try to be the best and do what the best players do. [I’m studying] Raise Your Edge in hopes of moving up stakes. My goals in poker are to move up to the highest stakes and hopefully win another SCOOP event.”

It pays to study

That willingness to put in time studying the game would pay off handsomely in Event #16-L of this year’s SCOOP series, though it wasn’t necessary at first. Day 1 was a breeze for Zach — and, as it turns out, a pretty good rough NLO8 tournament template for anybody who isn’t overly familiar with the game.

“I had played a bunch of NLO8 before so initially I used a pretty tight-aggressive strategy, because I knew with the field size lots of people probably weren’t as familiar in the game. I used a lot of over-jams with the nut low and a decent high to scoop a lot of big pots early on. Then from there it was probably one of the smoothest sailing tournaments for me because there are less chances to lose your whole stack in NLO8.”

That left him in fourth place out of 49 remaining players when Day 1 ended. This was an unexpected development. “I didn’t realize it was a two-day event and actually I had to work the next day. Luckily, I got my shift covered just in time.”

YouTube is your friend

He quickly kicked into study mode, running through YouTube videos on NLO8 from Daniel Negreanu and Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome along with a few replays of past SCOOP high-roller NLO8 events. Then he told his family he wasn’t going into work — and why — before sitting down to a Day 2 that somehow ended up being even easier than Day 1.

“Pretty much every break my stack would be double what I had started with — 2 million to 4 million, to 6 million, to 8 million, etc. — until I lost about half my stack with A-A-J-8 pre-flop to put me back down to 6 million. [When I won] a huge double-up later on, scooping a 20-million-chip pot with 13 players left, I started to feel like I could win the tournament.

I started the final table with a pretty big chip lead so I was confident I would make it to at least top three. But three-handed play is when I knew I would win for sure because I was able to put so much pressure on the other two with my huge chip lead. The heads-up match was very quick and I had a 10-1 lead, I think.”

Remain calm (with occasional yelling)

Through it all he kept his composure. “I was yelling after a couple huge pots late in the tournament, but I was pretty focused throughout, not much celebrating. [When I was done] I told my parents and siblings that I won it because I had told them the day before that I was deep in it.”

And that was it — another small buy-in turned into a much larger prize.

“The MicroMilions win was similar because it was a huge field Stud tournament, so lots of chips to be won. This SCOOP title was a lot sweeter, though, because I have only been taking poker seriously this year with studying and proper bankroll management. It’s also a lot more money!”

Zach said he plans to put all his SCOOP winnings into his poker bankroll. With that in mind, the victory couldn’t have come at a better time. “I am heading to Vegas this long weekend and playing some tournaments. This trip was planned a couple months ago so [it was] perfect timing with it being also a day or two after my birthday when I won this SCOOP tournament. Actually, my parents planned a birthday celebration the first day I was playing this tournament so I won it pretty much on my birthday as well.”

The 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is officially now into its second week. It was a highly frenetic middle weekend, so here’s a look at what went on.

• Richest day of SCOOP so far, with $10.1 million in tournament buy-ins
• Three biggest prize pools all still on the line
• Now more than half a million tournament entries
• Second double-winner as “Bagrovui” snares second Omaha title
• Bicknell and Foxen challenging for titles as 15 tournaments ongoing

STAT TRACKER

Tournaments completed: 90
Tournaments ongoing: 15
Entries so far: 500,168
Prize pool so far: $43,669,076
First-place prizes awarded: $5,233,943.65

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Eighteen tournaments started on SCOOP’s middle Sunday, with total prize pools between them of $10.1 million. That’s nearly one quarter of all the money wagered so far this SCOOP, which now sits at $43.67 million.

The three biggest prize pools of SCOOP so far are all still in the balance overnight. The medium buy-in of SCOOP 32 amassed a prize pool of $1.504 million, the pool in the high buy-in of SCOOP 31 is $1.442 million and the high of SCOOP 32 is $1.41 million. The winners will be determined today.

We went into the weekend with no double SCOOP winner. We ended it with two. After Joao “Naza114” Vieira won his second event in the $2,100 HORSE, Russia’s “Bagrovui” came first in SCOOP 28-M $530 PLO for $60,800. “Bagrvui” adds the result to SCOOP 11-H, the 5-Card PLO, suggesting we have an Omaha master on our hands.

Christopher “lissi stinkt” Frank won another SCOOP title on Sunday when he finished first in SCOOP 28-L PLO Six-Max. “lisst stinkt” is a regular at SCOOP final tables and won a huge one in 2015. In some ways the low buy-in fields are more difficult to conquer, so hats off to Frank for this one. Fintan “easywithaces” Hand made the last two tables, and finished in 12th.

Christopher “lissi stinkt” Frank

Costa Rica’s “ImDaNuts” became the second player from the “ImDa” family to claim a SCOOP title this year, following “ImDaBest514” to the top of the podium, and making “ImDa” the most successful prefix so far in SCOOP 2019.

Norway’s Andreas “Skjervoy” Tobergsen describes himself as a “poker dinosaur” and certainly here’s a man who has been playing the biggest PLO cash-game pots since the time that the term “nosebleed” meant nothing much more than a trip to the school nurse. But Tobergsen is still at it, and beat a challenging field to the PLO High Roller Six-Max title, and nearly $200K. Joao “IneedMassari” Simao was thirds; Benny “toweliestar” Spindler, Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser and Linue “LLinusLLove” Loeliger were all in the top 10, with Connor “blanconegro” Drinan and Benny “RunGodlike” Glaser not far behind.

Plenty of duos have been described over the years by the slightly cringy title “poker’s power couple”. Most recently it’s been Kristen Bicknell and Alex Foxen, or “krissyb24” and “bigfox86” as PokerStars players know them. Fair warning: this time tomorrow, we may also be reaching for the “power couple” title as both Bicknell and Foxen had stellar Sundays at the SCOOP tables and are well positioned to make a rush for silverware when games resume today.

TODAY’S RESULTS

†inc. bounties
*denotes deal

READ! READ! READ!

If you want to know what it takes, and what it means, to win a SCOOP title, have a read of our latest winner’s interview. Jason Kirk talks to “holy h3ll” who won $177K in Event #8-H. “Poker is my life,” “holy h3ll” says.

STRETCH! STRETCH! STRETCH!

Sitting hunched over your laptop all day, every day might be fun but it’s not exactly healthy. We talk to a yoga expert who has come up with five simple stretches to fill your five-minute tournament breaks.

THE BIG SPIN-UP

Here’s your daily reminder that you don’t have to break the bank to play, and win, in SCOOP. Russia’s “kuzya1993” managed to satellite into SCOOP 29-L: $22 NLHE Turbo for $7.50, approximately one third of the buy-in, and then went on to win the whole thing for a princely $16,832.63. ROI? Since you asked: 224,435 percent.

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

TWITCH ROUND-UP

There’s this myth doing the rounds that not only is Lex Veldhuis a great poker player and a brilliant streamer but that he’s also an all-round great guy. It’s nonsense. He’s a fraud and should be taken to The Hague for crimes against decency. Allow us to submit the following to the jury in evidence. He even called it “Feels good just ending dreams…”

TWEET TWEET

The SCOOP streaming family welcomed another new convert:

Meanwhile old hand Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert warmed up for Vegas with this fine win:

TOURNAMENTS ONGOING

SCOOP 30 – Sunday Kickoff
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,090
Nearly 700 players showed up for the high buy-in version of this, and a couple of well-known figures are in contention. With 22 left, the UK’s “girafganger”, who was one of our picks to be a two-time champion, is in third, while Kristen “krissyb24” Bicknell is in fifth. Ognjan “cocojamb0” Dimov is not far behind either.

SCOOP 31 – Sunday Warm-Up/Sunday Million
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
“Daenarys T” has become one of the stars of this SCOOP so far, and the Dutchman again lurks in fifth place, of 110 remaining, in the Sunday Warm-up. He is in excellent company, with Kristen “krissyb24” Bicknell in third. There’s a top prize of close to $250,000 on the line in the Sunday Million special edition, with Phill “Grindation” McAllister leading Alex “bigfox86” Foxen at the top of the charts.

Kristen “krissyb24” Bicknell

SCOOP 32 – Sunday Million Special Edition
Buy-ins: $55, $530, $5,200
The medium buy-in prize pool is the biggest yet amassed in SCOOP 2019, and the high buy-in prize pool is not far behind. Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira sits in second place, behind “MB TREMENDO” of Uruguay in the $5,200 event, with Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro in third, “MLS20”, who won an event earlier in the series, in sixth, and the ever-present “Lena900” today ever-present in seventh.

SCOOP 33 – PLO Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Ole “wizowizo” Schemion and Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb are in decent shape as they hunt their first title of the year. Schemion sits in third place, and Deeb in sixth, of the 34 coming back to play to the winner of the high buy-in event.

TOURNAMENTS STARTING TODAY

SCOOP 69 – NLHE
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
A late addition to the SCOOP calendar, because why not?

SCOOP 36 – NLHE PKO
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Chase those bounties over two days, six-max.

SCOOP 37 – NL Omaha Hi/Lo
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
The main problem about pot-limit Omaha is that it’s pot-limit, right? This one isn’t. You want to get it all in, then get it all in.

SCOOP 38 – NL Hold’em Four-Max
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
It’s not often spread in bricks and mortar casinos for the simple reason of space, but here’s your chance to play four-max hold’em, where under-the-gun is also the cutoff.

PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE:

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7

There are only 8 days left of SCOOP. So how does a player like you get the most out of them?

By you, I mean the type of player at the lower end of the bankroll spectrum, but the upper end when it comes to ambition.

Well, it turns out there’s a lot you can do.

Even a player on a small budget can squeeze every dollar out of SCOOP before the curtain drops a week today.

We’ve even done the calculations for you.

The plan below means you can play a SCOOP event every day, with guarantees adding up to more than $700K. And all for less than $50.

Oh, and only one brave adventure into the land of Pot-Limit Omaha.

That’s eight chances to win.

Eight titles up for grabs.

Endless hours of drama, tension, excitement, and fun.

If you’re in, here’s how your week will shape up.

That gets you through Omaha Day. Then it’s Hold’em all the way to the finish line…

All of that adds up to a not unreasonable $49.50.

And for hold’em players, experience of Pot-Limit Omaha. Surviving that is the type of thing Kipling would have written poems about.

Moving on, that’s just one way through the last eight days of SCOOP.

The full SCOOP schedule will give you some other options, especially if your have a little more flexibility in your bankroll. Yes, you can buy your way out of Omaha if you want to.