PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Event 1 $5.50 action and results
Players lined up, in theory of course, to play in the first high-level event in the 2009 SCOOP series, and a $500 + $30 buy-in NLHE event, with rebuys no less, was the ultimate way to kick off the action. PokerStars set it up with a $500K guarantee, but as the tournament got underway, the numbers continued to rise. When the registration and rebuy period was over, the screen showed 672 players were there, and they took 983 rebuys and 564 add-ons to create a prize pool of $1,109,500 - more than double the original guarantee.
With those statistics out of the way, the action began slowly but surely, and the Team PokerStars Pros were out in force. They also went out in force. The first to exit was Noah "Exclusive" Boeken in 611th place, followed by Gavin Griffin in 607th, and eventually those who left to join their fellow pros on the rail included Humberto Brenes, John Duthie, William Thorson, Chad Brown, and Marcin Horecki. Dennis Phillips made it to 392nd place, and fellow 2008 WSOP final tablist Ivan Demidov left soon after in 335th place. They were followed by JC Alvarado, Alex Gomes, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Victor Ramdin, and Hevan Khan.
As the money bubble portion of the tournament neared, it seemed that newly-signed Team PokerStars Pro Peter Eastgate was running away with the chip lead, at times holding a 2-to-1 lead over his nearest competitor with 20 tables remaining. But that soon changed at the hands of Jovial Gent and Festivuss, who both put significant dents in Eastgate's stack and relegated him to the middle of the pack as the money bubble got even closer. Ultimately, as NoraFlum was eliminated in 73rd place on that bubble and RaSZi became the first to cash in the tournament - with $3,550.40 for 72nd place - it was Eastgate and Andre "aakkari" Akkari holding down the fort for Team PokerStars. Akkari left in 64th place, though, and Eastgate lost momentum and finally finished in 55th place.
It should be noted here that one of those final 12 players was Sdouble, and though he seemed to be losing ground in this event, he was busy winning the Event #2-Medium $100 + $9 PLO event on another table. Sdouble took the $33,664.00 first prize and the SCOOP champion's watch. And he ended up finishing in eighth place in this event, pulling in another $23,299.50 for the night. Double the tournaments, double the fun for Sdouble.
SCOOP Event 01-High Results:
1st place: BongBob ($191,135.00)*
2nd place: AceSpades11 ($175,000.00)*
3rd place: MrTile ($113,723.75)
4th place: Jagz7 ($77,665.00)
5th place: deamon10 ($55,475.00)
6th place: pusteblume ($35,504.00)
*based on two-way chop numbers
SCOOP is still going on – qualify, register and play here at PokerStars.