Poker

Short-handed Big O with rebuys. How much more exhilarating excitement can you ask for? For extreme skiers, 6-max Big O is like a run down the treacherous, icy slopes of Mt. Everest. In the ultimate thrill-seeking event, I Am Benjami faded 3,362 players to become the latest SCOOP champion. The Spring Championship of Online Poker Event #19-L "Big O" $11+R attracted 2,262 runners. They contributed 5,983 re-buys and an additional 2,000 add-ons. That boosted the total prize pool to $113,450. The top 450 places paid out with $17,586.77 set aside to the eventual champion. Team PokerStars Pros seeking a SCOOP title in this event included familiar faces such as George Danzer, Martin Hruby, Marcin "Goral" Horecki, Nacho Barbero, Bryan Huang, and Lex Veldhuis. Team PokerStars Online members who played, but didn't cash in Big O included nkeyno and George "Jorj95" Lind. The only notable who cashed was Team Online Daleroxxu, who finished in the money in 349th place. George Danzer came close to the money, but the German Team Pro met his fate near the bubble in 482nd place. With 18 to go on the final three tables, holdi12 (Liechtenstein) held the lead with 4.2 million. With 12 to go on the final two tables, babbelz (Netherlands) held the lead with 5.2 million. With nine remaining, babbelz chipped up to 9 million. With seven remaining, action went hand-for-hand for a full level before holdi12 unceremoniously bubbled off the final table in seventh place. holdi12's [Ah][Kc][Qh][Jc][9s] lost to I Am Benjami's [8h][8s][7h][6s][5s]. The board ran out [Td][3s][2h][2c][6d] and I Am Benjami dragged the pot with two pair. With holdi12's elimination, the final table of six was set. SCOOP Event #19-L - Final Table Chip Counts: Seat 1: Profesigh (2,199,710) Seat 2: malika1989 (1,925,034) Seat 3: babbelz (13,496,038) Seat 4: §fengshai§ (6,165,595) Seat 5: I Am Benjami (11,651,623) Seat 6: Pokerslive (2,597,000) The final table commenced during Level 40 with blinds at 100K/200K. With six to go, babbelz held the lead with 13.4 million, and malika1989 sat on the short-stack with 1.9 million. Pokerslive eliminated in 6th place It did not take long before we saw our first elimination. On the second hand of the final table, someone busted. It all began when malika1989 opened to 700,000 and Pokerslive called from the big blind. The flop was [Jh][Ts][Th] and both players checked. The turn was the [2s]. Pokerslive shoved for 897,000, and malika1989 called. Pokerslive: [Ac][Qc][5s][2d][2h] malika1989: [As][Ad][Jd][Tc][6d] Pokerslive turned a boat, but malika1989 flopped a bigger boat. The [Kh] fell on the river and malika1989 won the pot with Tens full of Jacks. Pokerslive became the first player to get knocked off the final table. For a sixth-place performance, Pokerslive earned $1985.37. Profesigh eliminated in 5th place Profesigh took a nasty hit a few hands earlier and all of sudden was on life support. Short-stacked Profesigh shoved for 860,763 and §fengshai§ called from the big blind. §fengshai§: [Ah][Kc][4h][3s][2c] Profesigh: [Ac][Kh][Jc][8h][3c] The board ran out [6h][4d][2d][2s][5c]. Profesigh rivered a Wheel, but §fengshai§ dragged the pot with a full boat. For a fifth-place finish, Profesigh took home $3,687.12. With four to go, I Am Benjami held a slight lead with 11.5 million to babbelz's 11.4 million. malika1989 held 8.8 million and §fengshai§ was the "shorty" with 6.1 million. DEAL Action was paused to discuss a deal. The final four quickly agreed upon the terms: I Am Benjami ($13,195.93) babbelz ($11,470.89) malika1989 ($10,551,37) §fengshai§ ($9,287.37) They left $1,500 on the table (in addition to the winner's watch) for the eventual champion. §fengshai§ eliminated in 4th place A quick bustout occurred right after the deal. Here's what happened... babbelz opened to 675,000 and §fengshai§ called. The flop was [Jd][9h][2c] and both players checked. The turn was the [5d]. babbelz fired out 1 million, §fengsha

Win your first table, make the money. It sounds easy enough. But to get a shot at the big cash, players had to dispose of two more tables of ten. A format favored by SNG wizards and tourney grinders alike, Event #18-L offered the potential to turn a $27 investment into enough to buy a midsize car. Taking direct aim was Cem1994, who hit a crucial river card to double up during nine-handed play. Cem1994 never had to look back and rode his chip lead into the winner's circle, capturing his first SCOOP title. 6,099 players came out for Event #18-L, creating a $149,730.45 prize pool. The 1,000 players who won their first-round tables earned a share of it, with $23,588.18 set aside for first place. Joining the action were more than a dozen Red Spades, including George Danzer, Andre Coimbra, Randy "nanonoko" Lew, George "Jorj95" Lind III, Mickey "mement_mori" Petersen, Naoya "nkeyno" Kihara and Eugene Katchalov. Both Lex Veldhuis (418th) and Joao "jomane" Nunes (268th) made the money, but couldn't top their second-round tables. First-round tables took the field from 6,099 to 1,000 and the second from 1,000 to 100. With 11 players remaining in the third round, a single table was still heads-up, AVTOPILOT holding a 2 to 1 chip lead over shiptourneys. Their match came down to a cooler, shiptourneys six-bet shoving his [Qs][Qd] into [Kd][Kh]. A nine-high board ended shiptourneys' run in eleventh place, while AVTOPILOT F1 advanced to the fourth and final round. Final table chip counts Seat 1: bg.TheProfie (5,000 in chips) Seat 2: Cem1994 (5,000 in chips) Seat 3: qqgo (5,000 in chips) Seat 4: ros1987 (5,000 in chips) Seat 5: ShaneGlsd (5,000 in chips) Seat 6: MPH84 (5,000 in chips) Seat 7: leopeluca (5,000 in chips) Seat 8: AVTOPILOT F1 (5,000 in chips) Seat 9: Win A Rolex (5,000 in chips) Seat 10: Igr2017 (5,000 in chips) MPH84 sputters out in tenth MPH84 took a hit in the first level when lgr2017's [As][Qh] outflopped his [Ad][Kd] and hit a pair of queens. MPH84 tried to move him off on the river with a bluff-raise, but lgr2017 looked him up and took down the 3,000 pot. Down to 2,310, MPH84 again found [Ad][Kh] and shoved over Win A Rolex's UTG min-raise and lgr2017's 360-chip three-bet. Lgr2017 called with [Qs][Qd] and improved to top set on the flop, ending MPH84's run in tenth place. Cem1994 takes the chip lead Lgr2017's luck changed, however, when his [Ac][4d] turned a wheel only to fall to Cem1994's full house on the river. Cem1994 doubled to 12,220 while lgr2017's stack plummeted to 1,946. ShaneGlsd finished him off a short time later. With 1,263 remaining and the blinds up to 60/120, lgr2017 picked up [Ah][8d] and open-shoved from middle position. ShaneGlsd reshoved to isloate and his pocket fours held up to eliminate lgr2017 in ninth place. Seven, six, five... Bg.TheProfie had ground his stack up to 7,700 when he picked up [Ad][Qc] and opened for 336. Win A Rolex smooth-called from the big blind and bg.TheProfie hit top pair on the [Qh][7c][2d] flop. Win a Rolex check-called 488, and checked again when the [6s] came on the turn. Bg.TheProfie bet 912, Win A Rolex raised to 3,040 and bg.TheProfie shoved for 6,847. Win A Rolex called, having successfully trapped his prey with [As][Ac], but bg.TheProfie spiked the [Qd] on the river to make trips. Win A Rolex was suddenly on the rail in eighth place, collecting $2,470.55 for his troubles. Two hands later, qqgo's [Ah][7c] flopped an open-ended straight flush draw. He moved in for his last 1,994 on the [4c][5c][6c] flop, but Cem1994 snap-called, having flopped a flush with [Qc][9c]. Qqgo improved to a ten-high flush on the river but it wasn't enough and he departed in seventh place, earning $3,443.80. Leopeluca was down to 1,338 as the blinds moved up to 80/160. Although he doubled through Cem1994 when his [Ah][7h] rivered a pair of aces against [6h][6d], he didn't hang onto those chips for long. Two hands later, leopeluca picked up pocket jacks and fo

When some events come up on the SCOOP calendar, you just know they're going to be special final tables. SCOOP 2013 Event 18-High, $2,100 NLHE (10-Max, Shootout) had all the makings of that: a steep price point and a shootout format that is favored by many pros who see it as the easiest form of trophy hunting. In the end, Shawn "buck21" Buchanan won the 2nd SCOOP of his career title by denying JIZOINT a 2nd SCOOP title of the day. Shawn "buck1" Buchanan The Team PokerStars Pros and PokerStars Team Online players put up an 0-fer in Event 18-H. Seven of them entered the field, but none advanced to the final shootout table and the money. Ike Haxton came closest, but close doesn't get in a tournament where only making the final table got a player any cash. Despite the lack of Team PokerStars Pros and PokerStars Team Online players, the final table of Event 18-H did not disappoint. The ten players who assembled at 7:20pm PokerStars time represented many of the best and the brightest players that online poker has to offer. Seat 1: Dan "Danny98765" Smith (5000 in chips) Seat 2: hneves182 (5000 in chips) Seat 3: JIZOINT (5000 in chips) Seat 4: Dani "supernova9" Stern (5000 in chips) Seat 5: Leqenden (5000 in chips) Seat 6: Shawn "buck21" Buchanan (5000 in chips) Seat 7: LaurisL91 (5000 in chips) Seat 8: Rednaxela747 (5000 in chips) Seat 9: FOO-92 (5000 in chips) Seat 10: Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb (5000 in chips) In addition to Smith, Stern, Buchanan and Deeb, the final table featured: recent Sunday Warm-Up winner FOO-92 (who also made the Sunday Warm-Up final table the week before winning); hneves182, who seems to make at least one SCOOP final table every year; Leqenden, who took down SCOOP 2013 Event 14-H yesterday, and JIZOINT, a SCOOP 2011 winner who won SCOOP 2013 Event 15-H for $50,000 while competing in the early rounds of this event. A few of the players exchanged pleasantries as the final table kicked off. buck21: gl boys buck21: and gals buck21: if any shaundeeb: just cuz I dressed up once buck21: hahaha Deeb was referring to the infamous event at the 2010 World Series of Poker where he dressed up in drag to play the Ladies Event and was roundly criticized for it, to the point that he later issued an apology. The two would later discuss their SCOOP cross-booking action, apparently an annual ritual. Deeb called off the bet mid-SCOOP last year - in hindsight, an unwise decision, given his four SCOOP victories. And they're off Blinds started at 25/50 and each player started with 5,000 in chips. FOO-92 took an early hit but later check-raised Deeb all in on the turn of a [3c][as][2s][7c]. Deeb folded but took over the mantle of "early short stack" from FOO-92. In the first hour of play, it seemed that every sizable pot was won by Leqenden, many of them without showdown. Leqenden climbed all the way up to 11,000 in chips despite only showing down one hand, pocket jacks that won a 1,500-chip pot from FOO-92. Leqenden was quite aggressive on the river, and almost every time those river bets and raises induced folds from Leqenden's opponents. At that point of the tournament, Leqenden was the only player above the starting stack. About an hour into the final table, Stern ran ace-queen into LaurisL91's aces on an ace-high flop to slip all the way down to about 2,000 in chips. Stern lost a few more small pots over the next half hour, including one to JIZOINT on a [6s][8d][td][th] board, to fall below 800 in chips with blinds approaching 50/100. Dealt [ks][qh], Stern shoved the button after action folded to him. Buchanan woke up with [ac][kh] in the big blind and sent Stern to the rail after the board rolled out [7d][4h][4d][td][7c]. FOO-92 followed Stern out of the tournament about 10 minutes later in the biggest pot to that point of the tournament: Deeb and Leqenden exit Deeb was the next player out, although 45 minutes of play passed in between. His fatal hand came against cross-booking partner Buchanan, who

SCOOP Event #20-M promised players a big payday in a short amount of the time. A Zoom poker tournament combined with a turbo structure was the perfect recipe for continuous action and fast play. 2,653 players bought into the event creating a $530,600 prize pool and a nice $83,834 to the SCOOP winner. Players continued to exit the tournament at a steady rate until the final 3 tables formed to play down in normal fashion. Sebastian Ruthenberg from Team PokerStars was sitting near the top of the leaderboard during the later stages of the tournament but was unable to break through to the final table. Hand-for-hand play did not last long and it produced not one, but two eliminations on separate tables. Serginh0 was knocked out in 10th place while a big 3-way pot was going down on the other table which knocked loveHitGirl in 9th place ($4,510.10) and form an 8 handed final table. Seat 1: andrekos0095 (1,516,148 in chips) Seat 2: OtB_RedBaron (689,656 in chips) Seat 3: pharaohus (1,588,027 in chips) Seat 4: blony_tair (1,930,304 in chips) Seat 5: DanceWiwMe (599,580 in chips) Seat 6: Risvado (2,472,868 in chips) Seat 7: WineEmDineEm (1,278,678 in chips) Seat 8: Empty Seat 9: YugiohPro (3,189,739 in chips) Blinds: 40k/80k with 10k ante Average: ~1.5million (18.4 BBs) OtB_RedBaron shot down, eliminated in 8th place As expected with the Turbo structure, nearly all the action involved all-in moves preflop. OtB_RedBaron played exactly one hand at the final table before collecting a paycheck. Action folded to OtB_RedBaron in middle position who open shoved for 679,656 and was called by WineEmDineEm in the big blind. OtB_RedBaron made the move holding [Ad][5h] and was far behind the opponent's [Ac][Tc] and the [Qh][3h][4d] flop, [Qs] turn, and [Jh] river did not offer any drama. OtB_RedBaron was eliminated in 8th place for $7,693.70. DanceWiwMe missed a beat, eliminated in 7th place It did not take long to lose the next player in a pretty standard spot. With the blinds moving up quickly, DanceWiwMe shoved all-in with [Kc][5s]from the button after action folded all the way around only to have Risvado find [Ac][Qh] in the small blind. DanceWiwMe hit the flop but Risvado hit it bigger then it was finished off with the [9d] turn and [Js] river. DanceWiwMe was eliminated in 7th place for $12,999.70 WineEmDineEm loses reservation, eliminated in 6th place The first big battle of the blinds occurred when both players had less than 10 big blinds remaining. Action folded to the blinds and Risvado opened for all the chips in the small blind and was called by WineEmDineEm in the big blind. The hole cards revealed Risvado far ahead with [Ks][8s] versus [Qh][8c]. Neither player improved with the [As][6c][3s][9d][4s] board and WineEmDineEm was eliminated in 6th place for $18,305.70. blony_tair voted out, eliminated in 5th place Chip leader andrekos0095 min-raised from middle position only to be faced with a 3-bet shove from blony_tair in the big blind for a total of 2,504,996. andrekos0095 called the all-in amount holding [7h][7s] and was racing against the [Ad][Kh] of blony_tair. The [Js][7d][5s] flop transformed the pair into a set but had a small sweat with a [Qc] on the turn. andrekos0095 dodged those few outs with the [4s] river and blony_tair was knocked out in 5th place for $23,611.70. pharaohus sets their chips free, eliminated in 4th place andrekos0095 was holding a nice chiplead with only 4 players remaining and used them as weapons. The first move with them was to raise enough from the small blind to put the big blind pharaohus all-in, which was easily called with [Ah][Jh]. andrekos0095 was behind with [Th][9h] and stayed behind on the [3c][Kd][Kc]. pharoahus' night would end with unlucky [9s] turn and uninspiring [8c] river and was set the rail in 4th place for $31,040.10. Risvado runs into a bully, eliminated in 3rd place andrekos0095 continued to do the heavy lifting and again raised enough in the small blind to put

ZOOM poker has revolutionized the way online poker is played. No longer do we have to wait....ever. It's non-stop, card-flinging action, and the perfect way to reduce a multi-table tournament field of over ten thousand players to a winner inside five hours of game time. Rkdel from the Czech Republic was the one who zoomed best, turning a $27 investment into over $27,000 in prize money and the SCOOP title. It was SCOOP Event #20-L with the $27 No Limit Holdem Turbo ZOOM Event attracting a huge field of 12,431 players to form a prize pool of $305,181.05 to more than double the advertised guarantee. Team PokerStars Pros Henrique Pinho, Adrienne Rowsome, Leo Margets, Christian de León, Nacho Barbero, João Nunes, Marcel Luske, Martin Hrubý, Randy Lew, Eugene Katchalov, Mickey Petersen, Bryan Huang, Kevin Thurman, Stavros Kalfas, Tyler Frost, George Lind, Victor Ramdin, Grzegorz Mikielewicz were all in the field but were unable to reach the money for the top 1,620 players. It only took about an hour and forty minutes for the money to be reached, and with late registration closing just ten minutes earlier, there were a few clever cookies who registered late and nursed their short stack through the last few hundred players to snag themselves a min-cash. Unfortunately Portugal's Maximo46 wasn't one of them, busting on the bubble in 1,621st place as the remaining players were guaranteed $42.72. Pierre Neuville (1,504th - $45.77), Marcin Horecki (972nd - $64.08) and George Danzer (918th - $64.08) were the Team PokerStars Pros to cash as the players dropped away at a rapid rate. At the three hour mark there were 100 players left with Hubertus91 from Poland with the chip lead. When morr was eliminated in 10th place, the final table line up was set as follows: Final Table Line up Seat 1: L.A.Ruseman (7,264,844 in chips) Seat 2: Rkdel (4,558,694 in chips) Seat 3: aJarov (8,568,692 in chips) Seat 4: rona1do_9 (2,733,248 in chips) Seat 5: Brad52286 (9,979,192 in chips) Seat 6: Hubertus91 (18,230,956 in chips) Seat 7: StevePick (4,375,221 in chips) Seat 8: Kamikaze94 (5,104,559 in chips) Seat 9: Slang_head (1,339,594 in chips) The final table blinds kicked off at 100k/200k/25k as rona1do_9 was first to go, moving all in for around eight big blinds with [ad][qh] only to be dominated by StevePick who made the call with [ah][kh]. The board ran out [Kc][8h][6c][2s][5d] to pair the king to leave rona1do_9 on the virtual rail in 9th place for $1,907.38. The short-stacked Slang_head was next to lose the fight as the blinds were already getting to dizzying heights. Slang_head was all in for under three big blinds with [as][jh] with the big stack of Hubertus91 prepared to gamble from the small blind with [kc][3c]. It was a genius move as Hubertus91 struck trips on the [3s][3h][7d][5c][Ac] board to bust Slang_head in 8th place for a $3,051.81 score. The pots were mostly small as the players were carefully picking their spots to confront their opponents. When Rkdel found [kh][kc] it looked like a pretty good time to get amongst the action, after Kamikaze94 had shoved nine big blinds from early position with [3h][Ah]. The board blanked [Ts][Tc][5h][Qc][4c] to see Kamikaze94 out in 7th place for $6,103.62 in prize money. Hubertus91 was still well in front as aJarov got into contention with a big double up holding [ah][kh] against StevePick's pocket fives. However StevePick got those chips back next hand with a lucky double up through L.A.Ruseman: RSS readers click through to see replay It left L.A.Ruseman on the short stack and all in moments later from the small blind with [Td][Qd]. Rkdel made the call in the big blind with [Kd][9d] with the king-high holding through the [3c][5d][4h][6s][5c] board. L.A.Ruseman finished in 6th place for a $9,155.43 collect. The biggest pot of the tournament would unfold with Hubertus91 opening for a min-raise, StevePick putting in the three-bet before Brad52286 moved all in. Hubertus91 folded but StevePick c

Triple shootout. The mission is clear: win three shootout tables. It's that simple. Knock down three "SNGs" in a row and become the next champion in the Spring Championship of Online Poker. Costa Rica's reelhugefish made it look easy. Really easy. reelhugefish faded a sold-out crowd of 1,000 runners and shipped SCOOP Event #18-M $215 NL [10-Max Shootout]. He won three tables. The first two rounds were successful without much resistance, but the third and final table was a hard-fought victory. reelhugefish was involved in an intense heads-up battle that seemed like it was going to go on all night. When the dust settled, reelhugefish came out ahead as real huge winner and the newest SCOOP champion. Event #18-M $215 NL Shootout was capped at 1,000. They all contributed to a $200,000 prize pool. The top 100 places paid, which meant everyone who won their first table secured themselves at least $770 in cash. The top dog would earn $36,500 for winning the entire Shootout. Team PokerStars Pros taking a shot at a SCOOP crown in this event included Marcin "Goral" Horecki (139th), Bryan Huang (165th), Jason Mercier (407th), Lex Veldhuis (484th), Martin Hruby (626th), Nacho Barbero (835th), Eugene Katchalov (978th), and George Danzer (990th). Team PokerStars Online participants in this event included nkeyno (42nd place and a cash), DaWarsaw (170th), Jorj95 (186th), mement_mori (350th), and omane (351st). Only Team Online nkeyno from Japan made the money after winning his first table. The longest table during the opening round lasted approximately 5 hours. At his second table, nkeyno failed to advance. He busted in 42nd place when his [Jd][Js] lost to jareth3542's [Ad][Ac]. Both players bombed it all-in preflop. The board ran out [Kh][Td][8s][7d][Kc] and that's all she wrote for nkeyno. His Jacks failed to snap off Aces. For 42nd place, nkeyno locked up $770.00. The U.K.'s jareth3542 was the first player to win the second round shootout in approximately 2.5 hours. At that point, every table has three or fewer players remaining. Gambler4444 lost a race with [8d][8h] versus jareth3542's [Ac][Jc] when the board ran out [Ad][7d][6h][9c][Kc]. Reelhugefish (Costa Rica) was the second player to advance to the finals, while bearsfan775 was the third player to advance. The tenth and final spot at the final table was an extensive battle between MakeItReign and diceandroll. On a board of [Ad][5c][4s][As][3h], diceandroll shoved with [2c][2h]. But his Broadway straight lost to MakeItReign, who called with a [Ac][3s] and a full house. Alas, diceandroll bubbled off the final table in 11th place. MakeItReign was the tenth and last player to win a second round shootout. The final table was set. SCOOP Event #18-M - Final Table Chip Counts: Seat 1: wagnerAA (5,000) Seat 2: frakta1 (5,000) Seat 3: reelhugefish (5,000) Seat 4: MakeItReign (5,000) Seat 5: Pavalinya (5,000) Seat 6: byoon (5,000) Seat 7: OneH1tWonder (5,000) Seat 8: Ajoin21 (5,000) Seat 9: jareth3542 (5,000) Seat 10: bearsfan775 (5,000) Everyone started with the same stack of 5,000 chips. Blind levels were 20 minutes. frakta1 eliminated in 10th place The first elimination occurred at the end Level 4. frakta1 min-raised to 200, reelhugefish raised to 511, and frakta1 called. The flop was [Ac][Th][4c] and both players checked. The turn was the [3d], frakta1 checked, reelhugefish bet 425, and frakta1 called. The [5d] fell on the river. frakta1 checked, reelhugefish fired out 1,675, frakta1 called all-in for 1,672. frakta1 lost with [7s][7c] because reelhugefish flopped a set with [Td][Tc] and dragged the pot. For tenth place, frakta1 collected $2,800.00. jareth3542 eliminated in 9th place All-in preflop. jareth3542 four-bet shoved and reelhugefish called. Classic race with jareth3542's [As][Kc] vs. reelhugefish's [Jc][Jh]. The board ran out [Qh][8d][4c][3h][Js] and reelhugefish won the pot with a set of Jacks. jareth3542 failed to win a coin flip and busted out in ninth.

There's no older saw in tournament poker than the one about "a chip and a chair." As long as you're in the game, the reasoning goes, you can still win. More often than not anybody who catches himself thinking that ends up busting out pretty quickly, especially when it comes to the final table. But every now and then a player catches just the right cards at just the right time and manages to find a way back into contention - or even to victory. Such was the case in tonight's tournament, a $2,100 Turbo Zoom event where a two-time SCOOP final tablist made the most of some good fortune early on and rode that to the promised land. The prospect of a big payday for a few hours' work drew a healthy crowd of 463 players, building a prize pool of $926,000 and setting aside cash for the last 54 standing. Team PokerStars Pro's Johnny Lodden nearly made it to the money but fell just short in 57th place. Fellow Team Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero fared a bit better, becoming the first player to cash in 54th place ($4,630). That left just one Team Pro, Vanessa "LadyMaverick" Rousso, in the running. After just two hours and 34 minutes, she and these other eight players sat down to the final table with blinds and antes at 4K/8K/1K: Seat 1: T 54 T 97s (70,592 in chips) Seat 2: Nick "FU_15" Maimone (439,623 in chips) Seat 3: Vanessa "LadyMaverick" Rousso (97,210 in chips) Seat 4: Erebgil_bg (239,530 in chips) Seat 5: FaKeOrReaL (390,155 in chips) Seat 6: A.Saout (171,245 in chips) Seat 7: Emil "Maroonlime" Patel (218,210 in chips) Seat 8: Chris "NigDawG" Brammer (526,295 in chips) Seat 9: IFiNishfish (162,140 in chips) The second shortest stack at the table belonged to Rousso. She moved all-in on the very first hand and stole the blinds and antes but had to stay out of the way for the rest of the orbit. By the time she was on the button again the blinds and antes were up to 5K/10K/1.25K Rousso found a chance to move all-in again and took it. She three-bet for 85K after Portugal's T 54 T 97s opened for 40K, and things went pretty crazy after that: RSS readers, please click through for replay Despite starting with the best of three hands, Rousso ended third-best. With that she finished in 9th place ($15,371.60). And thanks to some very well-timed quads, T 54 T 97s had a new lifeline in the tournament. Erebgil_bg out in 8th The next orbit saw Nick "FU_15" Maimone move into the chip lead, just ahead of two-time online Triple Crown winner Chris "NigDawG" Brammer. But Brammer struck back on Hand 18 thanks to some good timing, opening for the minimum of 24K with [Ac] [Ah] and then making the easy call after Bulgaria's Erebgil_bg moved all-in for 176K with [8c] [8d]. The [9c] [3s] [2d] [Qh] [Kd] board never gave the underdog a hint of help, Brammer chipped up to 745K, and Erebgil_bg exited in 8th place ($20,835). IFiNishfish finished in 7th Chris Brammer continued to chip up after that, but T 54 T97s took center stage with a few consecutive wins. On Hand 28 the Portuguese player called all-in for 86K before the flop with [Ah] [Js], which held up against the [Ac] [8d] of Finland's IFiNishfish for a 201K-chip pot. That left IFiNishfish with just 40.8K, all of which went in the middle before the flop on Hand 29 with [8c] [8s]. T 54 T 97s made the call with [As] [Kh], which took the lead on the [Kc] [6c] [Ts] flop and held up through the [6d] turn and [3d] river to send IFiNishfish out in 7th place ($30,095). A.Saout slips away in 6th Hand 30 saw T 54 T 97s win a 201K bet with an all-in move on the flop, moving up to a solid fourth place with 377K. Just ahead in third was Canada's FaKeOrReaL with 390K. The Canadian player soon jumped into second place on Hand 37 after picking up [Jc] [Jd] in the big blind and calling after the United Kingdom's A.Saout moved all-in for 153K with [Ad] [Tc]. The [3h] [8d] [Ts] flop gave A.Saout a few more outs, but the [8h] turn and [5c] spelled the end of the line in 6th place ($39,355). Nick Maimone gone in

Only 45 players out of the 395 entered would get a slice of the $262,675.00 prize and only 17 of those would make it to day two with a potential $50,827.76 payday and the SCOOP champion's watch. Some players have been here before, most already had a watch like JIZOINT who won this event in the 2011 SCOOP series for $55,147.50 The saying goes "act like you have been here before" well, the UK player came back to win it again as JIZOINT took down Team PokerStars Online's George "Jorj95" Lind III heads-up to win $50,827.76 and the champion's watch. Lind however adds his 14th cash of the series and with the 80 points earned as the runner-up has taken the Player of the Series overall lead from Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer. Day two would start off with the Ante Up usual 5/5 blinds and antes of 800 going up every half hour. danger0us who made a 2011 Super Tuesday FT would exit the tournament after the first ten minutes in 17th place ($2,626.75). Six minutes later was AceSpades11 who took down a Super Tuesday in January 2012 would take a seat after flipping pocket sevens [7d][7h] against the chip leader Amadi_017 with [Ah][Ks]. A king on the flop [8s] [9s] [Kh] [2s] [Js] and AceSpades11 took home $2,626.75 in 16th place. INSHALA82 (United Kingdom) was trying to meet up at the final table again with George Lind III in the 2013 series. Both of them hit the Event #6-H final table as INSHALA82 took fourth for $7,600.00 and Lind was the runner-up. Lind was looking good at this point for another final table but INSHALA82 could not get away from a rivered set of tens as Kyle "KJulius10" Julius found a straight to collect a huge 184,752 chip pot as INSHALA82 was knocked in 13th place ($3,283.43). After slayerv1fan laid down for the morning in 12th place ($3,940.12), pistecaloze who scored a Sunday Million FT in February placing 6th as Kyle "KJulius10" Julius was trying to notch his second Sunday Million win at the same final table (coming up one player short as the runner-up) would meet a similar fate going out before Julius late in a tournament again. With the antes up to 1,000 chips pistecaloze would tangle with chip leader Amadi_017 on three different streets and while pistecaloze's kicker was bigger holding [As][Ts], Amadi_017's [Ac][7s] found a couple of sevens to go with the ace [3c] [7c] [Ah] [7d] [Qd] taking in the 115,524 chip pot and knocking out pistecaloze in 11th place ($3,940.12) setting up a lengthy hand-for-hand session. While it looked like the final table would start up well before the second hour of play, 45 minutes later all 10 players would hit the showers for a five minute break coming back to 1,250 antes and an average stack of almost 200,000. An hour long hand-for-hand during a live tournament may be considered a short time but for an online tournament it is a lengthy wait. It would take an hour after pistecaloze took off that the final table below started up. With the antes up to 1,500 u1ker would raise to 2,345 as tRaMp$d0PrAy three-bet from the button as u1ker made the call to see a [Th][8h][6c] flop. u1ker checked as tRaMp$d0PrAy bet 6,950 chips. u1ker check-raised to 13,900 and tRaMp$d0PrAy shoved for 50,045. Holding top pair u1Ker made the call [Td][Ks]. However tRaMp$d0PrAy was sitting with ladies [Qd][Qc]. The overpair was good on the turn [8d] but not so much on the [Tc] river handing the 118,765 chip pot and the final table chip lead to u1ker. tRaMp$d0PrAy would be denied making the same SCOOP event final table two years in a row after tRaMp$d0PrAy placed ninth last year. Seat 1: chico134 (225883 in chips) Seat 2: smokrokflock (240862 in chips) Seat 3: Amadi_017 (190701 in chips) Seat 4: Team Online George "Jorj95" Lind III (167490 in chips) Seat 5: Grey Poopon (133676 in chips) Seat 6: u1ker (365865 in chips) Seat 7: Kyle "KJulius10" Julius (345168 in chips) Seat 8: JIZOINT (151874 in chips) Seat 9: Chris "NigDawG" Brammer (153481 in chips) First in the dog

Ex6tenceLV won event 15-M of the 2013 Spring Championship of Online Poker, earning $16,124.22 and a SCOOP watch in the process. It can be considered a thoroughly deserved victory for ex6tenceLV, who not only endured the seemingly unstoppable run of eventual runner-up WestCliff21, but also the unstoppable run of time, 29 and a half hours of it passing in an unforgivably endless contest. This, after all, was an "Ante-Up" tournament in which the blinds remain at 5 and 5 throughout, with only the ante increasing, an idea thought to have been based on an early draft of Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses Don't They?, in which contestants in a depression-era dancing contest hope to win first prize by staying on their feet the longest. It's a device that injects innovation into a poker tournament while the players are slowly driven mad, losing all sense of time and place. There was also room for novelty, such as WestCliff21's stack at the start of the final table amounting to 541,077 big blinds. There was also the unusual sight of nine players each limping into a pot for $5 with $45,000 already in the middle. With this lead WestCliff21 had seemed a certainty, gaining the lead ten-handed, when a pair of kings snagged the chips of g0epr0, who had led coming into the second day - a hand that made you spew coffee everywhere as your feet fell off the desk. SCOOP 2013 Event 15-M Final table That set him up and the others could only watch, albeit a line-up made up of some seriously good online players whose recent form suggested a long drawn out struggle ahead. Luckily, those looking for a format to intensify that struggle had come to the right place. Seat 1 - vovtroy (Russia), 1,405,211 Seat 2- ex6tenceLV (Latvia), 608,953 Seat 3 - OMGjonyctt (United Kingdom), 170,275 Seat 4 - bryanusftw (Netherlands), 745,205 Seat 5 - apostolis20 (Greece), 642,033 Seat 6 - zemachess (Russia), 1,247,715 Seat 7 - JlaTuHoC (Russia), 189,272 Seat 8 - WestCliff21 (Germany), 2,705,388 Seat 9 - viking47 (United Kingdom), 1,210,913 JlaTuHoC doubled up three times and ex6tenceLV once before apostolis20 went out in ninth place, nearly two hours after play began - bryanusftw's pocket tens holding on against king-queen. A hand later OMGjonyctt followed, busted by zemachess, who would follow in seventh place some 75 minutes later, after ex6tenceLV had doubled twice more. Vovtroy exited 15 minutes later, all stand out hands amid long periods of inactivity. Vovtroy had found pocket threes but ran into a resurgent ex6tenceLV with pocket aces. Down to five With five left WestCliff21 still led with 3.5 million (that's 700,000 big blinds to those keeping score at home) to ex6tenceLV's 2.5 million. By now bryanusftw was the short stack, but he too managed to double up, leaving viking47 in peril, departing in fifth place with king-queen against the pocket kings of JlaTuHoC. It was time for a deal in which it can only be assumed that all players agreed to keep playing for the rest of their lives. The numbers though were thrashed out in seconds. Nobody wanted to be the first to cry fatigue or boredom, which worked well at hurrying along a simple ICM chop. WestCliff21 piped up. "I can't believe we've been playing for 28 hours." Nobody else could believe it either. The host congratulated them all and reminded them of what was still at stake, a title and a SCOOP watch. "A watch?" asked WestCliff21, as though he'd just learned a valuable lesson. Down to four Play continued, JlaTuHoC out within ten minutes in fourth place against WestCliff21. WestCliff21 now had more than half the chips in play, some 5.7 million to ex6tenceLV's 2.1 million, and short stack Bryan's 892,000, who was out minutes later, all-in with ace-jack against the queens of WestCliff21. "He runs like hell," said ex6tenceLV, hardly surprising given that it felt like we were already in its seventh circle. WestCliff21's leads seemed insurmountable, but ex6tenceLV got stuck in for an extended perio

The "low" version of Event #15 -- the "Ante Up" no-limit hold'em event -- represented a great opportunity for players to turn a little into a lot. Many did just that, with no less than seven players turning the $7.50 buy-in into five-figure paydays and JAMIEHUNT83 of the U.K. ultimately coming away as the victor following a five-way chop. JAMIEHUNT83 earned $7,465.80 for the win, just under the $7,583.34 that szadali of Hungary picked up for finishing third as both players ended up making roughly 1000 times their buy-in (!). The event drew a huge field of 12,914, which made the prize pool $88,073.48 to beat yet another SCOOP guarantee (in this case for $50K). The top 1,620 finishers made the money in the two-day event. Here's the story of those two days and how JAMIEHUNT83 managed to claim the victory. Day 1: 12,914 to 46 It took a little under five hours for the cash bubble to burst, and with 1,620 players left BruceLee880 had fought gamely enough to land the top spot in the counts. Three hours after that the field had been trimmed to just 285 players, with Super*Catch sitting in first and approaching the 1 million-chip mark. About five hours after that they were down to 100, led by JAMIEHUNT83, BennyZhang, and szadali as the only players north of the 2 million-chip mark. Finally after almost 11-and-a-half hours they'd reach the end of Level 40 and the scheduled stopping point for Day 1, with 46 players left and BOOMAX1964 of Slovenia the only one of them with more than 4 million. Here's a look at the overnight top 10: 1. BOOMAX1964 (Slovenia) -- 4,323,641 2. UBS2927 (Germany) -- 3,828,735 3. JAMIEHUNT83 (United Kingdom) -- 3,029,951 4. BennyZhang (China) -- 2,814,499 5. riskysoldier (Canada) -- 2,540,904 6. Raabise (Estonia) -- 2,468,682 7. Kes237 (Belarus) -- 2,406,891 8. bapc_3 (Russia) -- 2,297,553 9. aue1966 (Canada) -- 2,227,063 10. szadali (Hungary) -- 2,165,373 Day 2: 46 to 1 When play resumed on Saturday the blinds remained 5/5 as always -- just as throughout the entire tournament -- while the antes to start Level 41 had increased to 17,500. That meant players were having to contribute more than 157,000 per orbit to start the day, with that cost scheduled to increase every 15 minutes when the levels changed. And with the average stack just over 1.4 million that also meant little time for waiting around for a lot of players, most particularly the short stacks. The first hour saw the field swiftly trimmed down to 24 players, with BOOMAX1964 slipping from the top spot to be replaced by sw_iceman who had risen up the counts to build a stack of just over 6.8 million by the first break. It only took about 20 minutes more to play down to 18, with GuiAvilaa having pushed past all into the top spot with more than 7 million. A little over an hour after that they were down to nine, with D_tek (18th), Raabise (17th), and aue1966 (16th) each earning $184.95, ZesLucky (15th), Hupenmann (14th), and Kes237 (13th) taking away $264.22 apiece, and riskysoldier (12th), casinoberlin (11th), and start-of-Day-2 leader BOOMAX1964 (10th) each seeing $352.29 added to their PokerStars accounts. During the playing down GaiAvilaa continued to keep the top spot, adding chips to have more than 15 million to start the final table. Seat 1: jiZYo (Russia) -- 4,909,572 Seat 2: GuiAvilaa (Brazil) -- 15,434,481 Seat 3: szadali (Hungary) -- 10,256,856 Seat 4: BennyZhang (China) -- 2,726,670 Seat 5: bapc_3 (Russia) -- 1,731,142 Seat 6: JAMIEHUNT83 (United Kingdom) -- 5,445,459 Seat 7: Gorleone (Netherlands) -- 3,765,766 Seat 8: UBS2927 (Germany) -- 9,052,667 Seat 9: sw_iceman (Russia) -- 11,247,387 About 10 minutes after the final table began, the antes were up to 90,000 when bapc_3 pushed all in from middle position for 611,112 and got a single caller in JAMIEHUNT83 sitting one seat over. bapc_3 had [Ad][6h] and needed help versus JAMIEHUNT83's [Qd][Qh]. But the board brought no improvement for bapc_3,