PokerStars kicked off the highly anticipated 2014 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) on Sunday with the first three of 45 events on the schedule. Each event features three buy-in levels �� low, medium and high �� which means a total of 135 tournaments will be taking place from May 4 through 18. Sunday's exciting slate had more than $5 million in guarantees and attracted more than 100,000 players.
No results are in yet from the first two events of the series, because the tournaments were two-day affairs, but three champions were crowned in Event 3: Turbo Progressive Super-Knockout. Russia's "Max666917" took down the low level, while Denmark's "Jezpez" won the medium version and George "GeoManousos" Sotiropoulos from Greece won the high.
The first two SCOOP events will play down to winners on Monday. Only 27 players remain in Event 1-H: $2,100 NLHE, where the eventual winner will take home $315,989. Mike "SirWatts" Watson is second in chips heading into Day 2, and Stephen "stevie444" Chidwick, Pascal "Pass_72" Lefrancois, Paul "pvas2" Vas Nunes are all in the top 10 on the leader board.
In Event 2-H: $2,100 NLHE, Gleb "Ti0373" Tremzin leads the final 43 players who are competing for the $386,280 top prize. Also in contention are Tobias "PokerNoob999" Reinkemeier, Joe "floes" Serock, Sorel "zangbezan" Mizzi, and Kevin "Civell" Vandersmissen.
Alongside the start of the SCOOP was the MiniFTOPS Main Event at Full Tilt Poker. The $75 buy-in event attracted 1,080 players, and in the end it was "svwerder" who took it down for $89,000 after a heads-up deal with "Rocky2810."
Notable Finishes: Magnus "Giffordonian" Martin (11th - $13,971), Timothy "highland" Finne (14th - $8,959), Rafael "zugzwang16" Porzecanski (20th - $7,286)
MiniFOPS Main Event ($600K Guaranteed)
Buy-in
Entrants
Prize Pool
$70+5
8,053
$600,000
Place
Player
Prize
1
svwerder
$89,000*
2
Rocky2810
$73,000*
3
Brian Caby
$46,800
4
BlakSugar
$34,200
5
kingriver321
$25,200
6
vladobu6i
$18,000
7
kimokh
$12,600
8
Sentimento_do-2
$8,700
9
LBBigSlickAK
$6,120
*Reflects heads-up deal
Notable Finishes: John "BlackFours" May (14th - $3,120), Reed "badbeatme" Hensel (20th - $1,590), Mike "GoLeafsGoEh" Leah (22nd - $1,590), Griffin "Flush_Entity" Benger (26th - $1,590)
$250K Guarantee
Buy-in
Entrants
Prize Pool
$200+15
1,447
$289,400
Place
Player
Prize
1
yasunori66
$57,880
2
Matt "mattyv" Vengrin
$38,490
3
bicycle12121
$27,493
4
Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky
$20,547
5
jaggalo1231
$15,338
6
jambeyang
$11,286
7
ScoopAndStack
$8,392
8
Mikleler
$6,077
9
Damian Salas
$4,312
Notable Finishes: Dylan "InvisibleEnigma" Linde (12th - $2,894), Ronald "ScarJo" Lee (17th - $1,591), Geoff "GeoffRas22" Rasmussen (23rd - $1,157)
