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
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.
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.
Buy-ins: $11/$109/$1,050
Gtd: $75K/$200K/$400K
Buy-ins: $215/$2,100/ $25,000
Gtd: $500K/ $1M/ $1.5M
Buy-ins: $22/$215/$2,100
Gtd: $100K/$200K/$400K
Buy-in: $11/$109/$1,050
Gtd: $100K/$250K/$400K
Buy-in: $55/$530/$1,050
Gtd: TBD
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…
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.
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…
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).
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
| Event | Buy-in | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-L: FLO8 | $11 | 3,367 | $32,996.60 | EVILofLIFE | Russia | $4,224.96* |
| 18-M: FLO8 | $109 | 693 | $69,300 | wadzon | Russia | $11,952.40 |
| 18-H: FLO8 | $1,050 | 132 | $132,000 | Lena900 | Sweden | $27,707.18 |
| 19-L: Prog. KO | $22 | 16,258 | $325,160 | mightyse7en | Germany | $25,252.49† |
| 19-M: Prog. KO | $215 | 4,689 | $937,800 | marcelutz111 | Romania | $98,831.10† |
| 19-H: Prog. KO | $2,100 | 703 | $1,406,000 | NoTilit | Lithuania | $226,045.88†* |
| 20-L: Stud H/L | $11 | 2,622 | $25,695.60 | twofaces1982 | Germany | $4,369.98 |
| 20-M: Stud H/L | $109 | 633 | $63,300 | zilbeee | Brazil | $10,759.65* |
| 20-H: Stud H/L | $1,050 | 132 | $132,000 | MUSTAFABET | UK | $28,710.00 |
| 21-L: NLHE | $5.50+R | 9,382 | $139,473.60 | msgiba | Brazil | $19,272.50 |
| 21-M: NLHE | $55+R | 2,728 | $403,164.30 | luckymo32 | Ireland | $52,963.23* |
| 21-H: NLHE | $530+R | 402 | $634,785 | Proudflop | UK | $115,638.58 |
| 22-L: NLHE | $11 | 5,327 | $52,204.60 | mastakid | Romania | $7,430.40 |
| 22-M: NLHE | $109 | 1,786 | $200,000 | pata1426 | Georgia | $30,199.30 |
| 22-H: NLHE | $1,050 | 284 | $300,000 | Kaggis | Norway | $53,305.65* |
| 68-L: 6+ HE | $22 | 4,018 | $80,360 | glam6300 | Switzer. | $11,483.36 |
| 68-M: 6+ HE | $215 | 553 | $110,600 | Tripleeeee | Poland | $19,510.06 |
| 68-H: 6+ HE | $2,100 | 113 | $250,000 | Secret_M0d3 | Austria | $56,202.58 |
†including bounties
*denotes deal
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
Tournaments completed: 63
Tournaments ongoing: 6
Entries so far: 304,656
Prize pool so far: $27,147,903
First-place prizes awarded: $3,885,701.14
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
There have been more than 400,000 entries in SCOOP events during the first week, with more than $33.5 million won.
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.”
| Event | Buy-in | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23-L: NLHE | $11 | 20,069 | $196,676 | alexMFNb | Canada | $20,358.92 |
| 23-M: NLHE | $109 | 5,301 | $530,100 | Kroovy | Gibraltar | $75,392.87 |
| 23-H: NLHE | $1,050 | 977 | $1,000,000 | SH-rookie-AS | China | $164,397.70 |
| 24-L: HORSE | $11 | 2,304 | $46,080 | Minek96 | Poland | $7,834.95 |
| 24-M: HORSE | $109 | 436 | $87,200 | ISmellToast | Canada | $16,586.00 |
| 24-H: HORSE | $1,050 | 89 | $178,000 | Naza114 | Netherlands | $48,505.00 |
| 29-L: NLHE (Turbo) | $22 | 8,340 | $166,800 | kuzya1993 | Russia | $16,832.63* |
| 29-M: NLHE (Turbo) | $215 | 1,527 | $305,400 | 8_Spizzico_9 | Malta | $39,621.52* |
| 29-H: NLHE (Turbo) | $2,100 | 247 | $494,000 | SpaceyFCB | UK | $94,989.94 |
*denotes deal
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).
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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
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.
| Name | Buy-in | Entries | Prize-pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
| 26-L: Deep Stacks | $5.50 | 15,245 | $74,501 | Puscheltbp | Brazil | $8,434.04 |
| 26-M: Deep Stacks | $55 | 5,212 | $260,600 | Denvlas | Russia | $35,141.15* |
| 26-H: Deep Stacks | $530 | 794 | $397,000 | 10YURA10 | Ukraine | $66,719.39 |
| 27-L: Progressive KO | $11 | 29,201 | $286,170 | Sederyck | Czech Republic | $15,954.99†* |
| 27-M: Progressive KO | $109 | 8,852 | $885,200 | Pringles190 | Germany | $79,900.97† |
| 27-H: Progressive KO | $1,050 | 1,326 | $1,326,000 | ImDaNuts | Costa Rica | $190,049.96† |
| 28-L: PLO | $55 | 3,305 | $165,250 | lissi stinkt | Germany | $23,757.50 |
| 28-M: PLO | $530 | 709 | $354,500 | Bagrovui | Russia | $60,800.82 |
| 28-H: PLO High Roller | $5,200 | 201 | $1,005,000 | Skyervoy | Norway | $197,209.02 |
| 35-L: Progressive KO | $5.50 | 11,088 | $54,331 | warley2santo | Brazil | $5,194.90† |
| 35-M: Progressive KO Sunday Cooldown | $55 | 6,128 | $306,400 | 1truegambler | UK | $28,094.36† |
| 35-H: Progressive KO Sunday Cooldown | $530 | 1,147 | $573,500 | neesam1405 | Macau | $82,851.20†* |
†inc. bounties
*denotes deal
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.
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.
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
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…”
The SCOOP streaming family welcomed another new convert:
My first @PokerStars #SCOOP!!! I’m excited to play and stream with the big kids! https://t.co/uVz58cdssF starts @ 3pm PT / 6pm ET and past your bedtime in Europe!! pic.twitter.com/HzpXSB8GSN
— Nathan Manuel 🔛 Twitch 💜 (@nathanmanuel) May 19, 2019
Meanwhile old hand Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert warmed up for Vegas with this fine win:
Nice way to start the summer with a #SCOOP win. My 2nd win lifetime. Taking the day off tomorrow and heading to Montreal on Monday, followed by Vegas, for a long poker summer. pic.twitter.com/hsxWSIRLjx
— Kenny Hallaert (@SpaceyFCB) May 19, 2019
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.
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.
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.
If you follow the results of big PokerStars tournaments and series long enough, you’ll notice a certain kind of player’s screen name pop up time and again. This player never seems to take down the big title but is in contention often enough that it seems like an eventual victory is just a matter of time. And if you keep following the results long enough, every now and then you’ll see one of them do just that.
Nick Lampropoulos is one of those players. The 31-year-old from Greece, now residing in Cyprus, has been playing professionally for eight years as “justnl2” on PokerStars. Now married with a three-year-old son, he says he wants to play for at least a few more years before investing some of his winnings into another pursuit.
His bread and butter has always been pot-limit Omaha Zoom cash games. He has logged about three million hands at those tables over the years, “usually PLO500 through to PLO5000,” he told the PokerStars Blog by email this week. He also plays most of the medium- and high-tier hold’em and Omaha events during SCOOP and WCOOP, and he’s been known to play big weekly events, too.
There have been plenty of tournament wins over the years, of course. None came in the glare of the spotlight, but there were close calls. He has appeared at the final table of both the Sunday Million and Super Tuesday, and he had a near-miss during TCOOP as well before finishing fifth behind eventual champion Niklas “Lena900” Åstedt in a 2018 WCOOP 6-max PLO tourney.
Last week Lampropoulos finally earned the breakthrough win he’d been waiting for when he conquered SCOOP Event #5-H, a $2,100 6-max PLO tournament, for a career-best $115,417 prize. To get there he had to maneuver past WCOOP High Roller winner Patrick “prepstyle71” Serda and defeat 2017 SCOOP Main Event Medium champ “ROFLshove.”
After years of coming close, a sick run in SCOOP 2019’s first week finally earned “justnl2” a major title
The journey to get there was, in his words, “a sick run.” He sat in the top five of the chip counts from the early stages of the tournament all the way until Day 1 was over. In first place when the money bubble popped, he leveraged his big stack to finish out the day in the same position where he’d been throughout it. The trend continued into Day 2, but one look at the quality of the competition kept any danger of overconfidence at bay.
“I noticed that the field was full of well-known and very good regulars who play at the highest-limit cash games, so it would not be easy,” he said. “I remember that when there were 12 players left in the tournament I had a very lucky table draw. I managed to avoid three very good regulars who left the event while I was still the chip leader with a huge lead over second place.”
Lampropoulos still had the lead with 70 big blinds as the final table began, which was enough to help him advance to heads-up play. There he found his biggest challenge yet in “ROFLshove.”
“It was really strange for me,” he said. “The guy there was unknown to me and not too tough at the 6-max final table, but maybe he had more experience than me in a heads-up format. A scheduled break during the battle helped me to think for a while and adapt my strategy, and eventually everything was positive for me.”
“It was the largest cash in my online career,” Lampropoulos said. “I had a very big downswing at the start of the year, so it has helped me to recover. Of course, I celebrated after the end of the tournament, but in a calm way — everyone was asleep at home!”
Nick Lampropoulos plays at the final table of the PS Championship €1,100 Barcelona National Championship in 2017
It was a satisfying moment for a man who admits he doesn’t take it easy on himself.
“Obviously the primary goal when playing poker is winning money and this is the most important thing,” he said, “but personally I like to set tough targets and when I [accomplish one] I feel pretty good and proud of myself. The sick part of playing tournaments is that whatever prize you get, you are unhappy unless you get first place. That’s the difference for me in cash games. So I am very happy to have won a SCOOP title!”
The timing of the win was good, too, because Lampropoulos can see an end in sight.
“I definitely want to keep playing poker for the next three years at least,” he said. “At the same time I will try to invest some of my capital in some other activity because we cannot play poker forever! I think nowadays poker is evolving very fast. In order to continue to be profitable you must also evolve, and it is quite difficult to manage to do that after 35 years of age.”
Maybe he’ll feel differently when he gets there. Maybe there will be more wins in the spotlight between now and then. If not, there will be future pursuits — plus the lingering satisfaction from winning a SCOOP championship.
All the huge events that started on Sunday in the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) ended on Monday. There’s a lot of rounding up to be done, so let’s crack on:
Three players now have two titles in this year’s SCOOP, but Guilherme “guilherme12” Decourt did something very rare: he won two titles in a single day. After picking up $21,102 for beating a field of 1,359 in SCOOP 33-M, he then beat another 317 in SCOOP 37-H. Both were Omaha Hi/Lo events, both were nothing but highs for Decourt.
In addition to Decort’s title in the high buy-in version of SCOOP 37, his compatriots “David_BeckhamX” and “KiteCeara” won the low and medium versions, completing the first country clean-sweep of a single event this year for Brazil.
Joris “BillLewinsky” Ruijs further underlined his supreme talent in online tournaments with victory in SCOOP 32-M $1.25 million guaranteed $530 NLHE event. He beat the UK’s “Zurgok” into second, overcoming what was about a four-to-one heads up chip deficit at one point. They briefly thought about a deal, but rejected it. Russia’s “Premove”, already a SCOOP champion, was third.
Joris “BillLewinsky” Ruijs
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With enormous prize pools on offer over the weekend, many of the top tournaments were chopped at the business end, including:
There was a three-way Latin American carve up of the Sunday Warm-Up, otherwise known as SCOOP 31-M, with $215 buy-in. Two Argentinians — Matias “Festivuss” Gabrenja and Damian “pampa27” Salas — agreed an equal chop with Brazil’s Daniel “Garrafalitro” Camacho, with Gabrenja eventually winning the mandatory $10,000 left on the side, and the title. Camacho is an online poker coach, while Salas is a former WSOP seventh-placed finisher, with another $4 million in online cashes. It’s no wonder the likes of Kristen “krissyb24” Bicknell couldn’t break into the top three. She finished fifth.
Pablo “Pabritz” Brito added another $218,631.85 to his bankroll with victory after a chop in SCOOP 31-H, the $2,100 buy-in $1 million guaranteed event. Four out of the top six players were Brazilian, with Romania’s Vlad “dariepoker” Darie narrowly missing out on a second career SCOOP title. He finished second.
The biggest deal discussion of the night came in the $5,200 buy-in SCOOP 32 where Russia’s “josef_shvejk“, Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira and “EzPaTuLa” had to find a way to divide up about $620,000 between the three of them. Including the extra they had to leave on the side, “josef_shvejk” took $224,958.52 and the win, with second-place “Rui_NF” taking $194,245.46 and “EzPaTuLa” officially finishing third, but winning $202,648.61.
Greek players landed a double in SCOOP 34, with “badvillager” taking the low buy-in event and “CaptainRobur” winning the medium, for more than $70K. Not only that, “CaptainRobur” beat Ole “wizowizo” Schemion heads up for the win.
“WATnlos” has previously won the Sunday Million and the Sunday Warm-Up and last night the Austrian player also won the SCOOP 34-H $1,050 6-Max for close to $150,000. It was another close call for Ole “wizowizo” Schemion, who finished eighth.
A big portion of the poker community disappears into another world today…
Here’s the last IRL reminder of what happens today. We mean before a big portion of the poker community plugs itself in and disappears into Virtual Reality.
Oculus Quest goes on sale today. It’s the next leap forward in VR technology, and PokerStars VR is one of the release titles – available to download as soon as you unbox your new headset.
Like the game itself, the headset is a game changer.
Not only does it look good, it transforms the way gamers can access VR.
Until now a VR headset needed a powerful gaming PC to plug into.
No wires, no limits.
The Oculus Quest headset is now available and #VRPoker is among the launch titles. 🎉
ℹ️ https://t.co/vD0fETL9E8 pic.twitter.com/4O2YBg674c— PokerStars (@PokerStars) May 21, 2019
The experience was fantastic, but the price tag could bring tears to your eyes (thankfully hidden by the headset itself).
It left players without a PC stranded out here in the real world.
Quest changes that by placing the technical bits into the lightweight headset. It makes a big difference to who can play, and how they play it.
No need to buy an expensive gaming PC. You can even play it on your phone. And at a less eye-watering price.
If you’re one of the early adopters jumping on launch day, you can download PokerStars VR for free.
Thankfully you won’t see the look on our faces.
There’s plenty of hold’em today, fixed and no limit. You can play shootouts and Progressive KOs in 6-Max and 8-Max formats respectively.
None of which puts you to the test like another game on the schedule today.
It’s a tough one for the inexperienced, but at $11 tempting enough for the low stakes player to test themselves in not one but eight variations of the game.
We speak of 8-Game.
It’s a game that covers everything, and in ways the beginner might not think possible. Its complexity used to prohibit anyone but the most experienced of players. But at $11, SCOOP 41-L offers a tempting opportunity to mix things up.
Conscious that you might not be fluent in all things 8-Game, we went for the only logical option available to the rookie diving into their first SCOOP 8-Game tournament…
The “Magic 8-Game Ball”.
Below you’ll find what’s involved when you sit down, and the answer to some basic (and we mean basic) questions for each.
Right… start shaking.
If you arm yourself with only one bit of information (and we admire your cavalier nature if you do), it’s that aces are always high and straights and flushes count against your low hand.
Learn all there is to know about Triple Draw.
It’s not often first choice, but it has its own charms beyond the $2-$4 game at The Flamingo. And get familiar with the cap.
Learn all there is to know about Limit Hold’em.
Well put it this way, you could. But you’ll find yourself chopping pots, or worse. The best players aim to win the high and the low. Keep that in mind as you scratch your head on the flop.
Learn all there is to know about Limit Omaha Eight or Better (Hi/Lo).
Can’t fault the logic…
Learn all there is to know about Razz.
That might be a slight exaggeration. But you should pay attention to the other cards on the table. You should avoid drawing to outs that were folded three streets ago.
Learn all there is to know about Limit Seven Card Stud.
Nope. You still need to be aiming for the Hi and the Lo. Maybe just fold this hand.
Learn all there is to know about Limit Stud Eight or Better (Hi/Lo).
It wouldn’t be 8-Game if you could fold your way to playing one-eighth of the hands. Besides, who wins all their hold’em hands?
Learn all there is to know about No-Limit Hold’em.
In our experience, yes.
Well maybe not all the time. But the options in Omaha mean you need a good hand to be in contention. And remember you need to play exactly two cards from the four you’re dealt (we’ve all made the mistake of using three or four).
Learn all there is to know about Pot Limit Omaha.
SCOOP 41-L $11 8-Game starts at 7.15pm UK (14:15 ET) with $30,000 guaranteed. You can find when this and today’s other events start on the SCOOP homepage.
Worth a try?
Why not let the Magic 8-Game ball decide?
We’ve all heard the advice to “think outside the box” as a way to encourage creativity. It’s a nod to the way our routines sometimes constrain us, causing us not to recognize novel, unorthodox approaches to whatever challenges we face.
With her new poker strategy podcast “The Grid,” PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassdor Jennifer Shahade has turned that axiom inside out, in a way, showing how thinking inside the box can in fact be inspiring as well.
Launched earlier this month, Shahade introduces the show as “a 13 x 13 episode journey through every possible no-limit hold’em hand, 169 hands in total, from aces to seven-deuce offsuit.” It’s a fascinating idea — to talk poker strategy one hand at a time, working through all of the different hold’em hands one by one, with a different guest each time sharing a hand history involving the selected hand.
“The fun part of it for me is that it’s like a game within a game,” Shahade explains when recently talking to the PokerStars Blog about the show.
“We’re talking about a game — poker — and a specific hand within poker. But then I also am on a kind of scavenger hunt as the host, as I’m not doing any repeats as I try to hunt down all of these combinations. Which of course is easy now, but will become a little more difficult later on as some of the hands will be reserved.”
To clarify, the 169 hold’em hands represent the 13 pocket pairs (aces through deuces), the 78 unpaired suited hands, and the 78 unpaired offsuit hands. Thus among the non-paired hands, suits aren’t taken into account — e.g., there will be just one episode devoted to ace-five suited, not four separate ones (on A♥5♥, A♦5♦, A♣5♣, and A♠5♠).
The show thus helps draw attention to the “box” or grid of 169 possible starting hands in hold’em, a learning tool that in recent years has become increasingly familiar to students of the game.
The “Poker Grid” of 169 possible hold’em hands
As a chess player, the two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion and Woman Grandmaster is well acquainted with how the 8 x 8 grid that makes up a chess board has long provided the field upon which the game has been studied. That’s one reason why the “poker grid” particularly captured her notice.
However, “it’s only recently in poker that everybody has started talking about the grid,” Shahade points out. “Almost everybody who is a really serious poker player is using some kind of tool that incorporates the grid” such as can be generated by equity calculators and other poker software to analyze hands and specific situations.
“People have always studied using some of those programs, but I feel like they’re becoming much more prominent in the last few years.”
Just three episodes in, the half-hour podcast has already shown how inviting guests on to discuss a particular hold’em hand can produce a variety of discussion topics and strategic insights.
Lex Veldhuis of PokerStars Team Online appeared on Episode No. 1 to discuss K-4 offsuit, his aggressive play of the hand earlier in his career serving as a kind of an emblem of how he used to approach the game, while also helping to clarify how he’s evolved as a player since then both strategically and psychologically.
High-stakes online player Kevin Rabichow next discussed on Episode No. 2 a heads-up hand in which he battled with 10-5 offsuit, with the conversation delving into more nuts-and-bolts talk of heads-up ranges and bluffing. Then in Episode No. 3 Jamie Kerstetter talked about a live cash game hand in which she check-raised the river after flopping a set with A-A and elicited a memorable response from a high-strung opponent.
“I really like the built-in structure in which we talk about the hand, and then talk about other things that are really interesting related to the guest or the grid itself,” says Shahade.
Indeed, after recounting his king-four adventure, Veldhuis discusses further the mental game and its relevance to poker. As part of his discussion, Rabichow addresses some key shifts in poker strategy that have occurred over the last decade (especially online). And Kerstetter shares thoughts about women in poker and how the game can often produce genuinely humorous moments (including many well-suited for sharing over Twitter).
Earlier this year Shahade began another podcast — “Ladies Knight” — about women in chess, part of the U.S. Chess Federation’s suite of podcasts. That got her thinking about doing a poker podcast as well, and it was while she was at the PokerStars Players Championship in the Bahamas in January that Shahade first settled on the plan for “The Grid.”
That said, ideas leading to the show began much earlier.
“Part of the inspiration was seeded a long time ago,” she explains. “I remember reading a post on Dr. Pauly’s blog many years back about an artist named Kerstin von Gabain who while living in Beijing had this project to try to capture the full deck of abandoned cards in photographs… the full deck of 52.”
The artist eventually had to abandon the project shy of its completion, the needed playing cards having become too difficult to locate. “Obviously it gets exponentially more difficult, because at some point you keep getting repeats,” says Shahade. “I found that really fascinating.”
She’s well aware she’ll face a similar challenge the longer “The Grid” goes. For that she’s counting on the wide ranges of hands played by certain categories of players to help her reach her 169-episode goal.
“I assume I’m going to be able to rely on online and heads-up players to give me pretty much any hand I might need later on in the process,” she laughs.
Shahade was also inspired by wanting to provide a kind of response to those who look upon the “poker grid” and associated ideas of strategy and game theory as unfathomably dull and tedious — those who think such study necessarily omits other, more interesting aspects of the game.
“I think a lot of people think of this grid and this type of studying as being very artless and taking creativity and art away from the game of poker,” she says. “As somebody who really loves math… I find [studying] it very creative and imaginative. So [the show is] also my response to the idea this kind of study is somehow artless and less creative.”
Jennifer Shahade at the 2019 PSPC
Shahade lists “The Thinking Poker Podcast,” Joey Ingram’s “The Poker Life,” Kerstetter and Chad Holloway’s “LFG Podcast,” and “Poker in the Ears” with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton as poker podcasts she is currently enjoying. Doing both a chess podcast and a poker one has also highlighted for her a big difference between the two, at least as far as talking strategy is concerned.
“I think the advantage that poker podcasts have is that you can follow [the action in a hand history]… and you can really learn from the strategy. In chess it would be really hard to do that, because only the very elite players would be able to follow…. It’s hard to really go over a game in a chess podcast the way you can in a poker podcast.”
Shahade points out that when listening to “The Grid” it’s easy to remember the hand that “Hero” holds — it’s in the episode title! Another plus for listeners — episodes can be listened to out of order, based on listeners’ interest in particular hands or guests.
New episodes are coming out at least every 1-2 weeks, likely more frequently as the WSOP draws near. Upcoming guests will include Maria Konnikova, Matt Matros, and Ryan Laplante.
Even though the show has only just begun, Shahade is already considering possibly exploring the concept and approach in other contexts.
“I am thinking about broadening it to other platforms,” she notes. “This idea of taking that game theory and math-oriented approach to poker and showing how it can actually be freeing and improve your creativity. As a writer and artist, I feel like it’s really important for the sum to be greater than the parts. I feel like with the podcast the structure is already [lending itself to that].”
Whatever future iteration “The Grid” takes, one guiding idea will continue to be a desire to show how studying the poker grid can actually open up our thinking and not close it off.
As Shahade says, “The Grid” provides a way “to coach people that thinking inside the box can help you with your creativity.”
Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak finds success wherever he plays poker. The Russian chess grandmaster has won major titles both live and online, boasting a World Series of Poker bracelet and a WCOOP 8-Game Championship title among his many accomplishments.
And as of this afternoon, with the series halfway complete, he has the overall lead on the SCOOP 2019 Player of the Series leaderboard.
Maslak’s run for the leaderboard crown got a big boost from his win in Event #13-H, a $2,100 2-7 Triple Draw tournament. (It’s a game he has some experience with — he once won the same tournament often enough that the organizers took it off the schedule.) PokerStars Blog reached out to him in the wake of that victory to talk about how he got there, how his background in chess helps his approach to poker, and just how tough the competition is in SCOOP events.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Konstantin, I am from Volgograd, Russia. For many years I played chess at a serious level. I became a grandmaster, but I could not break into the world elite. In addition to poker, I have been interested in sports betting for a long time. In general, I have interest in everything connected with games, especially gambling.
Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak’s win in Event #13-H helped move him to the top of the SCOOP 2019 leaderboard
Have long have you been playing poker and how did you first get started?
I don’t remember exactly how I started because it was many years ago. Many of my friends played poker at that time and were very successful. It was in the early 2000s. It was easier to play and win [back then].
Did your chess experience help you to learn the basics of poker? Do you continue to play chess now?
This experience was probably useful. Chess develops an analytical mind and an ability to maintain concentration for many hours and to work a lot to improve my game. Now I don’t really play seriously anymore, only occasionally some blitz tournaments.
What kind of poker is more comfortable for you: offline or online? What limits and games do you prefer?
Probably online poker is more comfortable for me. I prefer to sit at home in my chair in a cozy home environment. Although I note that rivals in live poker are much weaker. Each type of poker has its pros and cons.
In online cash games I play limit and mixed games, with stakes from $10/20 to $100/200. I choose the game by the level of competition. You don’t have much to choose from in limit games, regulars hardly ever play with each other without a rakeback.
He really does play ALL the tourneys.
I play MTT tournaments, nine tables at a time. I prefer tournaments with high buy-ins and I also like to play as many tables as will fit on the screen during tournament series and on Sundays. Also I am interested in additional prizes for the participants of the leaderboard of tournament series. Therefore, I try to play almost all tournaments.
How did this particular tournament progress for you?
The start of the tournament was hard. For a few hours my stack ranged from two blinds to the starting stack, and I had to re-enter the tournament. When the blinds had already started growing significantly and completing each hand became very expensive, I won a whole series of large pots in a row and became one of the chip leaders. Then, toward the end of the first day, I had to fold every hand — there was not one suitable to play. By bubble time I had a below-average stack, but I made it through to the second day of the tournament.
Day 2 was calm, there were no particularly memorable moments. I didn’t make a point of trying to remember any hands because I was playing nine tables at once, but I remember I did a good job of knocking out short stacks from the game. The strongest contender at the finals was Shawn “buck21” Buchanan, but luck was on my side.I just won a huge hand when we were three-handed, and heads-up was over quickly. I haven’t watched the final table replay yet, because I play every day for 10-12 hours and do not have enough time. But I’m sure I’ll look back it after the series.
“krakukra” hunts for more SCOOP Player of the Series points in Event #40-H
How did you react when you won this tournament?
I am not an emotional person, I react calmly if I win in poker. I didn’t react in any way, I have played almost the whole series nine tables at a time. So, when I won late at night, I just closed the table and opened the next one.
Your final competition included some of the more successful players in SCOOP history. Is there any extra pride in the victory when you win a title against such players?
I don’t feel particular pride here. Of course, the composition of the final table was strong, but even while playing this SCOOP, I played several final tables in no-limit hold’em as well. There were real battles as there were no weak players at all in the deep stages and I had to fight a crowd of very strong professionals.
How does a win like this compare to some of your past accomplishments?
If I remember correctly, I already had victories at SCOOP and WCOOP before this series. I can single out two of the most significant victories in my career — my World Series of Poker bracelet and my victory in the WCOOP 8-Game championship with a very solid lineup of rivals. It has been several years since then, so it’s nice to win something significant again.
Konstantin “krakukra” Maslak right near the beach, boy-ee
This isn’t your first major success playing Triple Draw — you won a mixed Triple Draw tournament in Prague several years ago. What aspects of the game do you enjoy compared to other games like hold’em and Omaha?
Yes, I won in Prague and it was fun. [In 2015] I won a mixed-game tournament of five different Triple Draw games. The following year I won the same tournament in Prague. A year later, the tournament was removed from the schedule of the series — it no longer existed. Apparently someone was pretty bored by my victories!
I like to play different mixed games, because the overall level of opponents is weaker there than in standard Hold’em and Omaha. It is quite difficult to maintain a high level at the same time in a large number of games, each of them has own nuances. But lately, in Hold’em, I had several finals in expensive tournaments on SCOOP series. So I understand one good thing — you just have to work more and complain less.
How do you plan to rest after the series? Can you share your secret to maintaining concentration during long poker sessions?
I rested a lot before SCOOP began, most of April and the start of May, so I feel fine. Most SCOOP tournaments begin at 7 a.m. local time, which causes some inconvenience. After SCOOP I hope that I will be able to get to the World Poker Tour and continue the marathon there.
I don’t have any special advice on maintaining concentration. I just enjoy the game and try not be distracted much during the sessions. It is important to love what you do, to love poker. If you need to force yourself to play poker, you can not come to a successful result.
Finally, do you have any suggestions or advice for novice players and the PokerStars community?
Tips: work on your game, and then work on it again. Please, try to complain less about the RNG and to think more about the fact that your own game is not perfect. Look for how and where it can be improved.
Advice: сatch the fattest fish and win a lot of money!
Special thanks to Andrey Maksin and Olga Sitak from the PokerStars Russian blog for conducting this interview in Russian and providing an English translation.
Just like that, the end is now in sight in the 2019 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). This time next week, it’ll all be done. But let’s focus on the now, huh? Here’s today’s latest round-up:
Tournament legend “bencb789” won SCOOP 69-H, denying “merla888” a second SCOOP title of the year and also keeping young upstart Ben “Spraggy” Spragg at arm’s length in 10th. No one in online poker retains the respect of “bencb789” — he was the leader of the crews that produced players such as Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz, among others. Though his identity and full extent of his results remains concealed, he is one of the best players in the world. And now he has another SCOOP title.
“NorBaggio” of Hungary won the 12,136-runner SCOOP 69-L, taking $118,933. At the same time, he was down to the last five tables in the 1,542-runner SCOOP 38-M 4-Max. He finished 15th in that one, representing two deep runs in massive-field events. It was Hungary’s first title in this year’s SCOOP.
Former Sunday Million champion “hello_totti” won six figures in the 4-Max High event, holding off the challenges of a heap of well-known stars. “SinKarma” was second, Timofey “Truteller” Kuznetsov was fourth, former Team Online Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara was fifth and recent world No 1 “RomeOpro” was seventh.
MORE ABOUT SCOOP 2019
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS | LEADER BOARD
