On a table filled with several big names of the online and live poker circuit, David "MissOracle" Yan raised to 2,500 and was called by "Wildace_hun" in the big blind. On the flop, "Wildace_hun" check-called a bet of 2,080 and did so again for 16,630 on the turn.
They checked the on the river and "Wildace_hun" revealed for two pair as the winning hand.
Joel "Odonkor1" Nordkvist had won a big pot off Jans "Graftekkel" Arends earlier and then raised it up to 3,000, which Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis in the small blind called. Veldhuis check-called a bet of 3,840 on the flop and did so again for 9,722 on the turn.
The fell on the river and Veldhuis check-called a bet of 25,000 to get shown by Nordkvist, which he had beat with the .
Ben "Spraggy" Spragg opened to 2,200 and was called by Sergei "Futti18" Koliakov in the small blind, who then opted to check-raise a flop of from 2,008 to 6,000. Spragg called and Koliakov bet the turn for 6,214, Spragg came along.
They checked the on the river and Koliakov turned over , which Spragg had beat with the .
The PokerStars ambassador had more reason to cheer as during the hand, Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis joined the same table as well.
About half an hour prior to the start there were already more than 70 players registered and that number grew to 110 by the time the first virtual cards were dealt.
More than 100 players are already registered and that number is certain to grow significantly in the hours to come. A first batch of notables in contention early on will be available shortly.
For the 12th time, the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) will crown a champion in one of the most-prestigious online poker tournaments of the year.
The SCOOP-74-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Main Event] comes with a guaranteed prize pool of $5,000,000 and the defending champion is Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza, who has done the unthinkable and won the event in the previous two years.
The Vienna-based Italian defeated a field of 654 entries in 2018 and came out on top of a heads-up battle with Julian "nailuj90" Stuer, the final table then also featured such big names as Chris "Big Huni" Hunichen, Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker, Niklas "Lena900" Åstedt, Kilian "caaaaamel" Kramer, and James "JayP-AA" Park.
One year later, Speranza made the final table once more in a field of 662 entries. Again he had to battle through big names such as Dinesh “NastyMinder” Alt, Francisco “Tomatee” Benitez, Nick “caecilius” Petrangelo, and Preben “prebz” Stokkan. Stuer was there once more and had to settle for 5th place. In heads-up, Speranza cut a deal with Ihar "OMGitshunt" Soika and scored the next seven-figure payday on the virtual felt.
All players receive 250,000 in chips and the first level features blinds of 500-1,000 and a running ante of 125. The late registration remains open for the first 24 hours until the restart of Day 2 on Monday, May 18th, 2020 as of 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. During the registration period, players can re-enter a maximum of two times for three bullets in total.
The tournament will play down to a champion throughout the next four days and all levels last 30 minutes each until the conclusion of the event. All participants have a time bank of 60 seconds available right away and will receive an additional 10 seconds each two levels.
Day 1 will kick off at 1 p.m. EST and features a total of 15 levels whereas Day 2 will play down to the final five tables, the penultimate tournament then concludes when the final table of the last nine has been determined. For the first time, the PokerNews live reporting team will provide conclusive updates from start-to-finish, and you can follow all the action to find out who becomes the new SCOOP-H Main Event champion!