Players managed to get a few SCOOPs of Stud today.

While today’s seven-card tournament was Hi/Lo, the stakes were high. 452 players put up $215 a piece to create a $90,400 prize pool. By using fancy PokerStars mathematical magic, it was decided that 64 players would cash and the grand prize would be $17,176.

Out of the 452 players that signed up for the tournament, 12 had a red spade decorating their name. A few of the Team PokerStars players in the field included, ElkY, Andre Akkari, Pius Heinz, Eugene Katchalov, George Lind and George Danzer.

While Pius Heinz was the only Team PokerStars Pro to cash in this event — he finished 52nd for $339 — Team Pro had a studly performance in the High and Low version of this Hi/Lo event.

In Event #26-L, George Danzer made the final table and finished in 8th. George “Jorj95″ Lind also made the he final table, he actually managed to outlast the whole field, winning the SCOOP title and $9,352.58.

On the High side of things, Eugene Katchalov made the final table. Out of the 74 players that put up $2,1000 for some high-stakes Stud H/L, Katchalov managed to finish in 4th, earning $14,060.

While he outlasted most of the players, Katchalov wasn’t able to outlast the current leader of the SCOOP Player of the Series race, Shaun Deeb. We’ve been covering Deeb’s tremendous SCOOP run extensively here, and here, and now he did it again.

Shaun Deeb won Event #26-H for a third 2012 SCOOP title and $40,330. Oh, he also made the final table of Event #26-L.

So yeah, that gut feeling you just had, that disturbance you felt in the Internet, as if millions of SCOOP Player of the Series dreams cried in terror and were suddenly silenced, that was Shan Deeb.

But back in the Medium camp, Poland’s texaspl was busy winning a tournament too. texaspl is no stranger to the SCOOP, or Stud.

This was texaspl’s third SCOOP final table, and his second in Stud. Last year, texaspl finished 5th in SCOOP Event #10-L:$33 Limit Stud and then he finished runner-up in Event #17-L: $16.50 PLO +R.

There’s no doubt that texaspl was thirsty for a SCOOP watch, and now, his thirst has finally been quenched.

TEXASPL TAKING THE TOP

texaspl was third in chips when the tournament was down to its final six players. Play had been going on for around 10 hours and the last two Russians had just been eliminated.

KIRKILLU was the first final table elimination, finishing in 8th place for $1,808. KIRKILLU was followed closely by the last Russian, NAR74. NAR74′s 7th place elimination brought the tournament down to six players and earned him $2,260.

This is where texaspl started to take a stand and make his name known to the final table:

RSS readers click through to see replay

After winning a few more pots, texaspl was ready to do some final table damage.

With 16K/32K limits and a 3,200 ante, Psixiatr brought it in with a [3d]. texaspl raised to 16,000 with an [ah].

To texaspl’s immediate left, Mammola — with an [8d] — re-raised to 32,000. texaspl 4-bet to 48,000 and Mammola made it 64,000 to go.

texaspl called and Mammola was left with just under 10,000. Then the next street was dealt:

texaspl: (x)(x)[ah][9c]
Mammola: (x)(x)[8d][jh]

texaspl bet and Mammola called, putting himself all in.

The cards were exposed and three more were dealt to each player. When things were over, the final hands were:

texaspl: [5h][ad][ah][9c][6d][7c][qs]
Mammola: [8s][3c][8d][jh][9d][10c][5d]

Mammola showed a pair of 8s and a busted straight draw, but texaspl’s aces took the pot. Mammola was eliminated in 6th place, adding $3,164 to his PokerStars bank account.

texaspl, on the other hand, would jump into the chip lead. By taking all of Mammola’s chips, texaspl’s stack grew to 742,274, just passing psixiatr’s 732,535.

POOKU33 POKES AROUND

There’d be a few split pots and texaspl would lose the lead until Pooku33 took a piece off of Psixiatr.

With 20K/40K limits and a 4K ante, –H77H– had the bring in with a [2h]. Pooku33 bet with an [8c] and both Psixiatr — with a [3d] — and texaspl — with a [5d] — made the call.

Pooku33: (x)(x)[8c][9c]
Psixiatr: (x)(x)[3d][8d]
texaspl: (x)(x)[5d][9d]

Pooku33 bet, Psixiatr raised and texaspl folded.Pooku33 called and brought on sixth street:

Pooku33: (x)(x)[8c][9c][10h][9h]
Psixiatr: (x)(x)[3d][8d][10s][Ks]

Pooku33 bet 40,000 and Psixiatr called. Both players checked the river and showed their hands:

Pooku33: [ah][ad][8c][9c][10h][9h][kh]
Psixiatr: [2s][7s][3d][8d][10s][Ks][3h]

Pooku33 took the pot and was up to 317,994.

This left texaspl with a small lead until icandodge22 took over the reins:

RSS readers click through to see replay

Pooku33 sank back down before making it back up to 318,000 again.

With 161,994 left and a [3c], Pooku33 bet 20,000. Action was folded around to –H77H– who raised to 40,000 with a [kh]. Pooku33 called and brought on fourth street:

Pooku33: (x)(x)[3c][as]
–H77H–: (x)(x)[kh][jd]

Pooku33 check-called –H77H–’s bet 20,000, brining fifth street:

Pooku33: (x)(x)[3c][as][5d]
–H77H–: (x)(x)[kh][jd][7h]

–H77H– bet 40,000 after a check, leaving himself with only 16,676. Pooku33 called again:

Pooku33: (x)(x)[3c][as][5d][2c]
–H77H–: (x)(x)[kh][jd][7h][7c]

–H77H– moved all in and Pooku33 made the call, the final showdown was:

Pooku33: [4c][2h][3c][as][5d][2c][kc]
–H77H–: [3h][js][kh][jd][7h][7c][8s]

–H77H– showed a pair of 7s and Jacks for the Hi pot and nothing for the low. Pooku33 would scoop it up with an A-5 straight and an A-2-3-4-5 Lo.

–H77H– was eliminated in 5th place and won $4,520 for his finish.

Pooku33′s rise would be short-lived as he would find himself severely short-stacked yet again.

Psixiatr brought it in with a [3d] and icandodge22 raised to 20,000 with a [7h]. Pooku33 moved all in for 32,670 and icandodge22 called.

After the river was dealt, Pooku33′s fate as our 4th place finisher was sealed:

Pooku33: [10h][ac][qd][kd][6d][7c][5d]
icandodge22: [6h][7d][7h][qc][7s][2d][8d]

Pooku33′s ace-high was no match for icandodge22′s three 7s and Pooku33 earned $6,780 for his finish.

This last hand also put icandodge22 at 1.2MM, giving him more than texaspl and Psixiatr combined.

EVENING THINGS OUT

But texaspl would start to close the gap by taking a pot off of Psixiatr:

RSS readers click through to see replay

When the gap was closed enough, texaspl leapt right over and snatched the lead back from icandodge22.

With 25K/50K limits and a 5K ante, texaspl bet 25,000 with a [7h]. Psixiatr raised to 50,000 with a [js] and icandodge, with a [9d], called.

texaspl called too and all three players went to fourth street:

Psixiatr: (x)(x)[js][6h]
icandodge22: (x)(x)[9d][4s]
texaspl: (x)(x)[7h][8s]

Psixiatr bet 25,000 and everyone decided to go along for the ride:

Psixiatr: (x)(x)[js][6h][qc]
icandodge22: (x)(x)[9d][4s][2d]
texaspl: (x)(x)[7h][8s][kc]

texaspl and Psixiatr checked, bringing a 50,000 bet from icandodge22. Both players called and brought on sixth street:

Psixiatr: (x)(x)[js][6h][qc][7c]
icandodge22: (x)(x)[9d][4s][2d][kh]
texaspl: (x)(x)[7h][8s][kc]

icandodge22 bet 50,000 and everyone called again. texaspl led out for 50,000 on the river and both Psixiatr and icandodge22 folded.

texaspl won the 540,000 pot and took the lead with 1.2MM. icandodge22 was close behind with 900,000, and Psixiatr was left with just around three big bets.

All three of those big bets would go into the pot a few hands later. texaspl raised to 25,000 with a [3s] and Psixiatr raised to 50,000. texaspl called and the next street was dealt:

Psixiatr: (x)(x)[6d][5c]
texaspl: (x)(x)[3s][8s]

texaspl check-called Psixiatr’s 25,000 bet and players went on to fifth street:

Psixiatr: (x)(x)[6d][5c][3c]
texaspl: (x)(x)[3s][8s][8h]

texaspl bet 50,000 and Psixiatr moved all in for 71,635. texaspl called and players went to showdown:

Psixiatr: [3h][ac][6d][5c][3c][5h][qh]
texaspl: [kc][4c][3s][8s][3d][5s]

Psixiatr showed a pair of 3s and 5s, but texaspl held the higher two pair with 8s and 3s. Psixiatr was eliminated in 3rd place, earning $9,275.04.

HEADS UP
With Psixiatr’s elimination, the options for Event #26-M champion were narrowed down to two.

texaspl: 1,450,409
icandodge22: 809,591

texaspl then took a few pots off of icandodge22 and increased his lead even more. texaspl whittled icandodge22′s stack down to about 120,000 before icandodge managed to double up:

RSS readers click through to see replay

texaspl would keep the heat turned up. For the rest of the match, the best icandodge22 could do was a 9-1 chip defect. icandodge22 managed to double up a few more times to stay in the game, but texaspl would soon put things to an end.

With about 70,000 left, icandodge22 bet 25,000 with a [ks]. texaspl raised to 50,000 with the [as] and icandodge22 moved all in for 68,456.

texaspl called and the final hand of the tournament was dealt:

icandodge22: [kh][ac][ks][9c][4d][9s][5d]
texaspl: [2d][kd][as][10d][ah][jc][qc]

icandodge22′s kings and 9s weren’t good enough to beat texaspl’s straight and icandodge22 became our 2nd place finisher, earning $12,656.

This made texaspl our event champion. After two SCOOP final tables, he finally gets a victory and a fancy MOVADO watch. If that wasn’t enough, he also gets $17,176.

Event #27-M Stud Hi/lo – Final Table Results and Payouts:


Entrants: 452

Places Paid: 64

1. texaspl (Poland) – $17,176

2. icandodge22 (Finland) – $12,656

3. Psixiatr (Latvia) – $9,275.04

4. Pooku33 (Japan) – $6,780

5. –H77H– (Denmark) – $4,520

6. Mammola (Canada) – $3,164

7. NAR74 (Russia) – $2,260

8. KIRKILLU (Russia) – $1,808

Looking for more SCOOP reporting? Visit our special SCOOP 2012 coverage section.

Tags: estrellas poker tour | European Poker Tour | gambling | internet | micromillions | napt | news | pokerstars | russian poker series | team pokerstars pro | TOC

It feels quite appropriate that today’s SCOOP offerings should include a variety of the game where the objective literally is to “scoop”. The thought of hi-lo games makes some players run for the hills, so PokerStars added a little spice to the split variant. Let’s play Pot Limit Omaha. And make it six-handed. That’ll get them to come. Genius!

The game of PLO H/L 6-Max is a lot like bungy jumping. There are some thrills, a bit of risk but there’s a safety rope if things go pear-shaped. Since bungy jumping is pretty cool, it was no surprise to see a healthy field of 1,591 players taking part in today’s SCOOP Event #11-M $82 PLO H/L 6-Max event. They produced a prize pool of $119,325 which was more than double the guarantee, as the Omaha variants continue to prove to be an emerging trend in world poker.

Shane Schleger, Bertrand Grospellier, Chad Brown, Jude Ainsworth, Dale Philip, George Lind III, Adrienne Rowsome, Anders Berg, Henrique Pinho, Marcin Horecki and reigning World Champion Pius Heinz were representing the red spade of Team PokerStars today but unfortunately fell short of the cash.

The top 204 players finished in the money, with denmon27 from Canada unlucky to miss the $137.22 min-cash after bubbling the event in 205th place.

Martin Staszko (192nd – $143.19) and George Danzer (168th – $155.12) made the money with Oceania’s newest recruit to PokerStars Team Online, and renowned PLO god, Roy Bhasin winning the Team PokerStars last longer bet with 39th place worth $387.80.

When themanparris was eliminated in 7th place, our final table lineup was set:

Final Table Lineup
Seat 1: outlaw (914600 in chips)
Seat 2: imgoodiknow (371745 in chips)
Seat 3: OrsaGoldhill (3072473 in chips)
Seat 4: eityby55 (824872 in chips)
Seat 5: RichGRich (733882 in chips)
Seat 6: Rennwurm (2037428 in chips)

It had been slow going to progress from last 18 players to the final table of six, due to the nature of the split pot game, but it didn’t take long to lose imgoodiknow in 6th place. With the blinds at 15k/30k, imgoodiknow raised it to 90k and found a call from OrsaGoldhill. The chips went flying on a [4c][2c][Tc] flop with imgoodiknow showing [5d][9h][Jh][Ad] for a wheel draw as OrsaGoldhill had half in the bag with [6c][3h][7c][5h] for a flopped flush. The turn [Ts] and river [4h] didn’t change anything to leave imgoodiknow to collect $2,983.12.

After twelve hours of play, RichGRich was quick to toss up the idea of a deal, which seemed to spark the interest of most players. However eityby55 remained silent and play continued.

OrsaGoldhill moved out to a substantial chip lead, and extended that when eliminating RichGRich from the tournament. OrsaGoldhill opened with a raise holding [Tc][8d][Qd][5c], before RichGRich moved all in holding [8c][5d][Jc][9s]. Neither had a great hi-lo hand, but OrsaGoldhill made the call and his queen-high played on the board of [Kh][Jd][Kc][Kd][3s] as both players made trip kings with no low hand. RichGRich pocketed $4,773 for 5th place.

Rennwurm landed a double up, but it was still OrsaGoldhill who was the ultimate aggressor, collecting the majority of pots four-handed. At one stage we counted OrsaGoldhill scooping or at least winning part of the pot in 29 out of 33 consecutive hands. That’s domination right there.

Outlaw could only sit back and watch for the most part, and eventually his short stack was forced to make a stand. Outlaw raised preflop, bet the flop and was all in for pocket change on the turn on a board of [6h][Qd][Qc][Td]. Outlaw showed [3d][4h][4s][Ac] which looked pretty for a potential low, but on that board, it didn’t amount to much, as OrsaGoldhill held [Kd][8h][6d][8c] for a better pair. The river was the [Tc] which didn’t change anything, leaving outlaw to depart in 4th place for $7159.50 in prize money.

OrsaGoldhill was out in front but Rennwurm scooped a couple of healthy pots to even things back up three-handed. Of course hi-lo is not just about scooping, but often it’s a game of quarters (or preferably three-quarters). OrsaGoldhill found that out when he took a big dent in the following hand against eityby55:

RSS readers click through to see replay

Both players had the same low but eityby55 collected the high to take the chip lead and halt the dominance of OrsaGoldhill.

OrsaGoldhill didn’t survive too much longer. The end came when the OrsaGoldhill’s last chips went in on a flop of [9h][8d][Ts]. Rennwurm showed [7s][Jh][Jc][Tc] for a flopped straight as OrsaGoldhill called it off with [5d][Th][Ac][9c] for top two pair with a backdoor low draw. The [Ks] turn and [8s] river changed nothing to see OrsaGoldhill’s run come to an end in 3rd place for $10,739.25.

Rennwurm held a narrow chip advantage heads up, but eityby55 chipped away at the lead with a series of small pots. That is, until Rennwurm scooped the biggest pot of the tournament when he made a better high and low in the following hand:

RSS readers click through to see replay

Rennwurm looked in control, holding a 12-to-1 advantage at one point, but eityby55 doubled and then doubled again, before the key hand saw eityby55 make a straight and a low to scoop against Rennwurm’s two pair to reclaim the lead.

Eventually the battle was over in a hand where eityby55 called a preflop raise, before leading the betting on each street on a board that read [4s][2d][9d][Ks][9s]. Rennwurm responded by moving all in, with eityby55 making the call with [Qc][3c][Qs][2s] for a king-queen-high flush, narrowly pipping the [3s][Kd][Js][8d] king-jack-high flush for Rennwurm.

With that, Rennwurm won $14,736.63 for 2nd place as Russia’s eityby55 is our newest SCOOP champion, winning the title and $19,689.44.

Final Table Results
1st eityby55 (Russia) – $19,689.44
2nd Rennwurm (Germany) – $14,736.63
3rd OrsaGoldhill (Sweden) – $10,739.25
4th outlaw (Canada) – $7,159.50
5th RichGRich (Germany) – $4,773
6th imgoodiknow (Israel) – $2,983.12

The 2012 SCOOP is only just getting started with an amazing schedule of events still to come. For more details head to the official SCOOP website for the schedule, satellites, leaderboard, statistics and more.

Tags: Battle of the Planets | ept | estrellas poker tour | european | gambling | italian | lapt | micromillions | news | pca | tcoop

Every poker tournament features your plain old, generic “knockouts,” from which all who survive — not just the one doing the knocking — benefit in some fashion. Then you have your “bounty” KO events where a little gets saved out of the prize pool as to be awarded as bounties, usually a small percentage of the entry fee, given to players each time they eliminate an opponent.

Then you have your “super knockout” tourneys, in which half of the prize pool gets set aside for bounties. In the case of SCOOP #9-H, that meant $1,025 of every player’s $2,100 entry went to the bounty pool, with another $1,025 going to the regular prize pool.

In the end, 566 players joined this one, together building both $580,150 prize pool and a $580,150 bounty pool — the $1,160,300 total obliterating the event’s $400K guarantee. The top 63 finishers would divide the prize pool half of the loot, with the rest going to those scoring knockouts along the way. The winner stood to earn $110,228.61, plus that last bounty as well as his or her own, not to mention any others collected on the way to the title.

From 566 to 100

At the five-hour break just 224 players remained, with Paris Dedes leading followed by Rens02 and dean23price. Also still alive and representing Team PokerStars at that point were Team Pros Ana Marquez, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and Pius Heinz, as well as George “Jorj95″ Lind III and Anders “Donald” Berg of Team Online,

Eliminations continued to occur, with handsome $1,025 bounties collected with each one. Aku1206 grabbed Lind’s bounty, knocking out Jorj95 in 221st. The numerically-named 44446 then picked up ElkY’s, eliminating the latter in 197th. And upmaxH claimed Marquez’ when she went out in 193rd. Later Pius Heinz fell in 101st, his bounty claimed by Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen, leaving only Berg to represent the home team with 100 players left.

From 100 to 9

Berg would successfully nurse a short stack all of the way into the cash, busting shortly in 60th for a $2,552.66 cash.

In his final hand, Berg would get the last of his stack in on a [Tc][9s][6d] flop with [Jc][Jh], but was up against Stephen “stevie444″ Chidwick’s [6s][6c]. Another ten on the turn made stevie444′s set a full house, and a blank on the river sent Berg to the rail. That marked the second Team PokerStars Pro bounty collected by Chidwick who earlier eliminated Matthias “mattidm” de Meulder in 362nd.

Soon they reached the nine-hour mark, at which point exactly 50 players remained. upstrick77 led the way with just over 170,000, with Chidwick having pushed up into second position with nearly 163,000. David “Betudontbet” Emmons, spirox21, Naza114, Rens02, and Mike “SirWatts” Watson rounded out the 100,000-chip club.

Three hours later, 18 were left, led by David “Betudontbet” Evans, YrrsiNN, and upstrick77. Among those hitting the rail in the interim were João “joaobarb” Barbosa (46th, $2,726.70), Tim “Tmay420″ West (43rd, $2,900.75), James “jcamby33″ Campbell (42nd, $2,900.75), Stefan “I’amSound” Huber (35th, $3,190.82), Alexis “J0hnny_Dr@m@” Zervos (33rd, $3,190.82), James “mig.com” Mackey (30th, $3,190.82), Stephen “stevie444″ Chidwick (28th, $3,190.82), Grayson “gray31″ Ramage (23rd, $3,480.90), Nicky “Cod Meharly” Evans (21st, $3,480.90), Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (20th, $3,480.90), and Steve “gboro780″ Gross (19th, $3,480.90), each of whom also picked up an extra $1,050 per each knockout they accumulated before busting.

It would take a little over an hour-and-a-half for the next nine to fall: Mikleler (18th), govshark2 (17th), and dean23price (16th) each earned $4,641.20; Rens02 (15th), hyahhoo (14th), and FlyingSumo (13th) took $5,801.50 apiece; and amfef (12th), leshark81 (11th), and agahol (10th) each saw $6,961.80 added to their PokerStars accounts.

The final table was set.

Seat 1: Big Huni — 414,208
Seat 2: Betudontbet — 77,608
Seat 3: sh4rk1e — 189,761
Seat 4: SirWatts — 304,561
Seat 5: rogI_MS — 180,268
Seat 6: upstrick77 — 743,331
Seat 7: YrrsiNN — 226,080
Seat 8: Mr. Tim Caum — 78,191
Seat 9: spirox21 — 615,992

The final nine played a couple of orbits, then sh4rk1e became crippled after taking [Qc][Qd] up against David “Betudontbet” Evans’ [Kc][Kh] and losing. sh4rk1e would double up once, but soon was reraising all in for 38,216 over an open by Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen, and while upstrick77 called, Hunichen folded.

sh4rk1e had [4d][4h] and was hoping to hold versus upstrick77′s [Qh][Jd], but the board ran out [Jc][3s][Kd][Td][2s] to pair upstrick77 and send sh4rk1e out in ninth.

A while later the blinds were 3,000/6,000 when spirox21 opened to 12,000 from the cutoff, then Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen shoved all in for 146,983 from the button. The blinds got out, and spirox21 called, showing [6h][6s] to Big Huni’s [As][Th]. The community cards came [2c][5h][Kh][3s][3c], and Hunichen’s run had ended in eighth.

Next Mike “SirWatts” Watson opened for the minimum from UTG, raising to 12,000, then rogl_MS reraised to 24,000 from one seat over. It folded back around and Watson shoved, and rogl_MS called with the 201,324 he had left. Watson turned over [9d][9s], but rogl_MS had [As][Ad].

Then came the flop — [3c][9c][8d]! A set for Watson, and after the [2c] turn and [3h] river, Watson had filled up and was collecting rogl_MS’s bounty as the latter hit the rail in seventh.

A few orbits later Stefan “YrssiNN” Huber min-raised to 14,000 from middle position, then spirox21 reraised to 35,000 from the button. It folded back and Huber jammed for 111,226 total, and spirox21 called. Huber had [Ah][Kc] and needed to catch versus spirox21′s [9s][9h]. The flop came [4s][3s][2d], giving YrrsiNN straight outs, but the turn was the [2s] and river the [6s], and Huber was out in sixth.

About 20 minutes later, the blinds were 3,500/7,000 when upstrick77 opened from the button for 14,000, then spirox21 reraised to 35,000 from the big blind. upstrick77 responded with an all-in shove for 319,804 total, and spirox21 called.

spriox21: [Tc][Ts]
upstrick77: [As][4c]

The board came [8s][Js][7c][7h][2d], meaning spirox21′s tens held and upstrick had been eliminated in fifth.

With four left, spirox21 led with more than 1.35 million, with Watson in second with better than 744,000, followed by David “Betudontbet” Evans who had just over 563,000. Meanwhile, Steve “Mr. Tim Caum” O’Dwyer was last with a little under 166,000.

As it happened, O’Dwyer would be the next to go. As they approached the 16-hour mark of the tournament, O’Dwyer raised to 16,800 from UTG and it folded to SirWatts who raised enough to put O’Dwyer all in. Mr. Tim Caum called his remaining 149,799, showing [Kc][Jh] to Watson’s [Kh][Qc]. The board ran out [8d][Tc][8h][8s][2d], and O’Dwyer was out in fourth.

Play continued, and soon the blinds were 4,000/8,000 when David “Betudontbet” Evans opened for 16,000 from the button, Mike “SirWatts” Watson reraised to 40,000 from the small blind, and spirox21 folded. Evans responded with an all-in push for 308,977 total, and Watson called.

Evans had [As][Kh] and Watson [Tc][Ts], and they watched as the board came [5d][7h][4d][8s][4h], awarding the bounty to Watson and sending Evans railward in third place.

RSS readers click through to see replay

Heads-up play began with SirWatts enjoying a small lead with 1,506,935 to spirox21′s 1,323,065. During the first half-hour of their battle, spirox21 would gain the advantage, pushing out to nearly a 2-to-1 chip lead over Watson.

They continued their duel, and with the blinds up to 5,000/10,000 Watson raised to 25,000 from the button, spirox21 made it 70,000, Watson 140,000, and spirox21 called. The flop came [8s][Jc][Qh] and spirox21 checked. SirWatts bet 140,000, and his opponent called.

The turn then brought the [8c] and another check from spirox21. This time Watson bet 250,000, and when spirox21 check-raise shoved Watson called with his remaining chips, showing [Ac][Qc] for queens and eights. spirox21 had the same two pair with [Qs][Js], though with a worse kicker, and when the river came the [As] Watson suddenly had a commanding lead.

spirox21 was on the ropes, but would double up after that one when his [As][Qc] outdrew Watson’s [6d][6h] to enable him to close the gap, and before long the pair were even once again.

The night wore on, and Watson pushed back out ahead to take a sizable lead. They reached the 18-hour break of the tourney, having been heads up for nearly the last two hours of that, at which point SirWatts had 1,769,210 to spirox21′s 1,060,790.

After another 15 minutes, a hand suddenly arose in which spirox21 was all in on the flop and at risk of elimination. The board read [Js][3c][Ts], and when spirox21 reraised all in SirWatts called, showing [Qd][Jh] for top pair. spirox21 showed [Qh][9h] for an open-ended straight draw. The turn was the [5h], and Watson was one card away from the title.

Then came the river… the [8d]! spirox21 had survived, and now had a better than 3-to-1 chip lead. Take a look:

RSS readers click through to see replay

About 10 hands after that spirox21 was still above 2 million when Watson opened with a min-raise to 32,000 and spirox21 reraised to 80,000. That prompted an all-in shove from SirWatts for 739,920 total, and spirox21 quickly called.

spirox21: [Kc][Qh]
SirWatts: [Ad][7s]

Watson had the edge preflop, but the [3s][Ks][9c] snatched that advantage away. The turn was the [3d] and river the [7h], and spirox21 had collected SirWatts’ bounty and the SCOOP title!

RSS readers click through to see replay

Congratulations to spirox21 for outlasting a tough field of 566 and more than 18 hours of poker — including two-plus grueling hours versus a gritty SirWatts — to claim SCOOP Event #9-H!

2012 SCOOP Event 9-High, $2,100 No-Limit Hold’em, Super Knockout:
1st: spirox21 ($110,228.61)
2nd: SirWatts ($81,221)
3rd: Betudontbet ($59,465.37)
4th: Mr. Tim Caum ($45,251.70)
5th: upstrick77 ($31,908.25)
6th: YrrsiNN ($24,656.37)
7th: rogl_MS ($18,854.87)
8th: Big Huni ($13,053.37)
9th: sh4rk1e ($9,630.49)

Still a week-and-a-half of SCOOPin’ left! Check the schedule for the details.

Tags: Asia Pacific Poker Tour | entertainment | eureka poker tour | france poker series | gambling | napt | news | pokerstars | Super Tuesday | UKIPT | world-series

Uruguay’s joacowalter is on a run for the ages and if the last two days are any indication, the best move might be to stay out of his way until he cools down just a touch. Until a few days ago, joacowalter’s largest score on PokerStars was just over $3,600 for winning a $33 buy-in tournament. Yesterday, he won a $215 NLHE Turbo MTT for $28,923.80. Earlier this afternoon, he finished 34th in SCOOP Event #1-H ($2,100 6-max NLHE) for $7,840. And while a $36,000+ haul in under 24 hours might lead a lesser man to put the mouse down and head out to celebrate, he was only getting warmed up. Not only did joacowalter go from short stack to SCOOP champion tonight, he did it by defeating a final table that included two WCOOP titleholders, a 2011 SCOOP winner, and two EPT champions.

Although the guarantee on Event #5-H was set at $500,000, the 389 entrants shattered it, making 524 rebuys and 312 add-ons to create a $1,225,000 prize pool. 45 places were paid, with first place set to earn $237,037.50. Team Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom and Pius Heinz were among the 11 Red Spades who bought in, but Eugene Katchalov was the only one to cash, finishing in 34th place for $7,962.50.

It took only a bit more than three hours of play to get the field down to ten. With the final table bubble looming and the blinds up to 15,000/30,000, Redd Baronn open-shoved from the small blind with nothing more than [2d][5s] and Paolo69 called all-in from the big with [Qc][Jd]. Redd Barron hit bottom pair on the [As][6c][2c] flop and Paolo69 did not catch up, exiting in tenth place and setting the final table.

Final table chip counts:

Seat 1: arnon shraga (356,059 in chips)
Seat 2: niccc (571,132 in chips)
Seat 3: joacowalter (206,369 in chips)
Seat 4: hustla16 (540,391 in chips)
Seat 5: UhhMee (208,780 in chips)
Seat 6: UpmaxH (445,825 in chips)
Seat 7: Redd Baronn (651,915 in chips)
Seat 8: “0PIGGYBANK” (481,827 in chips)
Seat 9: JIZOINT (836,702 in chips)

Are you experienced?

The final nine were a decorated bunch, even by SCOOP standards. “0PIGGYBANK” is the online moniker of Germany’s Martin Finger, who won the 2011 EPT Prague for €720,000. Arnon shraga finished second in the Super Tuesday less than a month ago for $53k. UpmaxH has notched wins in the $215+R, the $109+R and the Big $55. Ami “UhhMee” Barer made a runner-up finish in Event #3-M ($55 6-max NLHE) in last year’s SCOOP, banking $54k. Charlie “JIZOINT” Combes earned his first SCOOP title one year ago, taking down Event #13-H for $55k. Hiren “hustla16″ Patel earned a staggering $446,000 after defeating over 6,200 players in Event #11 ($530 NLHE) of the 2009 WCOOP. And Nicolas “niccc” Chouity took home the trophy at the 2010 EPT Grand Final along with €1,700,000. He has a WCOOP title as well, earned last fall in pot-limit Omaha.

Double, double, toil and trouble

Needless to say, joacowalter had his work cut out for him. He arrived at the final table with less than seven big bilnds and only a few orbits later was down to three and a half. With the action folded to him in the small blind, joaowalter shoved his last 126,369 with [Jd][5c] and hustla16 called from the big, turning over a dominating [Kh][5d]. It was all but over for joacowalter until a jack on the flop gave him life. Hustla16 couldn’t find a king on the turn or river and joacowalter doubled to 298,000. He moved into safer territory on the next hand, picking up 100,000 worth of blinds and antes to bring him up to 397,000.

Joacowalter’s timely double-up left arnon shraga as the table short stack. Following an early position open-shove from hustla16, arnon shraga found [Ad][Js] in the small blind and called all-in for his last 256,000. Hustla16′s dominating [Ac][Kc] stayed that way and arnon shraga departed in ninth place, earning $21,437.50– not bad at all for three and a half hours of work.

UhhMee was next to make a move. With the blinds up to 30,000-60,000, UhhMee raised to 212,000, leaving himself only 6,780 behind. Joacowalter reshoved for 288,000 from the big blind and UhhMee called all-in, turning over [Kh][7h]. It couldn’t catch joacowalter’s [Ah][9h] and UhhMee exited in eighth, collecting $29,400.

The extraordinary rise and perilous fall of UpmaxH

With seven players remaining, UpmaxH was the only one with a seven-figure chip count, his 1.2 million nearly twice as much as his closest competitor. Turning up the aggression, he open-shoved from UTG with [Qh][8s] only to run headlong into JIZOINT’s [Ac][Ah]. However, those aces were promptly snapped off when a queen hit the flop and an eight fell on the turn, sending JIZOINT to the rail in seventh place. UpmaxH continued to roll, taking out niccc four hands later when his [Ts][9c] flopped trip nines against [7c][8h]. For his sixth-place finish, niccc earned $53,900.

UpmaxH was up to 2.29 million and his four opponents were all below 630,000. Second-in-chips joacowalter picked up [Ah][Qd] when “0PIGGYBANK” shoved with pocket sevens, the queen-high board sending him home in fifth place while joacowalter closed in on the million-chip mark.

UpmaxH was in a position where he didn’t need to steal every last pot, but nevertheless, open-shoved for 2.3 million from the cutoff with [Ts][2h]. In what was perhaps the turning point of the entire final table, joacowalter called with [Ks][Qs] in the small blind, his hand holding up to give him the chip lead with 1.9 million. Moments later, UpmaxH shoved his [Jd][7d] into Redd Baronn’s [As][7h]. Although UpmaxH paired up on the [Kd][Jh][2h] flop, Redd Baronn hit running hearts to make a flush. Now below a million in chips, UpmaxH went for Redd Barron’s big blind again on the next orbit, moving all-in for 926,000 with [9h][5h]. This time, Redd Barron woke up with pocket kings.

With the blinds up to 50,000/100,000, onetime chip leader UpmaxH was down to only 398,000. Although he managed to double through joacowalter to move up to 870,000, those chips quickly found their way into hustla16′s stack. UpmaxH open-shoved with [Kh][Th] and hustla16 snap-called from the big blind with [Ad][Kc], big slick holding up to leave UpmaxH on only 188,000. Redd Baronn got the KO on the next hand, his [Kd][9h] holding up against UpmaxH’s [Qc][6h] to send him home in fourth place, a mere seven minutes after taking a dominating chip lead. Certainly not all was lost for UpmaxH– he banked $101,062.50 for his efforts.

Deal me in

Immediately following UpmaxH’s elimination, joacowalter broached the subject of a deal. Hustla16 and Redd Baronn agreed to pause the action and run chip count chop numbers. It took only one small tweak to hustla16′s payout to get all three to agree to a deal and action resumed with $10,000 left in play for the winner.

Joacowalter and hustla16 took Redd Baronn out with a one-two punch. Joacowalter was first, doubling up when his [Ac][Jh] held against Redd Baronn’s [Kh][Th]. Left with barely more than one big blind, Redd Baronn put his last 148,000 in the middle with pocket sixes. Joacowalter called from the small blind, but hustla16 ended that party with a reshove for 931,000 from the big blind. Joacowalter got out of the way, hustla16′s [Ks][8s] needing to improve. In most brutal fashion, Redd Baronn’s pocket pair was counterfeited, the board running out [9h][7d][7c][Jc][9c] to end his run in third place. His share of the three-way deal totaled $165,200.

Heads-up chip counts

Seat 3: joacowalter (3,027,664 in chips)
Seat 4: hustla16 (1,271,336 in chips)

Heads-up play took all of one hand, joacowalter shoving on the button with [Jd][Td] and hustla16 calling all-in with [Ac][4s]. Although hustla16 flopped a pair of aces and a wheel draw, hot-running joacowalter could not be stopped, catching running tens to lock up the SCOOP title.

Kudos to joacowalter on a phenomenal, life-changing run and his first SCOOP title. He took home $204,212.50 while runner-up hustla16 banked $180,000. Don’t spend it all in one place, kids.

2012 SCOOP Event #5-H ($1,050+R Turbo NLHE) results:

1. joacowalter (Uruguay) $204,212.50*
2. hustla16 (Canada) $180,000.00*
3. Redd Baronn (Czech Republic) $165,200.00*
4. UpmaxH (Slovakia) $101,062.50
5. “0PIGGYBANK” (Germany) $69,825.00
6. niccc (Lebanon) $53,900.00
7. JIZOINT (United Kingdom) $41,650.00
8. UhhMee (Canada) $29,400.00
9. arnon shraga (Israel) $21,437.50

Busto or robusto, there’s a SCOOP event for you. Head over to the SCOOP page for a complete schedule and satellite information.

Tags: australia | belgian poker series | delicious | italian | micromillions | news | pokerstars macau | portugal poker series | SCOOP | season 8 | Super Tuesday

Anything can happen in a turbo tournament. Ask mrAndreeew, who held the chip lead in this tournament for a long while leading up to the final table but lost it and fought hard to eventually finish third. Sr amarillo fought as well, staying in the middle of the pack until a key double-up during heads-up play led directly to victory. Sometimes, it’s the quiet one who comes out on top; ask Sr amarillo, latest SCOOP title holder.

*****

The second day of the 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker was off to an exciting start, and Event 5 provided some fast-paced action for players who were anxious to grab a SCOOP title in near-record time. Rebuys combined with a turbo structure assured a riveting tournament, and that’s what we received.

The medium level buy-in for Event 5 allowed players to buy in for $109 with the guarantee of a $350K prize pool, but the resulting numbers showed more than double that amount of cash. Excitement was the word from start to finish, but let’s start at the beginning with final registration numbers:

Players: 2,251
Rebuys: 4,103
Add-ons: 1,647
Guarantee: $350,000.00
Prize pool: $800,100.00
Paid players: 288

As a turbo event, we shouldn’t have to say that it moved along quickly. The money bubble burst only a couple hours into action, as murballz66 became the first player to walk away from the virtual table with $640.08.

There were two Team PokerStars Pros still in the tournament at that point, though Eugene Katchalov was quit to exit in 278th place with his min-cash. That left Pius Heinz as the last Team Pro standing, and he was eliminated soon after in 248th place with $720.09. (You might remember Mr. Heinz from this humble photo taken at last year’s WSOP.)

As the 3.5-hour mark approached, there were still some well-known online poker players in the field, including philbort and Tmay420, and mrAndreeew had a significant lead over the remaining players.

Phillip “philbort” Gruissem ended his run in 20th place, and Tim “Tmay420″ West followed to the rail in 15th place. Action then moved quickly to hand-for-hand play upon the 11th place elimination of AAcademiKK. Minutes later, mortens22 pushed with [Ad][Ah] against the [Kc][Kh] of mcbleeman, but the [3s][8c][Js][Kd][Jc] board gave mcbleeman the full house. Mortens22 bubbled the final table and received $6,000.75 for tenth place.

MrAndreeew’s chip lead in jeopardy

The final table was set in Level 42, with blinds of 70,000/140,000 and a 17,500 ante, and the players’ starting stacks were as follows:

Seat 1: freshleo111 (2,283,950 in chips)
Seat 2: dejanaceking (5,052,863 in chips)
Seat 3: Slavik_Krs (2,662,019 in chips)
Seat 4: Sr amarillo (2,519,759 in chips)
Seat 5: anonymstruts (1,269,170 in chips)
Seat 6: adam_0925 (3,117,340 in chips)
Seat 7: mrAndreeew (5,202,875 in chips)
Seat 8: mcbleeman (2,885,588 in chips)
Seat 9: Zareta (2,303,436 in chips)

Dejanaceking was the player within immediate striking distance of mrAndreeew, but early disconnection problems caused problems. He typed, “ovako da citav svijet vidi” in the chat box, so that surely relates to the issue, though my Croatian fails me at the moment.

Sr amarillo doubled through mrAndreeew, and Slavik_Krs quietly took over first place.

Zareta zooms

Zareta doubled through adam_0925 to get off the short stack. And when anonymstruts moved all-in from middle position with [Qh][Jh], Zareta called from the big blind with [Kd][6s]. The flop of [4d][9d][Kh] put Zareta further ahead, and the [Ks] on the turn made trips. The [8c] on the river officially eliminated anonymstruts in ninth place with $7,600.95.

Adam_0925 doubled his short stack through freshleo111 and then through mcbleeman. That left the latter in a bit of trouble, and the all-in move from mcbleeman came a few hands later with [Kc][Qs]. Sr amarillo called with [Ac][4c] and hit the turn on the [5s][3h][9h][As][Td] board. Mcbleeman had to leave in eighth place with $13,601.70.

Adam_0925 – mover of the minute

After two recent double-ups, another through mrAndreeew put Adam_0925 in second place on the leaderboard. MrAndreeew turned around and doubled through Slavik_Krs, who then doubled through Zareta.

Zareta then pushed with only 419,056 chips preflop, and mrAndreeew and Slavik_Krs were along for the ride. They checked the [4d][Qh][8h] flop and the [5d] turn, and the [Ac] river prompted a bet from mrAndreeew and fold from Slavik_Krs. Zareta showed [9s][9d], but that pair was outdone by the [As][9h] of mrAndreeew and his pair of aces. Zareta, winner of a 2010 Sunday Million had to go in seventh place with $20,002.50.

Sr amarillo stays strong

Sr amarillo doubled through Slavik_Krs, and when dejanaceking finally pushed all-in, Sr amarillo reraised all-in to isolate. That worked, and dejanaceking was at risk with [As][9c]. Sr amarillo was prepared to race with [5h][5c], but that pocket pair stayed good as the dealer provided [7d][6h][2s][Qd][3d]. Dejanaceking was eliminated in sixth place with $28,003.50.

Adam_0925 was the next player to move, pushing all-in from UTG with [Qd][Js]. Sr amarillo quickly called from the big blind with [As][Ah], and nothing about the [6d][Jh][5h][7s][3s] board changed anything. That left adam_0925 out in fifth place with $36,004.50.

Freshleo111 battled back from a very short stack to double again and again to an average stack. But the turbo structure prompted freshleo111 to move again soon, and [Kc][Kd] looked like a good hand to do it with. MrAndreeew was there with [Ah][2h], and though the [6h][Qc][Ts] didn’t change much, the [7h] on the turn brought the flush draw. The [Kh] on the river completed that heart flush to eliminate freshleo111 in fourth place with $49,606.20.

Final three agree

The last three players paused the tournament to discuss a deal, and the numbers offered by PokerStars were good enough. With $7K set aside to be added to the winner’s money, in addition to a Movado watch, they agreed to these payouts:

Seat 3: Slavik_Krs (10,341,516 in chips) = $98,845.18
Seat 4: Sr amarillo (7,465,095 in chips) = $92,913.65
Seat 7: mrAndreeew (9,490,389 in chips) = $97,278.68

A few hands later, mrAndreeew pushed all-in with [Kh][Ts], and Slavik_Krs reraised all-in with [Ad][7c]. Sr amarillo folded, and the board produced [9c][Ac][Td][4h][Qs] to flop the better pair for Slavik_Krs. The table’s original chip leader, mrAndreeew, exited in third place with $97,278.68.

Turbo takedown

Heads-up play began with these chip counts:

Seat 3: Slavik_Krs (19,456,905 in chips)
Seat 4: Sr amarillo (7,840,095 in chips)

On the third hand, Sr amarillo found the perfect double-up opportunity:

RSS readers click through to see replay

That was all it took for the turbo tournament to reverse its direction. Slavik_Krs risked a stack of less than 9 million chips with [Ad][Tc], and Sr amarillo played along with [8s][7s]. The board came [6h][Js][5d][5s][7h], and the river gave Sr amarillo two pair and the win. Slavik_Krs, who finished in third place in a 2009 SCOOP event, did one better with a second place finish and $98,845.18.

Sr amarillo of the United Kingdom won the SCOOP tournament title, $99,913.65, and a beautiful Movado watch for the efforts. Congratulations!

2012 SCOOP Event #5-M ($109+R NLHE Turbo) Results (reflects deal):

1st place: Sr amarillo ($99,913.65)*
2nd place: Slavik_Krs ($98,945.18)*
3rd place: mrAndreeew ($97,278.68)*
4th place: freshleo111 ($49,606.20)
5th place: adam_0925 ($36,004.50)
6th place: dejanaceking ($28,003.50)
7th place: Zareta ($20,002.50)
8th place: mcbleeman ($13,601.70)
9th place: anonymstruts ($7,600.95)

*Based on a three-way chop with $7K added to winner’s money

The Spring Championship of Online Poker home page contains all of the tournament results, schedule of upcoming events and their satellites, and a leaderboard for the 2012 Series.

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The final table of 2012 SCOOP Event 1-Low, $27 No-Limit Hold’em 6-max, had a former Sunday Million winner, a player who was down to a single ante long before the final table began and a player who played far more aggressively than anyone else at the table. And yet, poker being what it is, none of them won the tournament. That honor went to Blackbeaty, a player who persevered even when it seemed certain that someone else would win.

2012 SCOOP Event 1-Low, a two-day event, kicked off yesterday with a $250,000 guarantee. Or to put it differently, PokerStars made a guarantee that at least 10,000 players would sign up for Event 1-Low. As Brad Willis wrote earlier today, the first day of SCOOP 2012 was “a colossal, guarantee-busting machine.” 25,520 players entered Event 1-Low, creating a prize pool of $638,000 and a 1st-place prize worth $74,008. For a $27 tournament, that would be an amazing ROI for the winner.

The winner took quite a while to decide, of course. 3300 players were paid, with the lowest rung on the pay ladder earning $57.42. Included among the ranks of the money finishers were Team PokerStars Pros Martin Staszko (2491st) and Jude “j.thaddeus” Ainsworth (1,021st) and Team Online players Anders “Donald” Berg (1,809th) and George “jorj95″ Lind (1066th). Teams PokerStars Pro (and 2011 WSOP Main Event champion) Pius Heinz put up the best result for the Red Spade, finishing 278th and earning $223.30, a return of more than eight times his original investment.

But even Heinz was long gone by the time the final table was decided:

Seat 1: Blackbeaty (24680821 in chips)
Seat 2: zebest_666 (45751508 in chips)
Seat 3: Lundsild (19286692 in chips)
Seat 4: darknikson (51924667 in chips)
Seat 5: estofesto (68862402 in chips)
Seat 6: posten (44693910 in chips)

Level 51: blinds 600k / 1200k, ante 150k

Off the final table participants, zebest_666 had the most previous success with a Sunday Million win for six figures. But Lundsild was riding a wave of luck, which hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“lundsild you were almost out and now ft,” said darknikson.
“yea seriously. sick comeback. u had like an ante or something haha” added zebest_666.
“yes, down to almost a chip and a chair!” Lundsild acknowledged.

estofesto was aggressive with the big stack in the earlygoing and accumulated the most chips, climbing as high as 109 million, but zebest_666 was also applying the pressure, as seen here:

RSS readers click through to see replay

Danish player posten was finally the first player eliminated, just before the blinds rolled up to 800k / 1600k. From second to act, posten opened to 3.5 million. darknikson raised all in to 33 million, with posten calling off another 15.4 million with [as][9h]. That medium ace was dominated by darknikson’s [ac][ks] and was almost drawing dead after a king-high flop, [8c][8h][kh]. The [6h] turn gave posten some hope with a flush draw, but the river bricked out [2d]. posten finished in 6th place, earning $6,788.32.

With five players left, things looked grim again for Lundsild, the player who had been down to a single ante, when Lundsild wound up all in pre-flop with [js][8d] and was called by darknikson’s [as][8h]. But a jack flopped, and Lundsild’s charmed ride through Event 1-Low was able to continue.

Meanwhile estofesto took a rare hit at the final table, opening pre-flop with [as][th] and then calling button player Blackbeaty’s 19-million chip shove with [ks][qh]. This round went to Blackbeaty when a flopped queen gave Blackbeaty a pair of queens and a hand that held through the river.

Very shortly thereafter, the players started asking about a deal again but neither zebest_666 nor estofesto was willing to deal. That proved a good decision for zebest_666, who min-raised pre-flop to 3.2 million, then snap-called after darknikson shoved for 27 million with [ad][tc]. It was bad news for darknikson, as zebest_666 showed [ah][ac]. Neither player’s hand improved by the river, sending darknikson to the rail in 5th place and vaulting zebest_666 up to 96 million, just a few chips ahead of estofesto for the lead.

But estofesto didn’t relent, continuing to pressure the other players for decisions for their whole stacks. The result of that pressure? estofesto quickly regained the chip lead, climbling to 114 million. estofesto then went for the kill when Blackbeaty opened all in for 23 million in the 1MM-2MM round, but Blackbeaty’s pocket jacks held against estofesto’s [ah][tc], [td][qs][jd][4s][ad]. zebest_666 took another big bite oute of estofesto three hands later by check-calling all the way on a [9h][ad][5s][4d][js] board with [as][8d], a pair of aces. estofesto showed nothing but imagination with [ks][7c].

“Never say die” Lundsild got it all in with pocket 10s against Blackbeaty’s [ah][9s] and lived to see another hand when the board ran out harmlessly, bumping Lundsild to 51 million and pushing Blackbeatty back down to the short stack. But it was Lundsild’s turn to get unlucky, and that’s what happened when Blackbeaty’s king-seven all-in shove bested Lundsild’s ace-seven by flopping a king. They changed places in the counts, with zebest_666 and estofesto still far in the lead.

Lundsild’s good fortune never returned. Down to 11 million in chips, Lundsild moved all in from the first position with [as][6c]. zebest_666, in the big blind, called with [ts][7h] and made two pair, [7s][5h][2h][th][3d]. Lundsild, down to a single ante long before the final table, clawed all the way back for a 4th place finish worth $18,687.02

Lundsild’s elimination gave zebest_666 a commanding chip lead with 136.4 million. estofesto was in 2nd place (78.8 million) and Blackbeaty was the short stack (39.8 million). They agreed to consider a deal and paused the tournament. But neither zebest_666 nor estofesto were happy with the proposed deal numbers so play resumed.

On the very first hand back, zebest_666 and estofesto played a 160-million chip pot, the biggest of the tournament to that point, that had Blackbeaty saying “you guys are funny” after it was over. Take a look:

RSS readers click through to see replay

After a scheduled break, zebest_666 said “ran to backyard and got a 4-leaf clover”. It almost worked, too, when zebest_666 wound up all in pre-flop with [qs][jd] against estofesto’s [kd][kc]. Neither player improved on the [3d][8d][th] flop, but zebest_666 turned an inside straight with the [9d]. However, zebest_666′s good fortune on the turn was topped by estofesto’s good fortune on the [td] river. Both players had diamond flushes, but estofesto’s was the best. He knocked zebest_666 out in 3rd place.

Starting heads-up play, estofesto had a 6-to-1 chip lead over Blackbeaty, but blackbeaty won the first six hands, without a showdown, to climb reduce the deficit to less than 4-to-1. After some back and forth, Blackbeaty’s [as][qh] held up all in against estofesto’s [7d][9d]. Blackbeaty was still the short stack, but the deficit was reduced to about 2-to-1. One more big pot that ended with a three-best shove on the flop by Blackbeaty that wasn’t called, and the stacks were basically level.

“Wanna make a deal now?” Blackbeaty asked.
“It’s ok,” replied estofesto. “Let’s play. Thank you for the offer.”

From there, estofesto took control. Twice estofesto opened up leads; twice Blackbeaty wound up all in with pocket treys and re-leveled the stacks. The first time, the treys held against estofesto’s ace-jack, despite estofesto having 18 outs going into the river. The second time, estofesto held pocket 5s by blackbeaty rivered a 4-flush in diamonds. Blackbeaty was proving to be a tough out – so tough, in fact, that it would be estofesto who went out first.

The final hand of the tournament started with Blackbeaty slightly in the lead, 130 million to 124.8 million. Blackbeaty opened to 7.5 million before estofesto three-bet to 18.6 million. Blackbeaty called to a jack-high flop, [jc][8c][4h]. estofesto continued for 14.2 million, then shoved for a total of 105.8 million after Blackbeaty raised to 30 million. Blackbeaty snap-called with [jd][qd], a pair of jacks with a better kicker than estofesto’s pair of jacks, [js][6s]. Neither the turn [3s] nor the river [qh] improved estofesto.

Blackbeaty was all in and called at the final table at least five times. Losing any one of those hands would have resulted in a very different finish for Blackbeaty. But some luck, some skill and some perseverance allowed Blackbeaty to become the first champion of the 2012 SCOOP.

2012 SCOOP Event 1-Low, $27 NLHE (6-max) results:

1st: Blackbeaty ($74,008.00)
2nd: estofesto ($53.209.2)
3rd: zebest_666 ($35,919.40)
4th: Lundsild ($18,687.02)
5th: darknikson ($10,737.54)
6th: posten ($6,788.32)

There are 119 more events in the 2012 SCOOP. How many will you play? Check out the schedule, the results, and all of the stats at the SCOOP homepage.

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We expected a longer day when players returned to Le Sporting for the PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final this afternoon and we got it, with a day of tense action stripping a field of 130 down to 26, two short of the 24 we’d intended, led tonight by chip leader Geert Jan Potijk who takes 1,320,000 and the advantage into the penultimate day.

As play reached 1am tournament directors decided that enough was enough and that play would finish at the end of the level rather than when two further players had been eliminated. It is the Grand Final after all and no one was in any rush to put their title hopes on the line. A longer day tomorrow perhaps but if today is anything to go by those watching will not be disappointed.

Geert Jan Potijk

The day started at the crack of just after noon.

Max Martinez had everything going for him back then, having out flanked everyone to snatch the lead the night before. He was quickly scuttled though by Geert Jan Potijk (Martinez would finish in 87th place) who assumed the lead and then stretched out his advantage first to 670,000 and then, after a middle of the day lull, even further. With 27 players left he scooped a three way pot against Justin Bonomo and Andrew Pantling to finish with the chip lead.

The new look feature table

Other leaders today included another Italian, Sergio Catellucio, who assumed the brief lead by virtue of Noah Boeken’s demise, and later by crippling Erik Seidel. While Castellucio finished strong with 944,000, Vadzim Markushevski was also beginning to set the pace, the first in the field to break the million mark. Yet, again, even he wouldn’t keep his lead, bagging up 922,000 at the close, although he’ll be another threat when players reconvene tomorrow.

Others took prominent roles during the seven levels of play.

Mohsin Charania, who would have been leader last night were it not for Martinez’s Houdini act, continued in the same fashion that kept him out front for most of yesterday. He started by busting Rupert Elder then scored a big double up against Andrew Pantling, closing on 875,000.

Mohsin Charania

Dominykas Karmazinas was also showing the form we’ve seen flashes of before. He was among the first to take his stack beyond 500,000, then more, before Markushevski took a quarter of a million chips from him. Karmazinas paid the price and does not return tomorrow.

Vadzim Markushevski

At times it looked like the wonderfully named Tudor Grangure was about to get late middle ages on their ass, moving into the lead before Potijk. But Grangure was to endure a swingy day, recovering from earlier setbacks in a big pot against Markushevski. He returns tomorrow with 828,000.

Tudor Grangure

Perhaps one of the stand out players of the day was Pratyush Buddiga. Only a week after he finished eighth in only his third EPT in Berlin, Buddiga patiently managed his stack during the drought, then rode a surf board through the flood, busting Chanracy Khun to move up to 700,000 before finishing on 970,000.

Pratyush Buddiga

Along the way it seemed like the majority of the big names found their way to the rail.

Annette Obrestad ran tens into kings to depart before the money while Pius Heinz also went to the rail (or the €2,000 side event at least) empty handed thanks to Dimitar Danchev. Johnny Lodden followed, losing out in a three-way pot with Jason Wheeler. Faraz Jaka also busted before the bubble, which was burst by Adam Levy after three simultaneous all-in hands left Martin Finger and Andrew Badecker sharing the money for 96th place.

Adam Levy gets the bubble treatment

A few days ago Justin Bonomo was tearing up the Super High Roller, winning €1,640,000 at the televised final. He was doing similar work in the main event (albeit for a first prize of slightly less) until his chances were quashed in a three-way hand with Potijk and Pantling that cost Pantling thousands and Bonomo his tournament life, all while setting up the Dutchman.

Justin Bonomo

A final word should be reserved for Lucille Cailly who as well as being the last lady standing is among the leaders at the close. Solid, stable, emotionally mature and focused, if Cailly keeps that up (and there’s no reason to think otherwise) she could be on course for her first EPT final, bagging up 999,000 tonight.

Lucille Cailly

The full run down of pay outs can be found alongside all the live coverage today and the official scores of the remaining 24 players, on the official live coverage page. Links to features and interviews from the day’s play can be found below:

130 to become 24 with bubble on the way

Day 3 seat draw

Karmazinas on the rise again, Pantaleo falling

All must have prizes, well most

Charania and Martinez off to slow starts

Poker Champ Neuville keeps swinging, Seidel dominant

Finger bursts bubble and pulls out of PoY race

Passing the bubble and the discomfort that involves

Toth almost has them right where he wants them

Buddiga looking to maintain Berlin form

Super High Roller Bonomo turns his attention to the main

The world beyond Le Sporting

Catching up with Karmakinas

Cailly mashing, tempers fraying, 27 remain

Coverage of Day 4 of the The PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final continues tomorrow, when in the traditional way 24 players across three tables will be reduced to eight players on one. Play starts at 12 noon.

Monaco in the sunshine

Until then it’s goodnight from Monaco.

All photography &copy Neil Stoddart

Tags: 2011 | Baltic Poker Festival | belgian poker series | entertainment | european | featured-video | france poker series | italian | micromillions | news | World Series of Poker

There may be a long day ahead for some, but not for others. Within 20 minutes of the start we’d lost a table of players with the familiar refrain of “all in and a call” audible across the tournament room, which now looks in the throes of being dismantled as the remaining main event tables gradually work towards the far corner.

It’s a typical rolling start. Players, fresh from a night’s rest look energized and this positive energy lends itself to graciousness. “Good luck everyone,” says one player now out, departing for the rail after the briefest of work days. “You’re out already?” say his less charitable friends.

For those out there’s still plenty to hang around for at the PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. For a start there’s the €2,000 side event, which World Series winner Pius Heinz will now be joining following his main event exit. In the old days of the tour, when we all had moustaches and everything was in black and white, the main event was all there was to players on the EPT. When you were out you were pretty much free to leave. Now the incentive to stay is overwhelming.
True to form PokerStars has come up with yet another enticement to those considering packing up and calling this season done.

This is a trophy, but not at award

Monday night is awards night on the EPT. Café Llorca will be hosting the 2012 EPT Awards in the Grimaldi Forum, a short walk from here. Aside from trophies for Player of the Year, etc. there will be another special prize at stake open to everyone.

Players arriving at the party between 8.30pm and 9.30pm will receive a raffle ticket for the chance to win a ticket to EPT9 Barcelona in August. Naturally there are Terms and Conditions which you can ask about at the Customer Service desk at Le Sporting, but it’s nothing much more strenuous that you have to stick around until after the awards for the draw. But with the amount of free drink on offer, not to mention the spectacular views across the Monegasque skyline, it’s not a bad deal, or it wasn’t until we were informed PokerStars employees are not permitted to enter.

That’s on Monday night. Before then there’s a main event to complete and the bubble is beginning to squeak.

Tags: 2011 | Battle of the Planets | delicious | ept | italian poker tour | latin-america | news | portugal poker series | russian poker series | Super Tuesday | twitter | wcoop

Don’t be fooled by the table numbers. They may stretch down to table number 26 but we only have 17 in play with 130 players left. It’s something to do with fixed table locations for the TV crews. For the players it won’t make any difference, they’ve got the same objective: to make it down to the last three tables in play.

Stay with us all day. It’s going to be a long one.

Team PokerStars Pro Richard Toth

(Table, seat, name, chips)
1 1 Bruno Launais 121200
1 2 Pius Heinz 70600
1 3 Aubin Cazals 45400
1 4 Tristan Clemencon 198700
1 5 Rodrigo Dos Santos Caprioli 226000
1 6 Dimitar Danchev 92700
1 7 Kut Fu Chow 152400
1 8 David Sands 281800

2 1 Tibor Nagygyorgy 214400
2 2 Daniel Gomez 291800
2 3 Ignat Liviu 138700
2 4 Gaelle Baumann 120000
2 5 Leon Viellevoije 35900
2 6 Ziv Caspi 55600
2 7 Chanracy Khun 91000
2 8 Vasili Firsau 185300

3 1 Oleksandr Vaserfirer  20700
3 2 Andoni Larrabe Sánchez 147700
3 3 Patrick Renkers 92700
3 4 Hamad Almannai 185600
3 5 Christopher Brammer 267400
3 6 Roberto Menache 216800
3 7 Erich Kollmann 56100
3 8 Basil Yaiche 126400

4 1 Pavel Gonchakov 95700
4 2 Michael Telker 200000
4 3 Andrew Badecker 279200
4 4 Lucille Cailly 157800
4 5 Mikhail Petrov 69700
4 6 Maria Ho 44400
4 7 Mikhail Korotkikh 261300
4 8 Sandra Naujoks 127700

7 1 Geert-Jan Potijk 324600
7 2 Jonathan Karamalikis 158100
7 3 Dragan Kostic 72000
7 4 Javier Gil Candelas 32300
7 5 Marco Leonzio 93000
7 6 Georges Dib 124200
7 7 Max Martinez 456300
7 8 Ben Vinson 200800

8 1 Tudor Grangure 293900
8 2 Samantha Cohen 149700
8 3 Clayton Mozdzen 238800
8 4 Andrey Danilyuk 54500
8 5 Sergey Baburin 81300
8 6 Bryan Piccioli 187000
8 7 Philippe Narboni 33900
8 8 Juan Gonzalez Venzano 115200

9 1 Andrey Demidov 62200
9 2 Bernard Guigon 82900
9 3 Carlos Sanchez Vegas 107700
9 4 Amit Makhija 215900
9 5 Vadzim Kursevich 317800
9 6 Nicolas Chouity 138600
9 7 Alessio Isaia 173600
9 8 Rumen Nanev 43300

10 1 Faraz Jaka 140100
10 2 Maroun Jazzar 26400
10 3 Reza Mostafavi Tabatabaei 110000
10 4 Justin Bonomo 221900
10 5 John Andress 301200
10 6 Nacho Barbero 185000
10 7 Leo Margets 69500
10 8 Salvatore Bianco 86900

14 1 Ramon Romero 54900
14 2 Mohsin Charania 413500
14 4 Ilkin Amirov 126000
14 5 Jan Petersen 215500
14 6 Franck Blanc 83900
14 7 Andrew Pantling  193200
14 8 Vito Lonigro 154200

15 1 Guillaume Darcourt 274800
15 2 Andres Artinano 149100
15 3 Emin Aghayev 124300
15 5 Elliot Smith 188600
15 6 Mikael Azoulay 223200
15 7 Angel Guillen 63100
15 8 Ilan Boujenah 83000

16 1 Christopher Hunichen 200200
16 2 Frank Koopmann 276400
16 3 Jonathan Bensadoun 82000
16 4 Martin Finger 125200
16 5 Adam Levy 156700
16 6 Marc Zaicik 46100
16 8 Vadzim Markushevski 249800

17 1 Alain Goldberg 90700
17 2 Oleg Larichev 31100
17 3 Paul Testud 67400
17 4 Dominykas Karmazinas 238700
17 5 Giuseppe Pantaleo 294400
17 6 Ibrahim Ghassan 104400
17 7 Michael Dietrich 193500
17 8 Daniele Guidetti 142800

22 1 Erik Seidel 362200
22 2 Richard Toth 205800
22 3 Oleh Okhotskyi 67200
22 4 Noah Boeken  185200
22 6 Pierre Neuville 82500
22 7 Jesse Martin 104500
22 8 Philip Parsons 140900

23 2 Jason Wheeler 75000
23 3 Johnny Lodden 46200
23 4 Ibrahim Ghassan 138200
23 5 Adrian Schaap 227200
23 6 Rasmus Vogt 102200
23 7 Dmitry Grishin 175100
23 8 Lawrie Inman 303500

24 1 Stephen Chidwick 99600
24 3 Marcel Luske 48200
24 4 Maksim Kolosov 166700
24 5 Martin Vallo 136800
24 6 Yury Gulyy 77300
24 7 Sergio Castelluccio 211600
24 8 Santiago Nadal 267400

25 1 Annette Obrestad 130600
25 2 Joel Bez 45600
25 3 Igor Sharaskin 73500
25 4 Pratyush Buddiga 164500
25 5 Malte Moennig 98400
25 6 Bruno Fitoussi  245500
25 7 Anatoly Gurtovoy 339100
25 8 Andrea Benelli 199800

26 1 Griffin Benger 284100
26 2 Rupert Elder 196600
26 3 Matthias De Meulder 156700
26 4 Andrey Kuznetsov 35800
26 5 Fady Kamar 69700
26 6 Ghosn Fadi 128800
26 7 Dan Abouaf 234500
26 8 Clyde Tjauw Foe 98000

Tournament snapshot
Level 15: blinds 1,500-3,000, ante 400
Players: 186 of 665
Average stack: 107,500
Click here for live coverage and more features from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final.

Tags: 2011 | angel | entertainment | events | festival | news | pius heinz | season 8 | videos

Six levels changed the shape of the PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final today, as the remaining 394 players were ground down mercilessly in Europe’s biggest event, to a last 130, led by chip leader, Team PokerStars Pro Massimiliano Martinez.

Martinez took the lead at the very close of play, pulling off what some had noticed was a remarkable comeback. Yesterday the Italian had plummeted to just 10,000 after losing a vital flip against Vladimir Gehskenbein. Then, earlier today, he had his aces cracked by Fabrice Soulier. Undeterred he outflanked them all to grab the lead tonight, bagging up 456,300, succeeding where others had repeatedly failed.

Max Martinez

Nick Yunis has led a few times this season, each time though he has been unable to hold onto it, struggling with stage fright. Only Yunis will be able to explain it, and he pointed towards a mistake counting an opponent’s stack; but Monaco proved no less unforgiving for the talented Chilean who went from chip leader to the rail at the mid-way point.

The Italian rail in action

Vladimir Geshkenbein, who took the lead soon after Yunis gave it up, suffered a similar fate, although his self-confessed maniacal style might have had something to do with it. He also crashed out as the field began to thin.

As always the chip lead was proving a tricky token to hang on to.

Justin Bonomo, who started the week by winning the €100,000 Super High Roller, took it then lost it, although he managed to spend the day among the leaders. David Sands did the same, one of the first players past the 300,000 mark before Mohsin Charnia stretched that to 380,000 and then more, looking like the likely chip leader until Martinez turned on the heroics.

David “Doc” Sands

Mohsin Charnia

Joining him will be the remaining 130 or so players who will first face the task of breaching the bubble before securing a place in the penultimate day. They include the likes of Chris Brammer, Erik Seidel, Nacho Barbero, Richard Toth, Rupert Elder, Pius Heinz, Angel Guillen, Annette Obrestad, Nicolas Chouity, Martin Finger, Ilan Boujenah, Johnny Lodden, Faraz Jaka and Liv Boeree.

Liv Boeree

For many though, Season 8 of the European Poker Tour is already over. Gone today were Steve O’Dwyer, Barry Greenstein (C’est fini), Humberto Brenes, Isaac Baron, Ondrek Vinklarek, Chris Moneymaker, Phil Ivey, William Reynolds, Freddy Deeb, Tobias Reinkemeier, (breathe), Ana Marquez, John Eames, Chris Moorman, Dario Minieri, Toby Lewis, Daniel Negreanu, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Joe Cada, Fabrice Soulier, John O’Shea and Sam Trickett, the list goes on and on, and can be viewed here, as can the live coverage and chip counts from the day’s play.

Daniel Negreanu

The rest you can find in the articles published today, links to which can be found below…

Into Day 2 at Le Sporting

Day 2 seat draw

Your chip leader Nick Yunis

O’Shea seeks assistance from abroad

New look for TV table, same look for Obrestad

De Meulder and Mattern take on the media

So you want to be a high roller?

Northug and Hellner take their battle to the courts

Petersen on his EPT Berlin backroom analysis

Naujoks catching the eye

It takes us to Day 3, which begins tomorrow at 12 noon when the field will be reduced to just 24 players across three tables.

Monaco from Le Sporting

Until then, it’s goodnight from Monaco.

All photography &copy Neil Stoddart

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