Records tumbled on Day 20 of the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) with new marks set in terms of titles, runners and Twitch viewers. Get all the latest from the SCOOP tables…
TODAY’S HEADLINES
• Unstoppable Drinan wins PLO Main Event
• Veldhuis breaks Twitch record on run to 15th
• Belgians lead in two as hold’em Main Events hit final
• Five up for Lebanon’s Nic Chouity
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Magnificent Drinan makes it five: In what is surely the most spectacular online tournament series performance of all time, Connor “blanconegro” Drinan last night added yet another SCOOP title to his resume — securing an unprecedented fifth title from one festival. (It’s his sixth overall.) With three Omaha and one HORSE titles already in the bag this time, all eyes were on Drinan as he went to the final table of the PLO Six-Max High buy-in Main Event. Once again he was unbeatable. Despite yielding the chip lead to the brilliant cash-game crusher Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen for much of the night, Drinan overhauled his Finnish opponent in the heads-up battle to win $322,264.28. In doing so, he broke the record for the most SCOOP titles won during a single series, having already tied Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb’s existing mark of four. The final table players were some of the very best: Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger, Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi, Gavin “gazv101” Cochrane, Joao “Naza114” Vieira and, of course, Kyllonen. But Drinan has been untouchable this series and continued his heater on the very biggest stage.
Connor “blanconegro” Drinan’s tally hit five
Veldhuis breaks Twitch streaming record: PokerStars Team Online’s leading light Lex Veldhuis set a new mark in the world of Twitch poker last night when his run to 15th place in the $10,300 no limit hold’em Main Event attracted more than 54,000 simultaneous viewers, the most ever to watch a live poker stream. (Precise peak numbers to be confirmed.) Not only that, but Veldhuis’s channel was the most watched across the entire Twitch platform — beating even the superstar RPG streamers. “It’s insane,” Veldhuis said repeatedly as the news sank in.
Lex Veldhuis’s channel is ranked No1 on Twitch
Veldhuis downs Spraggy in battle of the streamers: At one point Veldhuis’s numbers were boosted by a “raid” from fellow PokerStars Ambassador Ben “Spraggy” Spragg, who was knocked out of the same event in 30th place…by Veldhuis. Veldhuis’s aces beat Spraggy’s flopped top pair, ending Spraggy’s night. “That’s the worst I’ve ever felt winning a hand,” Veldhuis tweeted later. Spraggy won $40,955 for his 30th place, and Veldhuis won $62,620.42 for coming 15th. See “Twitch Watch” section below for clips.
$10K chip counts
Michael “Merla888” Gathy: Leading the medium
Two Main Events are biggest ever: The Low and Medium tiers of the Main Event smashed their respective record turnouts. The $109 edition easily eclipsed last year’s 33,987 entries, reporting a 36 percent year-over-year growth as 46,238 entries were collected. Similarly, the $1,050 buy-in event drew by far the largest field in history with 6,475 entries, beating the 5,508-strong contest from 2018.
OFFICIAL SITE & SCHEDULE | RESULTS
LEADER BOARDS | ALL BLOG REPORTS
Five up for Chouity too: Another SCOOP stalwart picked up the gold medal in the medium buy-in PLO Main Event when Nicolas “niccc” Chouity defeated a 1,112-entry field to win $154,039.33 after a heads-up deal. Chouity already had four SCOOP victories, one from 2012, two from 2015, and one from last year, and this fifth success puts the Lebanese player in the exalted company of Shawn “buck21” Buchanan, Jussi “calvin7v” Nevanlinna, Jason “TreysFull” Mercier, Luke “lb6121” Schwartz, Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb, Mike “SirWatts” Watson and Benny “RubGodlike” Glaser as five-time champs. Chouity, who is also an EPT Main Event champion, agreed a near-even chop with Sweden’s “BomPang” and then won the heads up duel. “BomPang” took $146,539.34 for second place.
Nicolas “niccc” Chouity won his fifth SCOOP
Drinan may not be done: A quick postscript: Connor “blanconegro” Drinan may not yet be done for SCOOP 2020. Drinan currently sits seventh of 13 remaining in the $10,300 High Roller, which plays to a champion tomorrow. Juan “Malaka$tyle” Pardo leads, with Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger, Jorryt “TheCleaner11” van Hoof, Steve “Mr. Tim Caum” O’Dwyer, Simon “simon1471” Higgins, Luke “Bit2Easy” Reeves and Pedro “PaDiLhA SP” Padilha still involved too.
TODAY’S RESULTS
| Tournament | Entries | Prize pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
| 75-L: $109 PLO, 6-Max, PLO Main Event | 6,126 | $612,600 | The_Truht | Ukraine | $74,805.39* |
| 75-M: $1,050 PLO, 6-Max, PLO Main Event | 1,112 | $1,112,000 | niccc | Lebanon | $154,039.33* |
| 75-H: $10,300 PLO, 6-Max, PLO Main Event | 159 | $1,590,000 | blanconegro | Mexico | $322,264.28 |
| 77-L: $11 NLHE, PKO | 36,750 | $360,150 | Psych0P4th | Canada | $17,478.37*† |
| 77-M: $109 NLHE, PKO | 12,387 | $1,238,700 | smartgojc | Slovenia | $100,604.61† |
| 77-H: $1,050 NLHE, PKO | 1,386 | $1,386,000 | DEX888 | Germany | $166,605.39† |
| 80-L: $11 5-Card PLO, 6-Max | 5,634 | $55,213 | drope$tyle | Brazil | $7,854.23 |
| 80-M: $109 5-Card PLO, 6-Max | 1,581 | $158,100 | rajrajrippe | Sweden | $20,822.99* |
| 80-H: $1,050 5-Card PLO, 6-Max | 282 | $282,000 | kjunia | Japan | $53,827.35 |
| Daily totals | 65,417 | $6,794,763 | $918,302 |
†inc. bounties
*denotes deal
STAT TRACKER
Tournaments completed: 234
Tournaments ongoing: 6
Starting today: 9
Entries so far: 1,788,514
Prize pools so far: $110,431,754
First-place prizes awarded: $15,415,415
Totals refer to completed tournaments only
INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS! INTERVIEWS!
Laszlo Molnar
We’re catching up with a lot of SCOOP winners this year, all happy to share their experiences of winning big.
Most recently, László “Lackoo87gcb” Molnár who started this SCOOP admitting that he didn’t really like PKO events, but then won one and said: “I think I’m starting to like it!”
Click through to hear more from our long list of happy champions:
Previous winner interviews:
Cristian ‘Chapex’ Chapoñan: One for Peru
Jonathan “Corback_fr” Therme: Sunday Million winner left speechless
Nicolas “Nicoverlast” Wright: pacing a treadmill to success
Swedish pro Adam “pruttzz12” Jonsson: How to beat Urbanovich, Beresford and Kurganov
Vitor “vitoradiron” Adiron: “I’ll continue working on my failures”
Guilherme “teruliro” Orrico: Two WCOOPs and now one SCOOP
“plens” targets bucket-list EPT appearance
Tapio “PikkuHUMPPA” Vihakas: “I am as lazy as a human can be”
Catalina “catam18” Marmureanu”: A result for all women in poker
Paul “pistolp999” Kroezen: A triumph of perseverence
Adam “adamyid” Owen: Defeating end-boss “veeea”
Matt “MUSTAFABET” Ashton: Tournaments are practice for cash games
Antanas “Nr1InEurope” Bakaitis: “I’m no good at Texas Hold’em!
“MarkBang”: First out to last man standing
“thegodfisher”: Busy broker finds time to win SCOOP title
Oleg “Fukuruku” Vasylchenko: Poor student becomes richer
Michael “Malicious20” Cottier: $9.5K from a $2.20 buy-in tournament!
Dimitrios “papadatos69” Papadatos: Making most of downturn in tourism
William “Williaml666” Barbosa: Best feeling ever!
Last hand double-KO gives ‘PufuMiu’ win in Event #11-L
TWITCH WATCH
It was a record-breaking night on poker Twitch, with Lex Veldhuis setting new marks across the board. Though his Main Event did not extend into the final day, the legacy of Veldhuis’s performance in this SCOOP — as well as that of Fintan “easywithaces” Hand and Ben “Spraggy” Spragg — will last a long time. They all raised the level of Twitch poker streaming to new heights.
Here’s the moment last night when Lex knocked out Spraggy from the $10K Main Event. (You can also watch it from Spraggy’s POV):
And here’s a pretty gross moment for Lex a little later, when he was looking to a top 10 stack.
And even when all was said and done, Veldhuis was more than content with what had happened. There were more people watching his stream than live in his home town. “This stream made history,” he said.
Ready to sign up for PokerStars and play SCOOP? Click here to get an account.
TOP TWEETS
Nothing but mutual respect between the two PokerStars streamers:
You’re such a champ mate. Thank you so much and that’s the worst I’ve ever felt winning a hand. https://t.co/v9lRUEWnup
— Lord Lex Veldhuis (@LexVeldhuis) May 19, 2020
Live, hand by hand play WITH live 1st person commentary playing the biggest ever online mtt…for free.
Twitch poker is the biggest vault of free poker training ever.— Adam parsons (@Limpyadam) May 19, 2020
FOLLOW THE ACTION LIVE!
Poker News on the case
NLHE – $10,300 | NLHE – $1,050 | NLHE – $109
You can also relive how everything went down in the PLO tournaments, which concluded last night:
PLO – $10,300 | PLO – $1,050 | PLO – $109
In addition to all that, the massive Super Tuesday tournaments have spectacular fields still remaining too. They play to champions as well.
Super Tuesday – $1,090 | Super Tuesday High Roller – $10,300
COUNTRIES LEADER BOARD
It may be late in the day, but there was still time for a new country to appear on the leader board last night. “smartgojc”‘s win in the medium buy-in PKO meant a first title of the series for Slovenia, which becomes the 39th country represented on the board.
The top three nations — UK, Brazil and Russia — mustered only one victory between them last night, with “drope$tyle”‘s success in the $11 5-Card PLO bringing Brazil back to within three of the UK. As we now enter the extended period of the series, there’s still time for a lot to change in these standings.
Latest standings:
32: UK
29: Brazil
24: Russia
16: Netherlands, Germany
11: Canada, Ukraine
Eight: Norway
Seven: Sweden
Six: Austria, Mexico
Five: Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Finland
Four: Belarus, Poland, Argentina, Lithuania, Romania
Three: China, Peru
Two: Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Lebanon, Japan
One: Japan, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, Uruguay, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, South Korea, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macau, Cyprus, Moldova.
STARTING TODAY
Day 21: Wednesday, May 20
Welcome to the SCOOP extension! There are some PokerStars players who feel that this festival needed to be extended if only to accommodate today’s tournaments. Translation: there’s nothing quite so passionate as a Badugi fan. Yes, everyone who likes trying to make the worst hand possible using four cards is rejoicing today as their favourite variant makes an appearance. See “Get Schooled” section for more. The Badugi is sandwiched between two big no limit hold’em events for all those people who like things a bit more vanilla.
2pm ET – Event 81: NLHE 6-Max, Midweek Freeze
Buy-ins: $5.50, $55, $530
Guarantees: $50,000, $250,000, $350,000
2.15pm ET – Event 82: FL Badugi
Buy-ins: $11, $109, $1,050
Guarantees: $15,000, $25,000, $50,000
3.30pm ET – Event 83: NLHE 8-Max PKO
Buy-ins: $22, $215, $2,100
Guarantees:$250,000, $500,000, $500,000
GET SCHOOLED
With SCOOP now extended, there are still tons of chances to join the action. And if you’re thinking about doing that for the first time, or maybe are returning to the tables after a break, you will be well advised to read PokerStars School’s online tutorials.
PokerStars School has all the information you need on how to get involved, how to make sure you have the right bankroll, how to play the satellites and how to play the tournaments themselves.
It’s also the right place to go if you’re just “>dipping your toes in the badugi waters for the first time. They’re chilly…
Click through to get yourself properly prepared:
Am I SCOOP ready? Planning, bankroll, mindset
Gearing up for SCOOP – General tournament strategy
Multi table tournaments (MTT) course
Poker satellite strategy
PREVIOUS SCOOP COVERAGE
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