PokerStars SCOOP – Spring Championship of Online Poker

The Spring Championship of Online Poker is a tournament series hosted by PokerStars in (naturally) the spring. It features dozens of events, each one of which is actually three separate tournaments with low, medium, and high buy-ins. In 2010, for example, the buy-ins ranged from $5.50 to $109 for the low tournaments, $55 to $1,050 for the medium tournaments, and $530, to $10,300 for the high tournaments.

Every SCOOP tournament has a guaranteed prize pool. If there aren’t enough entrants to meet the guarantee, PokerStars will put up the rest of the money. And in addition to taking home the lion’s share of the prize pool, every player who wins a SCOOP tournament—low, medium, or high—receives a custom “SCOOP Champion” watch made by Movado.

Since the SCOOP’s inception in 2009, 177,875 unique players have put up 661,894 buy-ins to 180 different events, producing prize pools that sum to over $100,000,000.

Like the WCOOP, the SCOOP has a special prize to honor the player with the most impressive series performance. Competitors earn points by finishing in the money in SCOOP tournaments, and the player with the most points at the end wins Player of the Series. In 2010, this honor went to Jorj95, the American pro George Lind. He received a custom trophy, a special edition chipset, and entry to EPT Monte Carlo, the PokerStars Carribean Adventure, and that year’s WCOOP Main Event.

PokerStars eagerly plays up the international competition aspect of the SCOOP, prominently displaying the winners’ home country in tournament results and leaderboards. They also track several statistics including money won, final tables, cashes, and entrants There are 191 countries represented on the list, and the US takes the top spot with 224,000 entrants, more than the next five countries combined. Unsurprisingly, then, the US also scores the most cashes, final tables, and wins. Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom—in varying orders—take the 2, 3, and 4 spots in most of the categories.