With apologies to American poker players, who can’t join in the fun, PokerStars has released the full schedule for the 2014 Spring Championship of Online Poker, and promises it’ll be the richest online poker series in history, with a mind-boggling $40,000,000 in guaranteed prizes spread over 135 tournaments.
Running from May 14th to 18th, SCOOP 2014 is boasting 13 tournaments with $1 million-plus guarantees and 90 tournaments with $100k-plus guarantees. SCOOP has been breaking records each year since its 2009 inception – last year the championship paid out $75, 585,435.05 in prize money, and, with three extra events this year, 2014 will very likely exceed that.
So what’s new? Well, for the first time there will be three events on each day of the series. As usual, there will be a smorgasbord of variations and formats to choose from – 18 different games in 15 different formats, to be exact – with the addition of re-entry tournaments and Progressive Super-Knockouts for the 2014 championships.
From Standard to Exotic
Players can choose to play all kinds of games, ranging from the standard to the exotic, with Badugi, 5-Card Omaha Hi/Lo, Single Draw 2-7, 5-Card Draw all on the menu. And of course, SCOOP, as always, is structured to allow players of all pockets to take part with its unique three tiers of buy-in levels (low, medium and high), which means tournament buy-ins range from $5.50 to $21,000, essentially transforming 35 events into 135 tournaments.
The highlight of the championship, of course, is the Main Event, on May 18 at 14:30 ET. The buy-in structure will be $109, $1,050 and $10,300, with guarantees of $1m, $2m and $3m, respectively. There will also be a $21,000 High Roller Heads-Up tournament on May 17th that promises to attract some of the world’s top players.
Four Leader Boards
SCOOP’S structure throws up three Player of the Year leader boards, in the low, medium and high categories, as well as the overall best player. The first three winners will receive a trophy and 2015 PCA package, with the overall winner getting a Trophy and an EPT Grand Final 2015 package. There will also be special prizes for the first 250 places on the Low Leader Board, the first 50 in the Medium, and the first ten in the High.
Last year’s SCOOP Leader Board High winner was George Danzer, who said: “SCOOP is such a great series because the three-tier buy-in championship gives players of all levels the chance to take part in such a prestigious series. This year I’ll be aiming to go one better and finish top of the Overall Leader Board and add to my collection of three SCOOP bracelets.”
Online satellites are running at PokerStars.com with buy-ins starting at just $1. Come back soon, America, we miss you!
