"Sintoras" Leads Final 31 After Day 1 of SCOOP Event 44-H; Margereson and Dvoress in Top Three
It took eight hours and a few minutes to reach the money in the 2020 PokerStars SCOOP Event #44-H: $5,200 NLHE [Sunday HR SE] $1M Gtd. The event drew a total of 264 entries (190 entries and 74 re-entries) and generated a prize pool of $1,320,000, which is set to be distributed among the 31 remaining players when Day 2 resumes on Monday at 1 p.m. ET.
”Sintoras” (5.2 million) leads the pack at the end of the day. Their journey to 5 million was punctuated with a double knockout that sent Ismael “Isidinho” Bojang and Joao “Naza114” Vieira” to the virtual rail by way of a flopped set of nines. The pot came with what wound up to be roughly 90 minutes left in the day, and “Sintoras” coasted the rest of the way without anybody truly contesting the chip lead.
Scott “Aggro Santos” Margereson (4.29 million) and Daniel “Oxota” Dvoress (4.22 million) finished the day second- and third in chips, respectively after seeing their chip stacks continue to climb as the evening went on. Both look to be among the many forces to be reckoned with when all advancing players resume their hopeful journeys to victory.
Other notable players to finish within the top 10 include Joel “Odonkor1” Nordkvist (3.21 million), Sergei “Futti8” Koliakov (3.14 million), and Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias (2.61 million).
However, the bottom two-thirds of the leader board is also stacked with players like Jans “Graftekkel” Arends (2.29 million), Conor “1_conor_b_1” Beresford (2.21 million), Sam Str8$$$Homey” Greenwood (1.7 million), Kahle “ROFLshove” Burns (1.42 million), and Christian “WATnlos” Rudolph (952,000) being only a few of the names visible in the remaining field.
Many of those who did not advance found themselves out of multiple buy-ins given the tournament’s format to allow two re-entries. Adrian “Amadi_017” Mateos, Talal “raidalot” Shakerchi, Artur “mararthur1” Martirosyan, Steve “Mr. Tim Caum” O’Dwyer, and Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz were on the list of players who were already out of the mix when the homestretch loomed near.
One by one, the field dropped and players such as Team PokerStars member Lex “L. Veldhuis” Veldhuis, Ivan “Negriin” Luca, and Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo added their names to the list of those who would not make it to Day 2, and all of a sudden the field reached 32 and hand-for-hand play began. The bubble lasted for roughly half a level until RJYJYR got their last six big blinds in with ace-eight and found themselves unable to beat the pocket nines of Joel “Odonkor1” Nordkvist.
The elimination resulted in Day 1's conclusion with all 31 remaining players making it into the money and being guaranteed at least a first-level payout of $12,025. Play will resume Monday at 1 p.m. ET midway through Level 21 (25,000/50,000/6,000), and everybody’s eyes will be set on the first-place prize of $253,819.
PokerNews has updates coming your way for the rest of the tournament. Be sure to follow along all the way until the next SCOOP champion has been crowned.
to result in their elimination from the tournament in 32nd place. 
to result in his elimination from the tournament in 42nd place, leaving just 10 more eliminations needed before reaching the money and resulting in play concluding for the evening.
. However, they were in the clear just yet as the turn 
came safe to score the double knockout and become the first player over 5 million in the tournament.
, fading the wheel draw that both Addamo and Holz flopped as the two wound up eliminated from the tournament.
gave him a chance at a chop, but the river 
instead brought him a pair of kings that remained second best to Mergereson's aces.
gave Simao a flush and scored him the double.
