Anderson Leads After Day 1 of SCOOP-74-H: $10,300 Main Event; Four Former Champions Advance
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The most-prestigious event of the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) has kicked off today with the SCOOP-74-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Main Event] and the initial guarantee has already been surpassed thanks to 401 unique players who purchased an additional 160 re-entries to create a prize pool of $5,610,000 so far.
A very familiar face of the SCOOP series sits atop the leaderboard after 15 levels of 30 minutes each as Calvin "cal42688" Anderson, Mexico-based mixed game specialist from the United States, already had 10 titles under his belt heading into the 2020 edition. A late surge vaulted Anderson into the top spot as he accumulated 2,732,146, some of which came in a pot against Ilya "Leqenden" Anatsky in the final level of the night when the Belorussian was bluffing with queen-high into a jack-high flush.
Second in chips is Canada's "AverageGreg" with 1,963,234 followed by Tomi "elmerixx" Brouk in third with 1,788,170. Other big names in the overnight top 10 are Pavel "MountainRo$e" Veksler (1,767,303), Jack "Swaggersorus" Sinclair (1,663,720), Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden (1,654,576), as well as SCOOP / WCOOP-Champion and three-time Sunday Million champion Artem "veeea" Vezhenkov (1,502,258).
Four former SCOOP Main Event champions made it through Day 1: Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro (769,206) and Mustapha "lasagnaaammm" Kanit (190,895) advanced on their second bullet whereas Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi (524,117) and defending champion Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza (220,675) required the third and final bullet to bag and tag the virtual chips. In fact, Shakerchi was the first player to bust in the tournament after his bottom end of the straight was no good against a flopped nut straight.
Two of the three PokerStars ambassadors that entered the field on Day 1 advanced. Ben "Spraggy" Spragg (501,088) and Lex "L. Veldhuis" Veldhuis (415,834) even started on the same table before parting ways for the remainder of the night. Unfortunately, Fintan "easywithaces" Hand was not as fortunate and was sent to the rail.
A glimpse of the poker talent still in the mix reveals above-average stacks for the likes of Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress (1,418,696), Julien "KroolhearT-1803" Martini (1,273,739), Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz (1,176,195), Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker (1,039,204), Jens "jeans89" Kyllönen (966,190), Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (947,526), Mikita "fish2013" Badziakouski (883,714), and Niklas "Lena900" Astedt (850,547).
Dozens of notables in the online and live poker circuit have retained their chances at a possible seven-figure payday while some came and left without anything to show for. Mark "AceSpades11" Radoja, Matthias "iambest2" Eibinger, 2019 WSOPE Main Event champion Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias, Linus "LLinusLLove" Loeliger, Adrian "Amadi_017" Mateos, Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen, Joao "Naza114" Vieira and Christian "WATnlos" Rudolph" already fired three shells and cannot jump in at the last minute anymore.
While the total field size is not set yet, it will be when the cards get in the air on Monday, May 18th, 2020, as of 1.05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. All late entries will receive just shy of 21 big blinds in level 16 at blinds of 6,000/12,000 with a running ante of 1,500. The late registration closes five minutes prior at 1 p.m. EST and the payout information will be provided once it becomes available in the PokerStars client.
Day 2 will play down to the final 40 players and five eight-handed tables, and the PokerNews live reporting team will be back then to provide all the action from the tables.