Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo Leads Day 1 of SCOOP-79-H: $10,300 NLHE High Roller
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A total of 105 entrants came out for the PokerStars 2020 Spring Championship of Online Poker -79-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, High Roller] creating a prize pool of $1,050,000 and play carried on until the money was reached with 13 survivors.
Finding the chip lead in this star-studded field at the end of Day 1 was Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo who bagged 4,225,689 in chips. Pardo is an accomplished player with over $3.7 million in live earnings. Last year, he won back-To-back High Rollers At EPT Barcelona in a span of just over 24 hours.
Pardo was steadily building throughout most of the day but he really caught fire at the end of the night when he scored multiple crucial eliminations in a row. First, his pair of fours held against Andras "probirs" Nemeth's queen-eight suited to eliminate Nemeth and shortly after, he took out "RickLogrado" when he flopped a set of jacks against Logrado's queens in an all in preflop situation. The next level, Chun Lei "SamRostan" Zhou was his next victim when he shoved pocket sevens into Pardo's ace-queen suited. The flop brought a queen and Zhou couldn't recover.
Pardo's nearest competitor is Linus "LLinusLLove" Loeliger with 3,615,128 and Brunno "botteonpoker" Botteon sits in third with 3,021,971.
The stakes will be high during the final day as four of the remaining thirteen players have already secured SCOOP titles this championship and will be going for another one including Jorryt "TheCleaner11" van Hoof (2,705,419), Steve "Mr. Tim Caum" O'Dwyer (2,106,022), Luke "Bit2Easy" Reeves (1,184,433) and Connor "blanconegro" Drinan (1,686,498) who will be aiming for his sixth title of the series.
O'Dwyer was responsible for bursting the money bubble when Sergi "srxakgirona" Reixach shoved his final crumbs with ace-three into his queens in a blind vs blind situation.
Other notables who took a shot at this event but couldn't make it through include 2020 SCOOP champions Joao "Naza114" Vieira, and Artur "mararthur1 Martirosyan as well as Timothy "Tim0thee" Adams, Orpen "OrpTheTurk" Kisacikoglu, Sam "Str8$$$Homey" Greenwood and Adrian "Amadi_017" Mateos.
The remaining 13 payers are all guaranteed to collect $22,260 but all eyes will be on the top prize of $241,957 and the top prize. Play will resume on Wednesday May 20th at 1:00 p.m. EST and action will continue at Level 19 which features a small blind of 17,500, big blind of 35,000 with a 4,500 ante.
giving O'Dwyer a set of queens. The 
river filled up the board and O'Dwyer improved his hand to queens full of nines, eliminating Reixach from the tournament in 14th place. 
and Pardo claimed the pot with aces and queens, sending Zhou to the exit.
and Lefrancois checked. Watson bet 115,000 and Lefrancois check-raised all in for 1,352,046. Watson snap-called for less with his last 530,680.
giving Lefrancois the lead with a pair of sixes and the 
river completed the board for Lefrancois to take down the pot, ending Watson's run.
and van Hoof took down the pot with queens and deuces, eliminating Michaelides.
giving Pardo a set of jacks. The 
turn and 
and Zhou rivered a pair of kings to win the pot, sending Dattani to the exit.
completed the board and Pardo raked in the pot with his higher flush, ending Kisacikoglu's run in the tournament