Tournament poker on the world’s largest poker site is a thrill unto itself. But playing in a series of events that rival the magnitude, the pressure, and the prize pools of the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour is a different beast all together.
PokerStars hosts an annual series called the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and although it is just around the corner, there is a new addition to the PokerStars tournament series family.
The SCOOP
The SCOOP serves as a mass gathering of poker pros, wanna-bees, and wish-they-coulds trying to make good on PokerStars now clichéd motto . . . all there to find the Poker Star within themselves.
The inaugural Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is only a week away. Beginning Thursday, April 2 and running through Sunday, April 12, SCOOP 2009 encompasses twenty-two events in ten days.
Each SCOOP event features three separate buy-ins, and act as three individual tournaments for low, medium, and high stakes players. So in all actuality, PokerStars will be running sixty-six total tournaments in a week and a half span just for SCOOP alone.
PokerStars ensures that players at every level will able be able to participate in the SCOOP. Each of the twenty-two events all boast a guaranteed prize pool. If the hype pays off, some tournaments will likely surpass their guarantee. In all, SCOOP guarantee’s a prize pool of $30 million.
There is an event for everyone. Tournaments of nearly every poker variant known to man make up the schedule.
Events
- Hold’em – limit, mixed, no-limit
- Omaha – high, high/low, pot-limit
- Stud – high/low
- Draw – 5-card
- Razz
- Horse – several variations
Each tournament is estimated to have anywhere between 1,000 to 30,000 players setting prospective participants up to navigate through massive fields and long, strenuous hours. Players will undoubtedly have to dawn their Superman capes and Phil Helmuth shades because they will be dodging bullet after speeding bullet. The winners will be those that can dodge the most.
Out of the millions of online players that flood PokerStars everyday, it is safe to say, the majority will participate in SCOOP 2009 at one level or another. For most, it is all about the experience . . . a story to tell . . . a chance to say they played for BIG money. For a select few, those that have the talent and skill we all wish we did, this will be their stepping stone to the big dance. This will be just another giant cash en route to World Series immortality.
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