PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Event 2’s low stakes event was a fast paced frenzy of PLO8 action.
Often times winning a poker tournament comes down to being in the right place at the time. For PokerStars player thehoffa, the first "right place" of the day was the registration screen for a type of tournament he'd never played before: Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo. There would be plenty of fortunate spots along the way that paved thehoffa's path to SCOOP glory, but that decision kickstarted them all.
Before even a single player was registered for the tournament PokerStars guaranteed a $25,000 prize pool, which would have been met if just 2,500 players had turned up to play. In the end more than three times that many - 7,622 - showed up. Think of the WSOP Main Event from recent years and you've got an idea of the sheer size of this $11 tournament. With a first-place prize of $10,670.81 at stake, everybody had reason to let it all hang out.
The pace of play was frenetic despite the 5,000-chip starting stacks and pot-limit nature of the game. Never mind the split pots: more than 1,900 players were gone by the end of the first hour of play, and over half the field was gone by the second break. Play did slow down momentarily as the money bubble approached, but once it popped the shortest stacks all seemed ready to take the money and run. Meanwhile the survivors built stacks meant to last into the early morning hours when the real struggle would begin.
After 11 hours of play, thehoffa was one of those survivors, and all talk of deals were tossed aside as he rode his aggressive play to a victory over all.
Final table results (including two-way deal)
1. thehoffa - $9,900
2. -$eG mAsTeR- - $8,500
3. leonardop4 - $5,487.85
4. bstockton68 - $3,811.01
5. tmxzt829 - $3,048.81
6. mois64 - $2,286.61
7. Henry XIV - $1,524.41
8. Dr.Niebaum - $762.21
9. Afferrare - $518.30
SCOOP is still going on – qualify, register and play here at PokerStars.