2016 SCOOP One For The Record Books

If poker is suffering from declining popularity then it was not apparent at this year’s Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) which turned out to be the biggest and richest since the series was established in 2009. In fact, the PokerStars sponsored 17-day festival generated a total of $91 million from its 56 events, which was $10 million more than the previous record set in 2014.
One of this year’s record-breaking tournaments was the $10,000 Main Event, which attracted 824 players to create a prize pool worth more than $8 million, up 25% compared to 2015. A number of notable pros subsequently made it through to the final table, including John ‘LuckBox’ Juanda (7th), Scott ‘gunning4you’ Seiver (4th) and Sean ‘nolez7’ Winter (2nd), with the eventual winner, UK hedge fund manager Talal ‘raidalot’ Shakerchi, who then walked away with a first-place prize of $1,468,001.
Another tournament enjoying a record turn out was the $1,000 Main Event which attracted 5,026 entries to create a prize pool worth $4.8 million, and was eventually won by UK player Andres “Educa-p0ker” Artinano for $578,621. Likewise, the $100 Main Event saw a massive turn out of 24,591 entries to generate a $2.2 million prize pool, with Brazil’s “mmleandro” crowned the ultimate champion for $195,000.
With the 2016 SCOOP finally in the history books, Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb has been named the ‘Player of the Series’ after cashing 41 times including making eight final tables. The 30-year-old US pro now boasts $6,358,922 in online earnings to go with the $2,125,979 he has won playing tournaments in the live arena.
Here are some other interesting facts from SCOOP 2016:
– Russia fielded the largest number of players with 61,154 entrants, followed by Germany (55,149), U.K. (54,987), Brazil (52,945), and Canada (43,454).
– Russia players cashed a total of 8,642 times, followed by Brazil (7,824), U.K. (7,475), Germany (7,398), and Canada (6,140).
– Brazil won 21 bracelets, followed by U.K. (20), Canada (14), Germany (14), and Russia (11).
-U.K. players won $10,200,660 in prize money, followed by Canada ($10,124,268), Brazil ($5,947,618), Russia ($5,114,771), and Germany ($4,416,537).