Another massive poker Sunday of the 2020 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is behind us, with many of the Sunday majors playing to a conclusion today. Still, quite a few tournaments finished on Sunday as well, with twelve new SCOOP-champions crowned.
Connor "blanconegro" Drinan won the biggest one on tap, securing his third SCOOP title by defeating a stacked field in SCOOP 40-H: $5,200 PLO for $152,011. Read all about it in today's SCOOP report!
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Third SCOOP Title for Connor "Blanconegro" Drinan in SCOOP 40-H: $5,200 PLO [6-Max]
Connor "blanconegro" Drinan
After just over four hours of play, Connor "blanconegro" Drinan has won his third SCOOP title by taking down the PokerStars 2020 Spring Championship of Online Poker 40-H: $5,200 PLO [6-Max] tournament for a first-place prize of $152,011. He defeated "kjunia" heads-up who claimed $115,701 for their efforts over the past two days. The tournament offered a guaranteed prize pool of $750,000 and reached exactly that with the 150 entries which were collected by the 94 unique players.
Drinan is no stranger to success in poker tournaments, with 3 WCOOP and now 3 SCOOP titles among countless other accolades. Playing from Mexico, "blanconegro" had to defeat a stacked final table which included familiar players like Lauri "Lateski" Varonen, Ignat "0Human0" Liviu, and Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi besides "soldatikk" and "Sasuke234".
Portuguese grinder Joao "Naza114" Vieira came close to achieve the same feat as Drinan. Vieira captured his fourth career title on Friday and had a chance to make it five by the end of the week. Vieira navigated to a heads-up match in Event 39-M: $109 NLHE [Afternoon Deep Stack], but he wouldn't close it out this time. North Macedonia's "Pwndidi" snatched the $85,430.16 top prize away from Vieira who had to settle for a runner-up finish and $63,784.35.
The next high stakes progressive knockout tournament of the PokerStars 2020 Spring Championship of Online Poker is one step closer to crowning a champion as a field of 578 entries has been whittled down to the last 32 survivors on Day 1 of SCOOP-43-H: $2,100 NLHE PKO.
Leading the charge after nine hours of play is online legend "girafganger7", who has already cashed for more than $9.6 million on the virtual MTT tables. Nearly $7.4 million of that has come under his moniker on PokerStars, however, a SCOOP title is missing on his resume so far. The Belgian came close to victory during the 2017 SCOOP when he came second to Gordon "holla@yoboy" Vayo in Event #1-H ($1,050 NLHE) but scored the biggest prize of the five-way deal.
This event drew 3,419 entrants creating a prize pool of $1,709,500 and surpassing the initial $1 million guarantee, but the night left off with only 263 survivors.
Sitting at the top of the counts is "Rekond" from Andorra with 6,545,522, the only stack above the 6-million mark. "Rekond" was steadily climbing throughout the day and he was the first player to surpass the million in chips.
With 20-minute levels throughout the tournament, Day 1 was fast-paced and action-packed, but Rekond managed to remain atop the leaderboard throughout the day, closing on a strong finish to the night after scoring multiple eliminations including a double knockout.
Scott "Aggro Santos" Margereson sits in second place after Day 1
It took eight hours and a few minutes to reach the money in the 2020 PokerStars SCOOP Event #44-H: $5,200 NLHE [Sunday HR SE] $1M Gtd. The event drew a total of 264 entries (190 entries and 74 re-entries) and generated a prize pool of $1,320,000, which is set to be distributed among the 31 remaining players when Day 2 resumes on Monday at 1 p.m. ET.
”Sintoras” (5.2 million) leads the pack at the end of the day. Their journey to 5 million was punctuated with a double knockout that sent Ismael “Isidinho” Bojang and Joao “Naza114” Vieira” to the virtual rail by way of a flopped set of nines. The pot came with what wound up to be roughly 90 minutes left in the day, and “Sintoras” coasted the rest of the way without anybody truly contesting the chip lead.
Scott “Aggro Santos” Margereson (4.29 million) and Daniel “Oxota” Dvoress (4.22 million) finished the day second- and third in chips, respectively after seeing their chip stacks continue to climb as the evening went on. Both look to be among the many forces to be reckoned with when all advancing players resume their hopeful journeys to victory.
Other notable players to finish within the top 10 include Joel “Odonkor1” Nordkvist (3.21 million), Sergei “Futti8” Koliakov (3.14 million), and Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias (2.61 million).
While a ton of events will play to their conclusion on Monday night, a couple of other juicy tournaments are kicking off as well. Want to join in on the poker fun? Download PokerStars today and jump right into the action!
A former professional poker player with a background in sports marketing and journalism. Yori has been a part of PokerNews since 2016 and manages the content team.
