The 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker is underway. SCOOP 2012 kicked off yesterday afternoon with two huge events. With so many players entering each event, the tournaments themselves could not be relegated to just one day of play. After a long grind yesterday, the remaining players in each tournament were asked to come back today to finish off their events.

The first tournament in the books was the low buy-in for Event #1. The $25+$2 tournament attracted over 25,000 players, setting records left and right to kick off the series. The $250,000 guarantee was blown away early, as the tournament prize pool skyrocketed to a massive $638,000. When the dust settled, the first-place prize was set at just over $74,000. a 2740 times return on investment for the winner. With so much cash on the line, there was quite the fight to the finish in the 6-max event. The final table action was fast and furious. Here were the chips counts and seat positions with six players remaining:

Seat 1: Blackbeaty t24,680,821
Seat 2: zebest_666 t45,751,508
Seat 3: Lundsild t19,286,692
Seat 4: darknikson t51,924,667
Seat 5: estofesto t68,862,402
Seat 6: posten t44,693,910

The chip-lead was held by the five-seat, “estofesto”, who would eventually find himself heads-up for the title with “Blackbeaty”. Blackbeaty appeared to have a nice experience edge, having done quite well in low and mid buy-in tournaments on Stars in the past. Besides this deep run, he/she had won the $55 and $3.30 re-buy last year for a combined $22,387 in winnings. Using those previous experiences to good use, Blackbeaty took down estofesto in a memorable final hand. After opening the button, Blackbeaty was 3-bet by estofesto to t18,600,000. The two had started the hand nearly even in chips, both sitting around t125,000,000. The flop fell Jc-8c-4h and estofesto led out for a modest t14,200,000 continuation bet. Blackbeaty then put in an interesting raise to just t30,000,000, practically a min-raise. Estofesto took little time in shoving his/her remaining stack, and was quickly called by Blackbeaty’s QdJd. Estofesto also had a pair of Jacks, albeit one with a much lower kicker (Js6s). The board bricked out with a 3s and Qh, giving Blackbeaty top two-pair, and the SCOOP Event #1-L title.

Below are the final table results:

2012 SCOOP Event #1-L $250k Guaranteed
25,520 Entrants; $638,000 prize pool

1. Blackbeaty $74,008
2. estofesto $53.209
3. zebest_666 $35,919
4. Lundsild $18,687
5. darknikson $10,737
6. posten $6,788

The next sub-event to finish was the medium buy-in tournament. The $200+$15 major attracted more than 5,400 players, sending the prize pool just past $1,000,000. With over $150,000 up for grabs for the winner, the final table should have been action packed. However, after “SpeckBasu” was eliminated in 5th place, the final four players decided upon a chip-chop. While it can be disappointing for a major tournament to end in a chop, it’s quite understandable with so much money on the line. Taking home the biggest piece of the chip-chop pie was winner “Heminsley” who earned $123,868 for a couple days work. The mid-stakes grinder hailing from the UK, Heminsley earned the biggest cash of his/her career on PokerStars. Previously, Heminsley had been plagued by runner-up finishes in the $3 rebuy, earning $7,497 and $6,902 for a pair of second place finishes back in 2009. All of those struggles were washed away Monday night, as Heminsley took down “com 157” for the SCOOP Event #1-M title.

2012 SCOOP Event #1-M $500k Guaranteed
5,423 Entrants; $1,084,600 prize pool
*4-way chop

1. Heminsley $123,868
2. com 157 $116,365
3. tracyer $86,455
4. jonwayne69 $90,882
5. SpeckBasu $30,748
6. mandza17 $16,269

The final sub-event, the $2000+$100 High buy-in tournament, finished up late night European-time on Monday. The tournament had a ton of big names involved, including the eventual champion, Alex “Allingomes” Gomes. Gomes is a high-stakes tournament professional who won a WSOP bracelet in 2008 in a $2,000 NL Hold’em event. His $770,540 prize there rates second to his win in the $15,000 WPT Bellagio Cup V the next year, where he earned $1,187,670 for his victory over fellow young guns Faraz Jake and Justin Smith. The final table he took down today was not quite as strong. His opponents appeared to be a bit intimidated by Gomes, asking for chip-chops at certain points throughout the final table. The final discussion happened between Gomes and his heads-up opponent “arturitooo” who would not give Gomes a guaranteed $250,000 with $15,000 left on the table. After the chop was declined, an hour-long heads-up battle ensued, with Gomes chipping away at his opponent’s stack. Finally, with just t900,000 in chips and the blinds at t17,500/t30,000, arturitooo made his move. Unfortunately that move was shoving his Kc9c into Gomes’ KsQs. The board came a harmless 3s-6c-Jd-5s-Ac and gave Gomes the victory and a massive $282,240 first-place check.

2012 SCOOP Event #1-H $750k Guaranteed
784 Entrants; $1,568,000 prize pool

1. Allingomes $282,240
2. arturitooo $211,680
3. raidalot $156,800
4. Str8$$$Homey $109,760
5. dirty.brasil $78,400
6. yasunori66 $47,040