PokerStars Weekly News Update 5/14/2012

1. The 2012 SCOOP got underway last weekend, and has continued to thrive ever since. Currently, Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb leads the overall leaderboard with 430 points via 54 events played. Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is also doing quite well, with 250 points in just 26 events.

2. Limit Hold'em Challenges - A new series of online matches between high-stakes players at heads-up LHE tables. Players are invited to watch from the rail as the matches take place. The first has already finished, with Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu defeating "rUaBot" at $200/$400 LHE for a $75,000 victory.

3. Speaking of high stakes PokerStars action, there has been plenty of $100/$200 and above PLO going on lately. A few familiar faces have been back in action including Brian "$tinger88" Hastings, Ilari "Ilari FIN" Zahamies, and Phil "takechip" D'Auteuil.

4. PokerStars Macau will be moving to the newly renovated Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex. Satellites for the Macau Poker Cup are currently running on PokerStars. The series begins June 9th and runs through the 18th.

5. PokerStars has now reached out to online leader's SharkScope and Official Poker Rankings, in hopes of shutting down datamining once and for all. If you recall, Stars was successful in stopping Poker Table Ratings from tracking their cash games, and it appears they have now focused on stopping the SNG and MTT sites as well.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of #5.