PokerStars Announces 2013 SCOOP

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Friday, March 29th, 2013 | Written by Shane Larson

While the weather in some parts of the world might not agree, spring is here for online poker players. At least by the calendar of PokerStars, which has just released the details for the 2013 edition of the site’s Spring Championship of Online Poker – or SCOOP, for those who like to have a little time left in their day after talking about the popular online poker tournament series.

This year players can look forward to 42 events across over a dozen formats running from May 12th through May 26th.

Three Ways to Play Each Event

The original innovation of SCOOP remains intact for 2013. Each event comes in three flavors that vary only by buy in amount – small, medium and large (or, as PokerStars calls them, low, medium and high). For example, the first event of the 2013 SCOOP is a 6-max No Limit Hold’em tournament that offers a $27 buy in version (low), a $215 buy in version (medium) and a $2100 buy in version (high). All other events generally follow the same 1-10-100 ratio.

Highlights of the 2013 SCOOP Schedule

There will be a number of new and notable events at this year’s Spring Championship of Online Poker, including:

For the first time, Zoom tournaments will be a part of SCOOP
Two more events than the record-breaking 2012 SCOOP
New Omaha variants (Courchevel, 5-Card, and 5-Card Hi/Lo) represented in schedule
Staggered events make play possible for most schedules

The schedule released by PokerStars is a preliminary one, meaning that event details could still be altered. Historically, PokerStars has released these draft schedules as a way of getting feedback from the community. But we would imagine Zoom tournaments and the Omaha variants are almost certainly to stay. Expect some tweaks to scheduling, buy ins and possibly even the addition of an event if the demand among players is strong enough.

Guarantees for the tournaments – and therefore the overall guaranteed prize pool for the series – has yet to be formally announced. It is hard to believe that the total amount guaranteed would be less than last year’s total of just over $65 million in prizes.

SCOOP Over the Years

The Spring Championship of Online Poker began in 2009 as a natural outgrowth of the World Championship of Online Poker, hosted by PokerStars in the fall. The original SCOOP ran 22 events (with three buy in tier each) and payed out an impressive $40 million in prize money. 2010 saw those records smashed with $63 million in prizes across 38 events.

Black Friday definitely had an impact on the SCOOP in 2011, with numbers declining across the board. But PokerStars proved their resilience after exiting the American market with a record-breaking 2012 SCOOP that saw over $65 million dished out to players.

Keep an eye on our poker news section to follow the 2013 SCOOP as it storms toward what should be another historic, record-setting performance.