Hey, an old guy won a major online poker tournament! There's harmonious balance in the universe after all! Talal ‘raidalot' Shakerchi, a British hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and high-stakes player who has more than paid his dues in the trenches, won the 2016 SCOOP Main Event for a sick $1.4 million score. Not too shabby for a $10K investment. Also, Shaun Deeb won the SCOOP Player of the Series. Even though he did not win a bracelet, he cashed in 41 events an advanced to nine eight tables. The most events won? Shawn ‘buck21' Buchanan shipped 3 bracelets and now has 6, but he trails Calvin Anderson, who has 7. And yes, the Brazilians dominated SCOOP with 21 total bracelets.
The 2016 SCOOP has come and gone. They gave away nearly $91 million in prizes, which doubled the advertised guarantee of $45 Million. Initially, the 55-event Spring Championship of Online Poker boasted three buy-in levels for a total of 165 tournaments. Midway through SCOOP, the suits at PokerStars HQ added an additional event (or three tournaments) for a total of 56 events and 168 tournaments. Yeah, they gave away 168 bracelets and Brazil won at least 21! Shawn ‘buck21' Buchanan , the Canadian grinding machine, won three events to move into sole possession of second place on the bracelet list. Calvin ‘cal42688' Anderson won his seventh bracelet this year, which tops everyone in the history of SCOOP. Multiple bracelets were also won by Mike ‘goleafsgoeh' Leah, ‘otitov', and ‘SsicK_OnE.'
The $10,000 buy-in SCOOP Main Event Championship featured 824 total entrants (713 original runners plus 111 extra bullets fired). The total prize pool topped over $8 million with $1.4 set aside for first place. The Main Event came with a $4 million guarantee and at least $1 million for first place. The final tally doubled the guarantee and the actual first place payday exceeded the $1M promise.
The final table also featured Scott Seiver and John Juanda, but in the end British high-roller regular and financial guru Talal ‘raidalot' Shakerchi shipped the Main Event for his first major online score. Not that he needed the $1.4 million first place prize. The hedge fund manager is one of the wealthiest men in the London financial sector. Read Shamus final table report here.
Shaun Deeb did not win any SCOOPs this year, however, he had such a dominant run that he won another SCOOP Player of the Series award. This one also comes with a $20K cash bonus. Deeb advanced to eight final tables and whiffed on all eight. However, he cashed in 41 total events. Talk about an impressive 2+ week output. Old-school grinding pays off for the OG Waffle Crush.
2016 SCOOP - Main Event
SCOOP-54-H ($10,000 NL Hold'em Main Event)
Entries: 824 (713 players, 111 re-entries)
Prize pool: $8,000,001.76
Places paid: 99
1. Talal ‘raidalot' Shakerchi (United Kingdom) $1,468,000.88
2. Sean ‘Nolez7' Winter (Romania) $1,048,000.23
3. s0nny_bLacCk (Thailand) $792,000.17
4. Scott ‘gunning4you' Seiver (Canada) $596,000.13
5. Markku ‘markovitsus' Koplimaa (Estonia) $416,000.09
6. Pablo ‘pablotenisis' Fernandez (Mexico) $336,000.07
7. Luckbox (Japan) $256,000.05
8. IReadB00ks (Denmark) $176,000.03
9. EvnomiYa (Russia) $104,000.02
The Medium version of the Main Event had a $1,000 buy-in and was won by Spanish pro Andres 'Educa-p0ker' Artinano faded 5,026 players to win $578K as part of a four-way deal with a pair of American online exiles – Jordan 'Jymaster11' Young and Jerry 'hummylun' Wong. You can read that recap (written by yours truly) here. The Low version of the Main Event had a $100 buy-in and it was won by a Brazilian. Fitting ending since Brazil crushed SCOOP this year with 21 total bracelets. Brazil's ‘mmleandro' shipped the low Main Event for $195,000.
Okay, so a lot of notables shipped SCOOP titles this year. Here's a list compiled by PokerStars HQ… Rafael ‘GM_VALTER' Moraes, Luke ‘lb6121' Schwartz, James ‘Andy McLEOD' Obst, Shawn ‘buck21' Buchanan, Stephen ‘stevie444' Chidwick, Marco ‘NoraFlum' Johnson, Matt ‘plattsburgh' Vengrin, Nick ‘The Takeover' Schulman, Dan ‘Danny98765' Smith, Tom ‘tjbentham' Bentham, Mike ‘goleafsgoeh' Leah, Paul ‘paulgees81' Volpe, Calvin ‘cal42688' Anderson, Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier, Doug ‘WCG|Rider' Polk, Matthew ‘MUSTAFABET' Ashton, Fabrizio ‘SixthSenSe19' Gonzalez, Nick ‘GripDsNutz' Grippo, Daniel ‘w00ki3z' Cates, and of course... Talal ‘raidalot' Shakerchi.
Here's some stats that PokerStars PR folks sent me and I'll simply cut and paste it…
SCOOP 2016 STATS
- $90,984,283.44 – total prizes awarded.
- $1,468,000.88 – first prize won by $10,000 Main Event High champion Talal ‘raidalot' Shakerchi.
- 61,154 – number of entrants from Russia – the highest of the series; over 6,000 more than Germany, which had the second highest number of entries.
- 123 – number of final tables made by UK players, six more than the second best-performing country, Canada.
- 41 – number of cashes by Shaun ‘shaundeeb' Deeb – the highest this series; ‘Colisea' and ‘SixthSenSe19' each had 40.
- 21 – number of events won by Brazil, one more than second-placed UK, and seven more than Canada in third.
- 8 – number of final tables made by Shaun ‘shaundeeb' Deeb – the highest this series; Calvin ‘cal42688' Anderson and Jason Mercier both made six.
- 3 – number of events won by Shawn ‘buck21' Buchanan this series, which put him on six career SCOOP titles, one behind Calvin ‘cal42688' Anderson, who leads on seven. Buchanan needs one Sunday Million win to become the first PokerStars Grand Slam winner (TCOOP, SCOOP, WCOOP, Sunday Million titles).
- 2 – number of events won by three players this series; Mike ‘goleafsgoeh' Leah, ‘otitov', and ‘SsicK_OnE' all helped themselves to multiple titles.
