It’s one of the year’s most prestigious online tournament series, and has already seen millions of dollars in prizes awarded throughout the month of March.
But this weekend the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) on PokerStars' global platform will see the really big money put on the table.
Starting on Sunday, March 22, the SCOOP Main Events will award at least $5.5 million between them.
That guarantee is split across the three separate tourneys that will run at a choice of buy-in levels: The $109 Low edition will award at least $1.5M, while the $1,050 Medium and $5,200 High versions each have guaranteed prizepools of $2M.
Clear your schedule for a deep run
Turbo players or those with limited patience may need to take some deep breaths and settle in for the long haul, as each of the Main Events is set to be more of a marathon than a sprint.
Each is scheduled to run for four days and will start at 1:30pm ET on Sunday (the start time for each subsequent day’s play). Here’s how those days will play out:
- The Low $109 Main Event will play 17 x 20-minute levels on Day 1 and resume on Monday. Day 2 will break with 160 players remaining, with survivors returning on Tuesday to play down to a final table. That will play to a winner on Wednesday.
- The Mediium $1,050 Main Event will play 16 x 25-minute levels on Day 1, with Day 2 reducing the field down to 80. They will return for Tuesday’s Day 3 when they’ll play down to a final table, to be concluded on Wednesday.
- The High $5,200 Main Event will play 15 x 30-minute levels on Sunday, then play down to 40 on Monday’s Day 2. Day 3 will break at the final table, with the last 9 standing coming back to see it through on Wednesday’s Day 4.
Re-entries will be available for each: up to 5 for the Low, 4 for the Medium and 3 for the High.
It’s expected that Days 3 and 4 will be streamed to view online; details are to be announced.
FAL1st continues to dominate for Pick 3 teams
The end of SCOOP will also signal the end of our Pick 3 for SCOOP 2026 contest, which has seen hundreds of teams compete for the top spot on our leaderboard and the $5K Irish Poker Open package that comes with it.
Each team comprises three real-world players — one ‘big hitter’ and two from ‘the field’ — and with the end of the series in sight there’s little doubt as to who has been the dominant figure.
With 3,805 points accrued at the time of writing, the big hitter ‘FAL1st’ is comfortably ahead of the pack when it comes to helping the 99 team owners who picked him. There are 698 teams in the competition, and FAL1st’s total alone would put him in the top 35% of the leaderboard.
The contest’s current leader, Team StopLossing, has two other big winners — ‘zidix’ and ‘AmateurGOAT’ — alongside FAL1st to take a lead of over 200 points over its nearest rival heading into the final weekend of SCOOP.
But with many of the series’ 400 scheduled tournaments still to play — not to mention the Main Events — the door is still open for many teams to claim victory.
You can check the progress of your team here.
