The 2021 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) series is in the books, and it sure was an exciting event. More than $137 million was paid out to those who cashed in the 306 online poker tournaments over three weeks.
PokerStars hosts the online spring event each year, and it's long been one of the top events in poker. The series caters to players at all stakes. For each tournament, there are three buy-in points — low, medium, and high. This attracts thousands of entrants, from low-stakes grinders to the high rollers.
The 2021 SCOOP was the biggest ever, with over $137 million awarded over the events, with buy-ins ranging from $2.20 to $25,000. Field sizes were also all over the map, with the smallest event ($2,100 H.O.R.S.E.) attracting just 65 players, while the $2.20 No-Limit Hold'em event had 111,647 entries.
Unsurprisingly, the events that brought in the smallest fields were non-hold'em tournaments. No-limit hold'em is, far and away, the most popular form of poker. Even at the World Series of Poker, the non-hold'em events attract far fewer field sizes than the NLH tournaments.
With that said, every event in the PokerStars SCOOP series had a large prize pool. The only tournament with less than $15,000 in the pot was Low Event #78: $11 Fixed Limit Badugi 6-Max, which had $12,789. No event out of 306 had a bigger prize pool than the High Main Event, a $10,3000 buy-in tournament with 664 entries, creating a prize pool of $6,640,000. Only the Medium Main Event, a $1,050 buy-in tournament, came close with $5,903,000 in the pot. Five events had over $2 million in the prize pool.
PokerStars guaranteed at least $100 would be awarded throughout the series, and surpassed that by just over 37%. Suffice to say online poker is booming.
Tough competition
The PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker was an even bigger success when you factor in that the series had some serious competition. At the same time as the SCOOP ran, GGPoker hosted a Spring Festival, which became one of the biggest online poker events in history.
The GGPoker Spring Festival paid out more than $190 million to players who cashed in the various events. During just one of the weeks, four players received seven-figure paydays, with Joakim Andersson winning over $1.5 million in a high roller.
PokerStars has long been the most popular poker site in the world. For over a dozen years, the site has controlled a majority of the online poker market. But GGPoker hired Daniel Negreanu as its top ambassador, and PokerStars now has some serious competition.
And GGPoker isn't done. In May, they'll host a $100 million guaranteed WSOP Super Circuit Series, and then in August, a WSOP Online Bracelet Series for the second straight year. Although PokerStars continues to thrive, if they aren't careful, they'll soon drop from the top spot in global online poker rankings.
Featured image source: Twitter
