Over the better part of the last month, the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) has seen thousands of hopeful online grinders battle it out on the site for a shot at glory and a piece of the $90,000,000 awarded in cash prizes.
Along with the tournament tournament prize pools, players competed for the top spots on the four SCOOP Leaderboards (Low, Medium, High, and Overall).
Well-known English pro Patrick 'pads1161' Leonard, no stranger to leaderboard battles on PokerStars, claimed the top spot on the High Leaderboard. In the fall of 2023, Leonard put on a performance for the ages at the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), winning four titles and the overall player of the series award.
With back-to-back leaderboard-winning performances, Leonard further cements what we all knew already: he's a force to be reckoned with in all formats.
| Leaderboard | Player |
|---|---|
| Low | 'king153246' |
| Medium | 'tgrigoletti' |
| High | Patrick 'pads1611' Leonard |
| Overall | 'aDrENalin710' |
Team Lex triumphs in inaugural SCOOP League
This year, PokerStars rolled out an exciting new initiative -- the 2024 SCOOP League -- which saw four PokerStars ambassadors serve as team captains.
Lex Veldhuis, Parker Talbot, Fintan Hand, and Benjamin Spragg were each tasked with assembling 30-player teams comprised of a mix between online phenoms, community members, and other ambassadors. The individual performances of each player equated to points for their team in the league standings.
After an initial back-and-forth between Team Veldhuis and Team Spragg during the early days of the series, the Dutchman managed to pull away, largely due to Veldhuis' own triumph in the $5K Titans event.
The $140,000 win marked Veldhuis' first-ever SCOOP title and propelled him to the top of the SCOOP League leaderboard -- a position that he would never relinquish. Ultimately, Veldhuis finished with an impressive 3,020-point margin between his team and the runners-up on Team Spragg.
SCOOP League was deemed such a success by PokerStars that plans for a 2024 WCOOP League are already in the works for the upcoming fall series.
Champions roll call
There were a number of players that managed to score multiple titles during SCOOP 2024. Adrian 'Amadi_017' Mateos claimed a pair of titles to bring his 2024 SCOOP earnings past the $600,000 mark.
Benny 'RunGodlike' Glaser, the all-time leader in COOP titles with 25, put in another impressive showing during SCOOP 2024. The series saw Glaser pick up one title, in Event 75-L: $55 NLHE Turbo, further cementing his place in SCOOP history by becoming the festival's all-time leader in titles.
Overall Leaderboard runner-up 'FAL1st' snagged their own pair of titles in Event 66-L: $5.50 PLO8 (6-Max) and Event 108-H: $530 HORSE (6-Max, PKO). Legendary Swedish pro Simon 'C. Darwin2' Mattsson matched the accomplishment with two titles of his own in Event 16-H: $10,300 NLHE (Super Tuesday High Roller) and Event 114-H: $530 NLHE (PKO/Sunday Warm-up).
Canadian online grinder Matthew 'Stumpfed' Stumpf managed to snag impressive back-to-back SCOOP titles in a matter of just hours as he won Event 43-H: $1,050 NLHE (6-Max) and then Event 49-H: $1,050 NLHE (Turbo PKO, Daily Cooldown). 'ShipitFTW911' got in on the double down as well, claiming victory in Event 88-H: $530 NLHE (Deep Stacks) and Event 90-L: $215 NLHE (Super Tuesday).
Only one player -- Kelvin 'Kelvin_FP:AR' Kerber -- managed to pull off the elusive hat-trick of victories. Kerber took down Events 64-M, 64-H, and 78-H.
All of these impressive feats were outdone by the Overall Leaderboard winner 'aDrENalin710', who took home a four-trophy haul of silverware to go along with his Player of the Series title.
SCOOP Afterparty keeps action going
This year, PokerStars wants to keep the action alive with the inaugural SCOOP Afterparty series, scheduled for June 2 - 10. Over the course of the nine days, PokerStars will offer up $9,000,000 in guarantees across a mix of events, including a host of Progressive Knockout and Mystery Bounty events.
