Welcome to Day 1 of the 2020 SCOOP-74-H: $10,300 NLHE Main Event

Christian Zetzsche

For the 12th time, the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) will crown a champion in one of the most-prestigious online poker tournaments of the year.

The SCOOP-74-H: $10,300 NLHE [8-Max, Main Event] comes with a guaranteed prize pool of $5,000,000 and the defending champion is Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza, who has done the unthinkable and won the event in the previous two years.

The Vienna-based Italian defeated a field of 654 entries in 2018 and came out on top of a heads-up battle with Julian "nailuj90" Stuer, the final table then also featured such big names as Chris "Big Huni" Hunichen, Thomas "WushuTM" Muehloecker, Niklas "Lena900" ?stedt, Kilian "caaaaamel" Kramer, and James "JayP-AA" Park.

One year later, Speranza made the final table once more in a field of 662 entries. Again he had to battle through big names such as Dinesh “NastyMinder” Alt, Francisco “Tomatee” Benitez, Nick “caecilius” Petrangelo, and Preben “prebz” Stokkan. Stuer was there once more and had to settle for 5th place. In heads-up, Speranza cut a deal with Ihar "OMGitshunt" Soika and scored the next seven-figure payday on the virtual felt.

Former SCOOP Main Event winners

Year	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	Country	Top Prize	Recap
2009	502	$5,020,000	Jude "j.thaddeus" Ainsworth	Ireland	$963,338	Recap
2010	615	$6,150,000	Ryan "toetagU" Fair	United States	$1,162,350	Recap
2011	380	$3,800,000	Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro	Finland	$504,691.09	Recap
2012	517	$5,170,000	Nicholas "GripDsNutz" Grippo	Costa Rica	$798,675	Recap
2013	580	$5,800,000	Viktor "Isildur1" Blom	United Kingdom	$1,096,200	Recap
2014	657	$6,570,000	Ivan "vandir4rek" Soshnikov	Russia	$1,048,000	Recap
2015	694	$6,940,000	Mustapha "lasagnaaammm" Kanit	United Kingdom	$1,304,720	Recap
2016	824	$8,000,002	Talal "raidalot" Shakerchi	United Kingdom	$1,468,000.88	Recap
2017	693	$6,930,000	Charlie "Epiphany77" Carrel	United Kingdom	$1,200,899.97	Recap
2018	654	$6,540,000	Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza	Austria	$1,133,160.03	Recap
2019	662	$6,620,000	Gianluca "Tankanza" Speranza	Austria	$1,028,203.24*	Recap

All players receive 250,000 in chips and the first level features blinds of 500-1,000 and a running ante of 125. The late registration remains open for the first 24 hours until the restart of Day 2 on Monday, May 18th, 2020 as of 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. During the registration period, players can re-enter a maximum of two times for three bullets in total.

The tournament will play down to a champion throughout the next four days and all levels last 30 minutes each until the conclusion of the event. All participants have a time bank of 60 seconds available right away and will receive an additional 10 seconds each two levels.

Day 1 will kick off at 1 p.m. EST and features a total of 15 levels whereas Day 2 will play down to the final five tables, the penultimate tournament then concludes when the final table of the last nine has been determined. For the first time, the PokerNews live reporting team will provide conclusive updates from start-to-finish, and you can follow all the action to find out who becomes the new SCOOP-H Main Event champion!

NLHE SCOOP Main Event Schedule

Main Event	Day 1 Start	Day 1 End	Day 2 Start	Day 2 End	Day 3 Start	Day 3 End	Day 4 Start
$109 Low	May 17, 7:00 p.m. CET	End of 17th Level	May 18, 7:05 p.m. CET	160 players remain	May 19, 7:05 p.m. CET	9 players remain	May 20, 7:05 p.m. CET
$1,050 Medium	May 17, 7:00 p.m. CET	End of 16th Level	May 18, 7:05 p.m. CET	80 players remain	May 19, 7:05 p.m. CET	9 players remain	May 20, 7:05 p.m. CET
$10,300 High	May 17, 7:00 p.m. CET	End of 15th Level	May 18, 7:05 p.m. CET	40 players remain	May 19, 7:05 p.m. CET	9 players remain	May 20, 7:05 p.m. CET