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The chip lead is where every player strives to be during the tournament. That lead gives you some extra power, along with some added confidence to help you get to the end goal, a win. Although neto gol did not start the final table with the chip lead it only took one elimination to change that and from there, well another elimination and another then another before the rest of the field was gone and only one stood at the top. That one at the top was neto gol who took the chip lead and used it as an advantage on the way to eliminating every player on the final table eventually taking the first SCOOP title.

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The 30th event of the 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker was a No Limit Hold’em 6-Max, SuperKnockout, Turbo event. The medium version featured a $215 where $103 went to the prize pool, $103 went to the knockout bounty, and $9 went to tournament fees. By the time the hour-long extended registration ended 3,664 players had signed up generating a $377,392 prize pool where 480 get paid.

With the turbo structure it only took 104 minutes for 3,664 to become 480 getting the field into the money. From there they played 141 more minutes to get to the final six with c0mte leading the way.

A few Team PokerStars Pros and Team Online members made it to the money but fell short of getting to the final table. Leading the way for the PokerStars Pros was Randy “nanonoko” Lew who finished 106th place, one better than Vanessa “V.Selbst” Selbst. Both collected $471.14 from the prize pool plus any bounties that they collected along the way. Henrique “Hinrique.P” Pinho (224th), George “GeorgeDanzer” Danzer (315th), and Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom (381st) rounded out the PokerStars Pros while Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen (362nd) and George “Jorj95″ Lind III (418th) represented Team Online in the money.

Here is a look at how the final table started:

Seat 1: Runninggreat (2408414 in chips)
Seat 2: carlitos350 (1920037 in chips)
Seat 3: neto gol (3762354 in chips)
Seat 4: C. Darwin2 (1174482 in chips)
Seat 5: EaX40 (3899662 in chips)
Seat 6: c0mte (5155051 in chips)

Battle of the blinds:

The first elimination came in a battle of the blinds with carlitos350 in the small blind and neto gol in the big blind. A raise to 200,000 came from carlitos350 when everyone folded to the small blind. A raise to 521,232 came from neto gol which was called by carlitos350. The pair saw the [Jh][9h][4c] flop which brought an all-in shove from carlitos350 to 1,718,805 that was called by neto gol, who had carlitos350 covered. When their cards were revealed carlitos350′s [Qh][7h] needed any heart to pull ahead the [Qs][Jc] held by neto gol. That heart did not come on the [5c] turn or [Jd] river sending carlitos350 out in sixth place collecting $6,604.36.

Chip lead gets bigger:

Holding the chip lead gives you the luxury of playing looser and more aggressive. That is just what neto gol did with the chip lead on the path to eliminating the next player. It all started with neto gol raising to 500,000, EaX40 moved all-in for 1,391,430 from the small blind and neto gol called. EaX40 held [As][7h] against neto gol’s [Qh][Td]. That lead was only good pre flop as the [Qc][Th][3d] flop gave neto gol two pair queens and tens for the lead. The [2s] turn and [6c] river meant nothing but the end for EaX40 who collects $12,106.73 for fifth place.

Another elimination for the chip leader:

The play the lead up to the next elimination was all dictated by neto gol. It mainly featured all-in shoves pre flop from neto gol and folds from the other three players. Eventually it was c0mte who called one of those shoves. When the cards were revealed it was neto gol who was behind again with [7d][6d] against c0mte’s [As][4d]. That lead held through the [9h][3h][2d] flop but the [7h] turn changed things giving neto gol a pair and the lead. The [Jc] river sent c0mte out in fourth place collecting $20,001.77.

Can he be stopped?

It was much of the same three-handed as it was four-handed with neto gol doing lots of shoving and the others just folding. It was C. Darwin2 who did the shoving in the hand that brought the next elimination. Moving the 1,354,298 from under-the-gun C. Darwin2 was all-in. The small blind got out of the way and neto gol called, showing [8c][8s] against C. Darwin2′s [Jh][9d]. The [Ts][6h][2s] [Ac] [Qd] board was good enough for neto gol’s eights to eliminate Darwin2 in third place collecting $31,323.53.

HEADS-UP

Heads-up play featured four hands, two of which had Runninggreat folding from the small blind while the other two featured a shove from neat gol in the small blind. It was the second shove that Runninggreat called with [Kh][4c], neto gol showed [8c][6h]. Runninggreat was looking to get doubled up and the [Td][5d][5s] [Th] board was favorable to doing just that. It was the [8h] river that brought the end to the tournament giving Runninggreat $42,645.29 for second.

Congrats neto gol on your new SCOOP watch along with the $58,497.82 you get with the win.

SCOOP Event #17-M ($215 NLHE 10-max Shootout) Results (Reflects a deal):

Entrants: 3,664
Places Paid: 480

1st place: neto gol (Brazil) – $58,497.82
2nd place: Runninggreat (Canada) – $42,645.29
3rd place: C. Darwin2 (Sweden) – $31,323.53
4th place: c0mte (Finland) – $20,001.77
5th place: EaX40 (United Kingdom) – $12,106.73
6th place: carlitos350 (Colombia) – $6,604.36
*Reflects a deal

Looking for more SCOOP reporting? Visit our special SCOOP 2012 coverage section.

There aren’t many complex tasks in this world that you can accomplish in less than four hours. Thankfully for busy PokerStars players, winning a turbo SCOOP tournament is perfectly achievable in that timeframe. All you need is some serious poker skills and a little more card luck than all of your opponents – no big deal, right?

Today’s top-dollar SCOOP event played out just like any other turbo bounty event, with a twist: instead of awarding a small percentage of each player’s buy-in as a bounty to the player who knocked him out, half of the buy-in was up for grabs as a bounty. In this case that meant $1,025 reward for each knockout, giving everyone plenty of motivation to play their best poker.

Late registration stayed open for an hour, yielding a 661-player field and $677,525 prize pool with an additional $677,525 in bounties up for grabs. As you might expect, it took just an hour and 40 minutes of turbo poker to reach the money at 78th place. Team PokerStars Pro was represented in the money by George Danzer, who finished in 60th place ($2,303.58), while Team Online also sported a lone casher, Randy “nanonoko” Lew, in 47th place ($2,710.10).

A black belt in Kung FU_15

By the time the second break arrived there were just 53 players remaining. Nick “FU_15″ Maimone, winner of more than $3.25 million lifetime in online poker tournaments, led the way with 224K. Over the course of the next hour he would employ that stack in service of a highly aggressive game of poker. He just missed a final table in this year’s SCOOP Event 1-H, finishing in 7th place, but this time around Maimone couldn’t be stopped from earning a shot at the title. He maintained his chip lead all the way through to the final table, which began just before the third break with this lineup:

Seat 1: G1a1u1s1s (556,121 in chips)
Seat 2: FU_15 (862,367 in chips)
Seat 3: bleu329 (515,416 in chips)
Seat 4: pmahoney22 (453,973 in chips)
Seat 5: OBVAMENTS (521,847 in chips)
Seat 6: Gonzalez259 (395,276 in chips)

Two of the last six players were sitting at their second career SCOOP final tables. In Seat 3, bleu329 was returning after a 4th-place finish in the 2009 SCOOP Event 2-H ($1,050 PLO/8). Meanwhile, over in Seat 4, pmahoney22 was looking to improve on a 6th-place finish in the 2010 SCOOP $109 Main Event. OBVAMENTS was at a first career SCOOP final table but had previously scored wins in the Daily $100 with Rebuys, the Nightly Hundred Grand, and the Sunday $80K, not to mention two Sunday Million final tables. G1a1u1s1s was at a first SCOOP final table, but had some previous big tourney endgame experience with a runner-up finish in The Bigger $109 last year. Only Gonzalez259 was in unprecedented territory; the German player was set to earn a career-best score regardless of how the tournament ended.

With blinds at 7K/14K and antes at 1.75K as the final table began, Nick Maimone got right to work. He won the first pot of the final table, a 582K-chip monster that saw him call G1a1u1s1s’ min-raise in the big blind, check behind on the [2s] [Ts] [9h] flop, hit a king-high straight on the [Qd] turn, and get two streets of value from his opponent. That moved Maimone up to 1.15M chips just as the break began.

Short-stack roulette

With Maimone’s big stack to worry and only about 15 big blinds separating second-placed OBVAMENTS from the now-short-stacked G1a1u1s1s, the action stayed relatively sedate over the next two blind levels. Then Gonzalez259 and G1a1u1s1s broke up the pattern with a big clash toward the end of the 12.5K/25K/3,125 level. Looking to steal, Gonzalez259 moved in for 208K with [Tc] [8c] and only G1a1u1s1s was willing to show down. The Brazilian player’s [As] [Kc] was ahead, but the [8h] [Js] [4d] [Jh] [9h] board gave Gonzalez259 a reprieve (and the 467K-chip pot).

From there, the encroaching blinds and antes forced the action as all the short stacks looked for a way to stay in the game. As it turned out, most of them did in fact find that way. G1a1u1s1s turned 79K in chips and [Jc] [9s] into a 323K stack at the expense of OBVAMENTS, and followed it up by doubling through pmahoney22 with [Ad] [Jd] against [Ts] [Tc]. Two hands later pmahoney22, who was left with just 55K in chips, triumphed in a 167K blind-versus-blind showdown with [7s] [5c] against bleu329′s [8s] [4s] and then hit paydirt with [9d] [2s] against OBVAMENTS’ [Kc] [Qc] in another blind-versus-blind hand for a 349K-chip pot. Two hands after that OBVAMENTS kept the trend going, turning the 109K short stack into a 249K contender by winning with [As] [Th] against G1a1u1s1s’ [Ac] [9c]. The end result of all this back-and-forth was an increase in the blinds and antes to 17.5K/35K/4,375 without any eliminations.

The floodgates open

The player who had been the least active through that stretch was Maimone, who nevertheless held on to the lead throughout. Once he got active, though, he headed in the wrong direction, losing pots against two different all-in bets opponents. But then he scored the first knockout of the final table on this hand when G1a1u1s1s moved all-in from the small blind for 331K with [Jh] [9h] and Maimone woke up with [Kd] [Kh]. The [Th] [3c] [7h] flop looked like all sorts of trouble , and the [Qs] turn only added to the danger, but the [Ad] on the river sent G1a1u1s1s to the rail in 6th place ($21,071.02).

Seven hands later, on the 20K/40K/5K level, blind-versus-blind play would lead another player to the exit. This time around the action folded to pmahoney22 in the small blind; holding [Ks] [Qs], and with OBVAMENTS in the big blind holding a 230J stack, pmahoney22 shoved for 625K. OBVAMENTS made the call with [Qh] [5s], only to watch the board run out [3d] [Ad] [Jc] [8s] [7c]. With that OBVAMENTS became the 5th-place finisher, earning $33,876.25.

A deal and a reveal

At that point the last four players quickly agreed to take a look at the numbers for a potential deal. While they waited they got to talking about how many bounties each had claimed so far:

FU_15 said, “pm how many bounties u got?”
pmahoney22 said, “i think 9″
bleu329 said, “i got 4 ”
U_15 said, “i got 20″
FU_15 said, “lol”
Gonzalez259 said, “we have 3″
pmahoney22 said, “wow”
pmahoney22 said, “i only got one after $”
pmahoney22 said, “on FT”
pmahoney22 said, “had 8 before $”

Within minutes the four had agreed to leave $8,000 on the table for the winner and chop the remaining prize pool based on ICM, so play resumed quickly. And once it did, pmahoney22 seized the chip lead thanks to a little bit of good fortune, picking up [As] [Kc] in the big blind after Gonzalez259 had moved all-in for 828K under the gun with [Ad] [Js]. The [5s] [9c] [8s] [8d] [7d] board gave pmahoney22 the 1.69M-chip pot but no bounty, since Gonzalez259 entered the hand with an extra 1,884 chips. Gonzalez259 survived the next three hands before getting all-in on the button with [Ks] [2h] and losing to Maimone’s [3s] [3c] to finish in 4th place ($75,584.78).

Just two hands later Nick “FU_15″ Maimone would hit a stumbling block for seemingly the first time of the tournament. He called with [Ad] [9d] after bleu329 moved all-in for 810K on the button but couldn’t win the coin flip against bleu329′s [8s] [8h] when the board came [3s] [Jc] [Jd] [5h] [Kc]. The 1.66M-chip pot went to bleu329 and Maimone was left with 73K with the blinds and antes at 25K/50K/6.25K. He managed to double to 153K two hands later, flopping two pair with [Qc] [2h] to outrun bleu329′s [Kc] [7h], but the second time around things didn’t go so well. Maimone made the call in the big blind with [Td] [9s] after bleu329 moved all-in on the button with [3c] [3h], and even though he held an open-ended straight draw by the turn on a [5s] [4s] [8h] [7d] board, he couldn’t double up again when the [Kh] fell on the river. With that, the player who had led almost the entire tournament walked away from the table in 3rd place ($85,615.51).

A quick finish

The two remaining players were both former SCOOP final tablists, and both were fairly evenly stacked, with bleu329 holding a 1.73M stack to pmahoney22′s 1.56M. Their stacks had been nearly even when the deal had been agreed upon earlier, so it was assured that one player would be walking away with $85K and the other with $93K, a SCOOP champion’s watch, and a first career SCOOP title in two tries. The only question was which player would fill which role, and the answer came on just the second hand of their final battle. As is so often the case, the hand started off quietly enough but quickly got loud thanks to a little help from the deck:

The win by bleu329 was the first for Thailand in this series’ history, making the win worth an extra-large celebration – and there was plenty of time for the celebration, too, since the tournament had only lasted three hours and 41 minutes. As for pmahoney22, $85,817.71 for second place was a fine consolation prize – and if past performance is any indication, there will likely be more SCOOP championship chances in this player’s future.

SCOOP Event 30-H: $2,100 NL Hold’em (6-max, SuperKnockout)
$400,000 guaranteed
661 entrants, $677,525 prize pool, $677,525 bounty pool
78 places paid

1st place: bleu329 (Thailand) $93,438.50*
2nd place: pmahoney22 (Mexico) $85,817.71*
3rd place: Nick “FU_15″ Maimone (Honduras) $85,615.51*
4th place: Gonzalez259 (Germany) $75,584.78*
5th place: OBVAMENTS (Mexico) $33,876.25
6th place: G1a1u1s1s (Brazil) $21,071.02
* – denotes results of a four-way deal

Looking for more SCOOP reporting? Visit our special SCOOP 2012 coverage section.

The 2012 schedules for Season XI of the World Poker Tour, as well as the 2012 WPT Regional and National series have been released.

The Illinois State Senate President suggested to the state’s legislators Tuesday that it may be time to look at legalizing and regulating online poker in the Land of Lincoln. With no states having intrastate online poker up and running yet, Sen. John Cullerton (D) wants Illinois to jump at the opportunity to be the online poker center of the United States.

Sen. Cullerton penned a letter to Governor Pat Quinn and the members of the Illinois General Assembly, urging them to pass a bill before the legislative session ends May 31st. Aside from competition with other states (namely Nevada, which may have intrastate online poker sites active by the end of the year), Sen. Cullerton fears the possibility of eventual federal regulation that could stop states from creating their own online gaming networks if they haven’t done so before legislation is passed.

Sen. Cullerton appears to have an understanding of online poker, writing, in part, “Certain forms of iGaming, especially poker, rely on large pools of potential players, and states that move swiftly to design a system that captures the widest audience of participants will have an advantage in terms of long-range success.”

As usual, not all of Sen. Cullerton’s colleagues are thrilled with the idea. Naturally, one of the opposition voices came from the Republican side of the aisle. Patty Schuh, spokeswoman for Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno, said, “If you allow Internet poker to be sanctioned by the state of Illinois, there are a whole lot of questions that need to be answered. Being first isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

Sen. Cullerton wishes to create an internet gaming division controlled by the Illinois Lottery, something that could make sense. Illinois was the first state to sell individual lottery tickets online, launching internet lottery sales on Sunday, March 25th. The timing was perfect for the Illinois Lottery, as that was the week of the $656 million Mega Millions jackpot, partially won by a Red Bud, Illinois family. While it has been reported that Illinois was the first state to allow internet sales of lottery tickets period, that is not the case. Some states, such as Minnesota and North Dakota, have been selling tickets online, but those tickets are only available in subscription form. That is, people must buy tickets in bulk, committing to recurring purchases for a certain length of time. Illinois appears to be the first state to allow its residents to by single tickets for any drawing, just as one would at a grocery store or gas station.

The first week of internet sales for the Illinois Lottery was a bit of a mixed bag. The timing was perfect, of course, with the record Mega Millions jackpot. With the launch on Sunday and the Mega Millions drawing on Friday night, sales of $425,000 were reported as of 3:00pm Thursday. Friday sales alone reached more than $247,000 by 4:00pm. But even the almost $700,000 total was fairly disappointing to lottery officials, as the big Mega Millions week made them anticipate much more. To top it off, the Illinois Lottery’s website went down for about half an hour on the day of the drawing.

Shaun Deeb won yet another event on Day 10 of the SCOOP, his third of the series.