Another round up of news from the PokerStars Spring Championships of Online Poker: including braces from Luke Schwartz, Mike Watson, and Woody Deck, and Jason Mercier continues to perform brilliantly at the top of the High Leaderboard.
Mike ’SirWatts’ Watson is having a quite marvelous Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) series. He is currently sitting third in the (H) Leaderboard and third in the (M) Leaderboard after making a series of final table appearances and bagging two titles.
His latest victory came in Event #37: $2,100 (H) Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) Hi/Lo. 142 entrants created a total prizepool of $284,000, and Watson defeated Team PokerStars Pro Naoya ‘nkeyno’ Kihara in heads-up action to take the first prize of $65,320.
Before this season Watson had failed to win a SCOOP title. Now he has two, with his maiden victory coming in Event #29 $215 (M) PLO Re-Entry, after defeating 228 players to capture the first prize of $58,368.
Watson is one of eight players to win multiple SCOOP titles this season: Jason Mercier heads that list with three, dragonwarrior, Marek_heinz, puropoker123, Woody Deck, Nicolas Chouity and a certain Luke Schwartz each picking up a brace.
Schwartz Scoops Twice
We don’t see much of Luke ‘lb6121’ Schwartz at the live tournament tables these days. His duties as a father, and the high stakes cash games keeping him busy.
But when he does chuck his two pennies in, Schwartz can play tournament poker with the best of them, as proved by his two 2015 SCOOP victories.
The Brits latest victory coming in Event #40: $215 (M) No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Turbo, Zoom. He defeated 2,324 entrants to take the first prize of $74,368; Jon ‘apestyles’ van Fleet finishing third for $40,484.08. Schwartz also won Event #27: $1,050 (H) Pot-Limit 5-Card Omaha Hi/Lo (6-Max) for $69,268.09. It was the fourth SCOOP title of his career.
Double for Deck
Woody ‘plpaya’ Deck also finished off the series with his second SCOOP win. Event #39: $700 (H) H.O.R.S.E attracted 245 players and Deck bested a final table that included Ozzy Sheikh (3rd) and Mike Watson (6th). His victory follows on from his success in Event #13: $215 (M) Stud when he topped a huge field of 5,949 players to take the first prize of $10,206. He is the 14th player to win three SCOOP titles or more.
Mercier Tops the Leaderboard
Jason Mercier continued his pursuit of a record-tying fourth SCOOP title, in a single season, but couldn’t close it out finishing third in Event #35: $215 (M) 8-Game.
Dzmitry ‘Colisea’ Urbanovich, and PokerNews Sideline reporter Remko ‘happyfreaked’ Rinkema joined Mercier at the final table, and it was the Dutch reporter who left with most of the money, after cutting a two-way deal once Mercier was eliminated in third.
Rinkema walked away with $18,195.21, but couldn’t overcome Danish player ‘Toby Work’ in heads-up action. Mercier picked up $11,234 for his third place, but more importantly, he continued to rack up points maintaining his lead at the top of the SCOOP High Leaderboard.
Leaderboard Heading Into the Final Day
1st. Jason Mercier 405 points
2nd. Victor Lemos 365 points
3rd. Mike Watson 330 points
4th. Nicolas Chouity 290 points
5th. Calvin Anderson 285 points
