It’s that time of the year again when the online poker players get geared up for the Spring Championship of Online Poker. Some players can build their entire careers just from playing at the SCOOP and winning. It’s certainly not hard to believe that the SCOOP can be the start of something big, especially with the $45 million overall prize pool in the 38 events that PokerStars has promised to its players. The SCOOP will begin this May 8 and will end on May 23.

It’s for everyone

What’s great about the SCOOP is that everyone and anyone can have a bite of it. The $45,000,000 guaranteed total prize pool for all tournaments collectively is juicy, but it’s expected that the amount will be far more than just that. Last year, the SCOOP managed to gather $63,802,405 in all – which is really huge by any standards. Poker is getting more and more popular, especially with the improving economic condition, so more people are expected to turn up. As usual, the tournament will have the same structure as it did last year. The tournaments are more or less going to be the same, all of them with three buy-in levels: low, medium, and high stakes. Basically, this will give all players a chance to participate, even the newcomers whose bankrolls have yet to really grow.

The first event will be the No Limit Hold’em (6-max). Buy-ins for the low level will be $22 with a guaranteed prize pool of $300,000, $215 for the mid-level with a prize pool of $750,000, and $2,100 for the high level, with a prize pool of $1,000,000. It will be followed by another set of No Limit Hold’em tournaments, with the same parameters, except that it won’t be a 6-max tournament.

The Main Event

What people are really waiting for, however, is the Main Event which will be held on May 22. It’s going to be a 2-day event, so aspiring winners should be prepared for lots of grinding. The low level No Limit Hold’em Main Event will have a buy-in of $109, with $1,000,000 guaranteed in the prize pool. The mid-level will have a buy-in of $1,050, with a prize pool of $3,000,000 guaranteed. Finally, the high-stakes level Main Event will feature an expensive buy-in of $10,300, with a guaranteed prize pool of at least $5,000,000. Last year, Ryan “toetagU” Fair won the Main Event and earned himself a very impressive $1,163,804 by outlasting 614 players in all.