Day 11 of SCOOP saw 24 champions crowned. Among the biggest names to win another title was Adrian Mateos, hot off his win in the Sunday Millions. Mateos took first in the event 50-H, the $1,050 Progressive Knock Out.
For his first-place finish, Mateos won $84,110. More than half of his windfall ($47k) was from bounties on players he knocked out.
This is his second SCOOP championship title of the 2021 series. It also makes his total score up to four SCOOP titles overall. His biggest win on Stars was at the WCOOP when he took down a $25k heads-up event for $543k.
Mateos's trophy cabinet must be creaking at this point. As well as his impressive online showing, he has sixteen first place finishes in live events recorded on the Hendon Mob, mostly in $25k high roller events. Many of these tourneys dwarf his online results on their own. All in all, his live cash finishes make $21.3 million over the course of his career. He accumulated all that since his first live cash, just eight years ago.
Adrian Mateos is one of the few players out there with a WSOPE bracelet (Main Event 2013), an EPT title (Monte Carlo 2015), and a WSOP bracelet — in fact, he has two WSOP bracelets (2016 $1.5k Summer Solstice Event and the 2017 $10k HU Championship Event). He shows no signs of slowing down.
Halfway there
Yesterday's tourneys marked the halfway point in SCOOP. With $60 million paid out at the halfway point, things are looking a little shaky for Stars. GGPoker is running its spring series in direct competition with Stars. So far, GGPoker is coming out ahead.
The PKO event saw 477 entries, despite the $1k price tag. This handily beat out the guarantee of $350k. But despite individual successes like this, the numbers just look better for GG this spring. Last year's SCOOP paid out a record-setting $185 million in prizes. This year's SCOOP is on track for $120 million.
Right off the bat, GGPoker set their guarantees for an impressive $150 million, roughly double Stars' current projected payouts. The GG Networks paid out $20 million on day one of the festivities. Many of the tournaments have been hitting their entry caps.
Those caps were probably relics of their WSOP disaster days when server crashes were the norm. In response, GGPoker has beefed up its server capacity and added more tourneys with a combined additional guarantee of $2 million. On top of this, they've stacked their side event schedule.
You might have expected recent controversies to hurt GGPoker's bottom line. But if the hurt is coming at all, it looks like it is coming late. The event may have been a victory for Mateos, but it marks a definite defeat for Stars.
Featured image source: Flickr by World Poker Tour
