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The 2021 Spring Championship of Online Poker is almost here. The virtual shuffle-up-and-deal of SCOOP comes this Sunday, April 4, kicking off 25 days of SCOOP tournaments with guaranteed prize pools totaling $100 million!

SCOOP has long been known for its “three-tiered” schedule with “low,” “medium,” and “high” buy-ins for each scheduled event.

The “triple SCOOP” format creates three times the number of tournaments. That means this year’s 102 separate events add up to a whopping 306 tournaments.

That tiered approach also means SCOOP offers a wide array of options and value for lower stakes players. Indeed, SCOOP is the perfect series for tournament players who enjoy events with smaller buy-ins.

The guarantees are still big in the smaller buy-in events, and with large turnouts the prize pools can be enormous relative to what players pay to play — a fantastic (and fun) way to make a lot from a little.

Small buy-ins, big guarantees

If you enjoy the “micros,” SCOOP has no less than 65 different events with buy-ins $11 or less. Not only that, guarantees across those events total a little more than $3.85 million.

The average guaranteed prize pool in these events is just over $59,000.

These start as low as $2.20 to play, with most sporting buy-ins of $5.50 or $11. They come in all formats, too — freezeouts, rebuys, progressive knockouts, Zoom tournaments, you name it — with the full variety of tourney speeds and starting stack sizes represented, too.

There’s lots of no-limit hold’em, natch. But plenty of other variants as well, including PLO, PLO8, 2-7 NL, stud and stud hi-lo, Omaha hi-lo, H.O.R.S.E. and 8-game, 6+ and fixed-limit hold’em, razz and Badugi.

In other words, everything being offered at the higher stakes is also available to play for $11 or less.

There’s a similarly wide variety of options with $22 and $55 buy-ins as well.

No less than 54 events are on the schedule at those two price points, with their guarantees adding up to over $11 million. That averages out to more than $200,000 per event.

Low-stakes schedule highlights

Drilling down even more, here are some particular events that stand out as especially appealing to lower-stakes players, arranged by buy-in:

$2.20

  • Event #1-L (Phase 1’s all month; Phase 2 on Apr. 27), NLHE, $200K Gtd.

$5.50

  • Event #68-L (Apr. 19), NLHE, $85K Gtd.

$11

  • Event #28-L (Apr. 10), NLHE (Progressive KO), $225K Gtd.
  • Event #46-L (Apr. 13), NLHE (8-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO), $125K Gtd.
  • Event #95-L (Apr. 26), NLHE (8-Max, Progressive KO, Series Saver), $200K Gtd.

$22

  • Event #1-M (Phase 1’s all month; Phase 2 on Apr. 27), NLHE, $1M Gtd.
  • Event #37-L (Apr. 12), NLHE (6-Max, Progressive KO), $300K Gtd.

$55

  • Event #33-L (Apr. 11), NLHE (8-Max, Mini Sunday Million SE), $500K Gtd.
  • Event #64-L (Apr. 18), NLHE (Progressive KO, Sunday Million SE), $600K Gtd.
  • Event #82-L (Apr. 22), NLHE (8-Max, Progressive KO, Mini Thursday Thrill SE), $500K Gtd.

As you mark your calendars, be sure as well to mark down the two big Main Events — one in NLHE, one in PLO — each of which starts on Apr. 25.

For the “Low” tier, the Main Event buy-ins are both $109. The NLHE Main Event #92-L has a $3 million guarantee, and the PLO Main Event #93-L’s guarantee is $350,000.

All of which is to say, there are lots of big prizes waiting to be scooped up in SCOOP, including in the lower buy-in events.

Search the schedule, pick your spots, and best of luck!


MORE ABOUT SCOOP:
ANNOUNCEMENT | FULL SCOOP RESULTS | SCOOP YEAR-BY-YEAR
MULTIPLE CHAMPIONS | OFFICIAL SCOOP PAGE | ALL BLOG REPORTS
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