by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 25, 2012 | Updated on Mar 25, 2012PokerStars has released a preliminary schedule for the Spring Championship of Online Poker, giving players some insight into what they can expect in one of the two largest tournament series in all of online poker.The tournament series will feature 38 different events, with tournaments featuring a variety of different formats. There are numerous no-limit hold’em events, of course, but many other games are also featured, including Badugi, Omaha, Triple Draw, Stud formats, mixed games, Razz, and more.The 2012 SCOOP series will begin on May 6th, with a 6-Max NL Hold’em tournament that begins at 11:00 ET. Tournaments will be ongoing for the next two weeks, concluding with the Main Event on Sunday, May 20.As mentioned, there are 38 different events in the series. However, each event is actually three tournaments that will be ongoing concurrently at three different buy-in levels.For instance, take the Main Event. The true high buy-in Main Event will cost players $7,500 to enter. However, there’s also a medium buy-in $700 Main Event, as well as a low buy-in $82 Main Event, allowing players of all bankrolls to participate. Throughout the entire series, there are events costing as little as $5.50, or as much as $21,000 (for a high-roller heads-up tournament held in the final day for the series).The various buy-ins available allow players to have a few choices when playing in satellite events. With several different “steps” of increasingly high stakes satellites available, players will often have the option of stopping along with the way and using a satellite entry to enter one a SCOOP event.As of yet, guaranteed prize pools have not been announced for any of the SCOOP events, and the schedule is still subject to minor changes based on player feedback. A satellite schedule has also yet to be announced.Last year’s SCOOP series ended with Finnish pro Sami Kelopuro winning the high buy-in Main Event. For his efforts, he won over $500,000. Over $40 million in prize money was awarded during the 2011 SCOOP series.
