The PokerStars New Jersey Spring Championship of Online Poker (NJSCOOP) recently came to an end, and to say it was a big success would be an understatement. PokerStars awarded nearly $1.8 million in prize money for the 96 tournaments, blowing away the guaranteed kitty of $1.2 million.
The fifth annual running of the NJSCOOP was the biggest to date in all respects. In the 96 tournaments, which were divided evenly into low and high buy-in events, there were 33,737 total entries including 10,580 re-entries.
Nearly every one of the tournaments in the 2020 NJSCOOP exceeded its guaranteed prize pool. Only six of the 96 events had overlays, most of which were very small. The biggest overlay was the $1,200 for Event No.26-H ($25k NLHE 6-Max Turbo), which had a buy-in of $300 and 85 entries.
Some of the events more than doubled their guarantees:
• Event No. 1-H (NLHE – Nightly Stars – NJSCOOP Warm-Up – $100) — $47,460.60 prize pool – $20k guarantee
• Event No. 17-H (NLHE – Nightly Stars Special Edition – $100) — $33,415.20 prize pool – $12k guarantee
• Event No. 17-L (NLHE – $10) — $6,415.50 prize pool – $3k guarantee
• Event No. 42-L (NLHE – Progressive KO – $20) — $8,117.20 prize pool – $3.5k guarantee
The 2020 NJSCOOP Main Event was huge in terms of both the turnout and the prize money. The $50 low buy-in tournament garnered 1,252 entries for a total prize pool of nearly $57,000. Jellyhybrid7 won that event, taking home $8,880. The $300 high buy-in tournament, which had a $100k guarantee, drew 620 entries for a whopping $173,600 kitty. The winner of that event, “moledaddy”, collected a cool $30,121.
In Pennsylvania, the recently concluded PokerStars PASCOOP also enjoyed big numbers. The original guarantee for the series was $2 million, but the total prize pool rose to around $3.2 million. The PokerStars sites in both NJ and PA have seen traffic increase significantly with land-based casinos out of action during the coronavirus lockdown.