The first Southern Europe Championship of Online Poker (SECOOP) came to an end on PokerStars. The final day was November 12, and more than €12.3m (which is approximately $14 million) was given out in prize money. The championship consisted of 149 events and the series guaranteed €10 million. However, a lot of people were interested in it and surpassed the prize cash by €2.3 million. In fact, there were more than 38,000 entries across all events. These players come from three countries that have recently signed up a deal of shared liquidity network. These countries are Spain, France, and Portugal. The €250 Main Event had a guarantee of €1 million, and it was also surpassed by €212.487 as it managed to draw as much as 5,215 entries. The player who managed to win the Main Event has a nickname Befuddeld, and his cash prize was €172,451 which was also the biggest prize in the whole championship. PokerStars issued statistics that show us that the players from France were the most present in the championship, and they were followed by Spain and Portugal respectively.
The main event is not the only one to break records in Southern Europe. As a matter of fact, the €50 Wam Up event managed to reach a prize pool of €237,375 and the €10 Classico had €149,382 to distribute to the best players. The Warm Up event was won by the player from France nicknamed dav561 who won €32,126, while the Spanish player tecnicu won the Classico event for €16,124. We should also mention a player nicknamed bzh3135 from France who participated in two tournaments that required €40 buy-ins and won both of them to receive €11,591 (event #20 and event $29). The SECOOP is not the only championship that is currently offered for these countries. Other large ones include France Espania Hold’em (FRESH) series, TRIO series, Galactic Series, and France and Spain SCOOP. Ever since the shared liquidity has been launched between the three countries, more than €50 million has been given in prizes via various tournaments and events.
Severin Rasset is a Director of Poker Innovation and Operations at The Stars Group, and he stated that COOP series was one of the most loved events and that he was proud that the players from the three countries had an opportunity to get involved in such an important and entertaining event. He added that they had been hosting a wide variety of new series and that they had been delighted with the amount of support that they received from the players. Finally, Rasset thanked everyone for participating in the shared liquidity offering and had created a very successful championship. Italy is the next country which aims to join the European liquidity party. However, they now have a tournament of their own called Italian Championship of Online Poker (ICOOP).