With the newly formed market in the Canadian province barely a year old, PokerStars Ontario put on the first-ever Ontario Spring Championship of Online Poker (ONSCOOP) from March 25 through April 9. Going into the series there were more than CAD $1.8 million in guarantees, but that proved to be quite an underestimate as Ontario online poker players turned up in droves, generating more than 33% extra in prizes across the 129 events.
There was a bit more than $2.5 million collected over the 16-day festival that saw 43 games, each playing at three different buy-in levels. Buy-ins for the series started at $5 and went up as high as $2k with the median buy-in of $50. That made the 2023 ONSCOOP quite affordable overall, leading to over 32,000 entries across the whole series.
The biggest prize pool of the whole series was the medium version of the Main Event, but it was also one of the very few tournaments that didn’t quite make its guarantee. There was $150k guaranteed going into the $300 event, but with 520 entries, it fell $4400 short of that promise. However, that was only one of ten total games that missed the guarantee, so overall, it was an excellent showing for PokerStars Ontario.
2023 ONSCOOP Summary
| Guarantees | $1,874,250.00 |
| Total Collected | $2,509,023.65 |
| Gtd Diff | $634,773.65 |
| % Gtd Diff | 33.87% |
| Missed Gtd | 10 |
| Beat Gtd | 119 |
| Max Buy-In | $2,000.00 |
| Min Buy-In | $5.00 |
| Median Buy-In | $50.00 |
| Total Entries | 32,615 |
- Excellent tournament schedule
- The best variety of game types
- #1 Rated online poker room in Ontario by pokerfuse.com
ONSCOOP Beats Guarantees by One-Third
Going into the ONSCOOP series, PokerStars Ontario set the bar at $1.875 million in total guarantees, but it turned out that was a pretty easy bar to jump over. There were only 10 events that did not beat the guarantee, with the best game seeing more than 125% extra in the prize pool.
In fact, three tournaments more than doubled their guarantees through the series for more than $10k in extra prizes between them. Seven games had $55k or more in prizes, with two tournaments, including the medium Main Event, over $100k.
The other game to hit $100k in prizes was the high version of the Main Event, a $1k buy-in that saw 116 entries for a total prize pool of $110,548, almost 60% above the $70k promise.
2023 ONSCOOP Biggest Prize Pools
| Event | Buy-In | Guarantee | Entries | Prizes | Diff from Gtd | % Diff from Gtd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37M | $300.00 | $150,000.00 | 520 | $145,600.00 | -$4,400.00 | -2.93% |
| 37H | $1,000.00 | $70,000.00 | 116 | $110,548.00 | $40,548.00 | 57.93% |
| 21H | $1,000.00 | $48,000.00 | 74 | $70,522.00 | $22,522.00 | 46.92% |
| 5M | $200.00 | $48,000.00 | 335 | $62,477.50 | $14,477.50 | 30.16% |
| 21M | $100.00 | $45,000.00 | 666 | $61,138.80 | $16,138.80 | 35.86% |
2023 ONSCOOP Best Guarantee Increases
| Event | Buy-In | Guarantee | Entries | Prizes | Diff from Gtd | % Diff from Gtd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16M | $50.00 | $6,000.00 | 297 | $13,513.50 | $7,513.50 | 125.23% |
| 8M | $50.00 | $2,200.00 | 100 | $4,550.00 | $2,350.00 | 106.82% |
| 36L | $5.00 | $1,500.00 | 672 | $3,057.60 | $1,557.60 | 103.84% |
| 17L | $5.00 | $600.00 | 256 | $1,164.80 | $564.80 | 94.13% |
| 31L | $50.00 | $11,000.00 | 457 | $20,793.50 | $9,793.50 | 89.03% |
There were 18 games in the series that had more than 500 entries, with the best game seeing 898 total runners. That was in the low version of the Main Event, a $50 tournament with $30k guaranteed that saw a final prize pool of $40,859.
ONSCOOP Afterparty Starts April 14
With just a few days of recovery, Ontario online poker players are headed straight to an afterparty. The PokerStars Ontario ONSCOOP Afterparty mini-series gets rolling April 14 with eight games priced between $5 and $100. The Afterparty games run until April 16 with more than $175,000 in guarantees, including two big Sunday games with $75k guaranteed between them.
Check out the PokerStars Ontario lobby for full details on the Afterparty games running Apr 14-16.
