If you’ve been paying attention to the poker news lately, you may have heard that Shaun Deeb has pulled off the incredible feat of winning four tournaments in PokerStars’ 2012 SCOOP. In all, he’s now captured a total of five SCOOP victories, which is two better than anybody else in online poker history. That said, it’s worth looking into where Shaun Deeb’s five SCOOP titles (more specifically four in a year) rank in poker lore.
Deeb’s Take on the Matter
If you ask Shaun Deeb himself, he doesn’t think the four SCOOP titles that he won in a single year is all that impressive. He modestly said, “It’s not as sick as everyone is making it out to be. All fields were under 100 people, and the events had amazing structures. A lot of (opponents) aren’t full-time mixed-game players.”
Even though Deeb himself may not think these wins are sick, you still have to consider that he’s survived four fields of extremely tough poker pros en route to an amazing 2012 SCOOP. Furthermore, nobody else has done anything like this in online poker tournaments in such a short span.
About the only knock against his accomplishments is that the wins occurred in tourneys where field sizes ranged from around 75-150 players. Still…not exactly easy when you consider the competition.
Other Historic Tournament Accomplishments
While it’s difficult to gauge where four SCOOP wins in a year ranks, it should be noted that he won these tourneys at a time where poker is extremely tough from a competition standpoint. So how would he compare to three-time WSOP bracelet winners in a single year?
Well the last person to do this, Jeffrey Lisandro, pulled off the feat in 2009 while facing a number of smaller mixed game fields. That’s actually pretty close to what Deeb dealt with in his SCOOP tournaments, except he won one extra tournament and was most likely facing a little tougher competition online. Sure nobody’s going to argue that SCOOP wins are more prestigious than WSOP bracelets, but four SCOOP titles in a year is comparable to three WSOP wins.
How about Erik Seidel’s 2011 year, in which he won four major live tournaments and finished high-up in several others – en route to $6.5 million in winnings. Honestly, we won’t compare Deeb’s four SCOOP wins in a year to this, but we will say that some of Seidel’s wins came in the glorified SNG’s known as Super High Roller tournaments. Overall though, we have to hand it to Seidel here.
Sparing you any further list of historical poker triumphs, we’ll just say that Shaun Deeb’s SCOOP wins deserve a big place in poker history, but maybe not as high as something like Seidel’s magical year.