It’s not even halfway through seven Day 1s, but this year’s Goliath Main Event is already on track to be the biggest Goliath yet.
Make sure you have a room! With record numbers attending this year’s Goliath, Coventry is filling up. Do make sure you have your hotel accommodation sorted out: as Official Travel Partner, we have lots of great options close to Ricoh Arena.
Players have flocked to the Ricoh Arena for this year’s event with 2,228 entries so far across the first three starting flights. This year both day 1A and 1B have seen an increase of over 25% in entry numbers and Day 1c yesterday attracted 650 players, up over 50% on 2016.
There are still four more start flights to go, so it seems likely that the 2017 Goliath will surpass the 6,000 entry mark, earning itself the accolade of becoming the biggest live poker event outside of Las Vegas. 2016 saw a record-breaking 5,232 entries to the Goliath Main Event, creating a prize pool of £523,200 and first prize of £70,000.
The overall chip leader at the moment is Bogdan-Marius Aprodu who faced a giant field of 882 on Day 1a but emerged with a 745,500 stack. Yesterday’s Day 1c chip leader was Mark Price with 570,000 while Andrew Dodson was the Day 1b chip leader with 495,000.
Reaching the 6,000 target will also see the prize pool hit a staggering £600,000. That’s plenty of life changing prizes on offer, particularly as many players will be there for an investment of just £120 – or in the case of the many satellite winners, even less.
The Goliath has seen considerable growth each year since the very first event back in 2012, with entry numbers rising from 1,954 in 2012 to 5,232 in 2016.
Along with Grosvenor Casinos, we advise all those planning to play day 1G on Friday to either pre-register or play another Day 1 if possible. Friday is quickly selling out. We also advise players to make sure they have a hotel room booked.