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  1. Home
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  3. How Goliath has Grown into the Biggest Live Tournament Outside of Vegas
Thursday 13th July, 2023

How Goliath has Grown into the Biggest Live Tournament Outside of Vegas

By Mad Harper
Live Events News

From its very earliest days, the Goliath Main Event was always conceived as a super-affordable tournament designed to attract giant fields and create simply massive prize pools. It’s a formula that has undoubtedly paid off with Grosvenor Poker’s remarkable event-breaking records every year, with mouth-watering prize pools and life-changing first prizes. 

This year’s Goliath festival is taking place from July 27 to August 6 at the Coventry Building Society Arena in the Midlands and is, once again, set to break records.

Make sure you have somewhere to stay for the 2023 festival! MainEventTravel.com is the Official Travel Partner for Goliath and can help you bag your room now before all the nearby hotels sell out.

The Early Days of Goliath

At the first Goliath back in 2011, a total of 1,765 players paid a buy-in of just £120 with Nottingham-based Lee Rawson writing his name in history by scooping the first prize of £32,705.

As Grosvenor had hoped and expected, the 2012 event topped the inaugural 2011 field with a total of 1,954 entries. Les Fenton the new champion, turned his £120 investment into a career-best £35,800. In 2013, records were broken once again with 2,570 entries (including 1,822 unique players) and Jake Skidmore snagging a first prize of £29,690 after cutting a three-way deal.

By 2014 the Goliath was well on its way to becoming one of the biggest tournaments in Europe. Attendance was up yet again with Ryan Foster seizing victory and a £62,320 first prize after outlasting the record-breaking 3,394-entry field. Numbers were up again in 2015: 4,210 entries with Miikka Toikka (pictured below) scooping the £70,800 first prize after beating Katie Swift (pictured below) heads-up. Swifty got £46,300 for her runner-up finish and shortly afterwards became a Grosvenor Ambassador.

In 2016, Goliath carried on its upbeat trend: there were 5,232 entries in the sixth annual Goliath with Vamshi Vandanapu claiming victory and a £65,750 first prize. What was notable about this Goliath was that the top seven finishers all enjoyed five-figure scores. The following year Goliath broke records once again attracting 6,385 entries. The new champion was Elliott Marais who won £85,760, a record top prize for Goliath.

Topping £100k!

In 2018, Florian Duta outlasted a 7,584-entry field and became the first player to win more than £100,000 at the Coventry extravaganza. His first prize was a mammoth £101,450. Duta, who hails from Romania, was also the first non-Brit to win the event and while, for many Goliath champions, their Goliath scores have remained their biggest live cash, Duta has gone on to become one of his country’s most successful live tournament players. His total live tournament winnings are now nearing the $3 million mark.

By 2019, Goliath had become the largest live poker tournament outside of Vegas. There were 9,300 entries and 922 players got a share of the £911,410 prize pool. Lee Reynolds won the tournament for £64,601 but was part of a five-way deal that saw third-placed Cristian Tamas win the more significant share of the prize money - £80,548 to be exact.

Goliath X

The pandemic put paid to live events in 2020 and 2021 but Goliath X last year more than made up for the two years when the festival was held online. Goliath celebrated its tenth anniversary by hosting a giant Main Event. With the buy-in increased to £150, the tournament attracted a staggering 10,584 entries to create a £1,219,270 prize pool.

The event was won by North Lincolnshire native Kyle Jeffrey (pictured below) for a monster prize of £200,000, by far the biggest first prize in Goliath history and nearly double Florian Duta’s 2018 cash. Jeffrey, who travelled down from Scunthorpe with friends, was competing at his third Goliath event and described his win as “life-altering.”

This year’s Goliath promises to be the biggest y­­­­et with organisers confidently predicting a prize pool of over £1.5 million. This will be the 11th edition of the live event and organisers are expecting entries to top 12,000.  

Be a part of history and don’t miss Goliath! MainEventTravel.com is Goliath’s Official Travel Partner and can help you secure a great room for the festival. 

Photo Credit - Grosvenor Poker

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