David versus Goliath is a true underdog story charting the ups and downs of former Unified World Cruiserweight and WBA World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, David Haye, and his journey to learn the skill and strategy of poker to compete in the world’s biggest live poker tournament outside of Las Vegas, Grosvenor Casinos’ Goliath 2019. The Goliath has been a huge part of my poker calendar for the last 4 years and is how I choose to spend 2 weeks of my holiday each Summer. With the event now being held online, I’m interested to see how many of Grosvenor’s live event attendees will make the leap to the online felt for the Goliath 2020 Festival.
Goliath Day 1A Blog – 11:13. Play is about to commence. Janis the TD for the Goliath is going through the details with the Players: 16 Levels of 40 Mins with a Break after every 3 Levels. Goliath Day 1A Blog – 10:52. Players have now been called to the room. There is a fantastic 650 names on the screen to be seated. CASINO BONUS PLAY; BonanzaGame: deposit $100 play with $ 500 plus 50 free spins!! Goliath Poker Blog Day 3 no wager payout and verification fast, within 2 hours. Terms and Conditions.
At this time of year, I’d usually be loading up the car and heading down the M40 to Warwick to stay with my friends for the next 2 weeks, just 20 minutes away from the Ricoh Arena.
While I still have the week off, I’d be lying if I said that my level of excitement and anticipation for the Online Goliath was anywhere near what it usually is for the live festival.
The Goliath has been a huge part of my poker calendar for the last 4 years and is how I choose to spend 2 weeks of my holiday each Summer. With the event now being held online, I’m interested to see how many of Grosvenor’s live event attendees will make the leap to the online felt for the Goliath 2020 Festival.
There’s no denying that online poker is different and there will be many live players who will give it a miss this year. This is because there’s more to the Goliath than just the events themselves: players come from all around the UK to play, meet old friends and catch up over a beer or two. The shine is taken off that a little when you’re sat at home by yourself in front of your laptop!
However, I am hopeful that many players will be attracted to the generous tournament schedule that’s on offer and that the series might even encourage a few more players to enter the online realm.
Tournament Schedule
As online events have no need for dealers and rarely have any time or space restraints put on them, it means they’re able to offer more tournaments within the same time-frame. With multiple tournaments running over each of the weekends and a new tournament each weeknight, you no longer have to use work as an excuse not to get involved in the full Goliath Festival! There are buy-ins from £5 all the way up to £560 which is perfect for the online arena and there really is something within everyone’s price range.
Tournament Structures
A slow structure for an online tournament is usually around 15 minutes per blind level. Interestingly, Grosvenor have chosen to use a ‘live clock’ for their bigger guarantees such as The Main Event, The Opener and The High Roller by choosing to use a 30 minute clock! This is unusual for an online event but with many players looking to get as much play as possible for their buy-in, I think they’re going to love the slow structures.
What I’ll be playing this year:
As I mentioned earlier, I still have the week off to play poker, so aside from Tuesday evening, when I plan on watching Brentford make their way up to the Premiership, I’ll be playing many of the lower (£55 and below) events plus the Main Event on Saturday 8th August.
I may hop into some of the 6-max events if I’m feeling particularly good but I think I’ve already got enough to keep myself busy with the games I’ve chosen to play!
Now that I’ve got my week planned out and I’ve had a good look at the tournaments on offer, I’m excited to play this year’s online Goliath. Even if the shine has been taken off it a little, I’m hoping that the Online Goliath 2020 is a huge success as I would love to see some online events added to the schedule next year.
I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on how each of the events go.
Good luck if you play!
Elliott Marais will be celebrating his upcoming 34th birthday in style after the Scunthorpe-based bricklayer turned £120 into £85,760 by winning the record-breaking 2017 GUKPT Goliath in Coventry.
A total of 4,022 unique entrants purchased 2,363 re-entries between them to create a £638,500 prize pool, which was shared among the top 682 finishers. The attendance of 6,385 broke the Goliath’s own record and ensured this tournament was the largest live poker tournament held outside of Las Vegas.
2017 GUKPT Goliath Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elliott Marais | £85,760 |
| 2 | Tai Hoang | £62,060 |
| 3 | Levan Reid | £44,630 |
| 4 | Paul Morris | £31,670 |
| 5 | Robert Shore | £21,900 |
| 6 | Calum Goodwin | £15,390 |
| 7 | Oneib Saeed | £12,005 |
| 8 | Fabio Liriomiranda | £9,895 |
| 9 | Dean Perry | £8,490 |
Only 39 players made it through to the final day’s play and it took five hours for the tournament to progress to the nine-handed final table. Within minutes of the final table action commencing, Dean Perry found himself all-in with ace-ten against the dominating ace-king of Robert Shore and when Perry’s hand failed to improve, he became the ninth-place finisher.
Ten minutes after Perry’s demise, Fabio Liriomiranda joined him on the sidelines. Liriomiranda was short stacked and moved all with with a pair of deuces and lost to Paul Morris.
Within a quarter of an hour, the final table lost another player when Oneib Saeed moved all-in for seven big blinds with ace-five and Shore called with ace-king. Shore improved to two pair by the river to send Saeed home in seventh-place.
Next to fall was Calum Goodwin, again at the hands of Shore. Goodwin committed his stack with pocket sevens and Shore looked him up holding king-jack of spades. Goodwin flopped a set but Shore picked up a flush draw. Although the eight on the turn was black, it was the wrong suit for Shore, but the three of spades on the river gifted Shore a flush and sent Goodwin to the cashier’s cage.
Despite chipping up throughout the final table, Shore was the next player to lose their stack. Shore pushed his 20 big blind stack into the middle of the felt with ace-ten and Tai Hoang made the call with ace-jack. Neither player improved their holding by the river, Hoang’s jack-kicker played and the remaining players gained a little more elbow room.
Fourth-place went to Paul Morris who looked set to double through Marais when his ace-jack went up against Marais’ jack-nine. It was not to be the case, however, because Marais caught running cards to improve to an unlikely straight to bust Morris.
Start of Day 3 chip leader Levan Reid was the next player to fall by the wayside, banking almost £45,000. Reid later told the GUKPT blog that he planned on taking his two children on a holiday of a lifetime to Disneyland.
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Reid’s exit sent the 2017 GUKPT Goliath into a heads-up battle between Marais and popular Birmingham player Hoang. The chip lead exchanged hands several times before Marais went on to win all of the chip in play and he wrote his name into poker’s history books.
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