It would be fair to say that the GUKPT events are amongst the most hotly anticipated by UK poker players. There are plenty of great poker tours and tournaments happening up and down in the UK these days, giving players of all levels the chance to mingle and socialise but the GUKPT events have already been amongst the most exciting poker events of the campaign. Add in the fact that the Student Championship was well attended too and you start to realise that poker is a massive activity in the United Kingdom.
The Ricoh Arena in Coventry was the setting for the GUKPT Student Championship and it is also going to be the arena for the GUKPT Goliath tournament. There will be a prize pool standing at £200,000 which is going to be a huge incentive and will definitely convince plenty of poker players to part with the £100+£20 buy-in that is part of the event. The high level of interest in this event will be shown by the fact that there will be 4 opening –day flights taking place. The first of these opening days will take place on Tuesday the 20th of August. Given the fact that the Goliath tournament will not be decided until the following Monday, this is going to be an event that has the potential to be a long-one. If you join on the Tuesday and make it all the way to the final table the following Monday, you will deserve to get your hands on a fair amount of cash!
You have to beat the clock with poker
All of the poker players involved will begin with a chip stack of 20,000 and the clock is going to be times at 40 minutes at first. As the tournament progresses to the final day, this time will move out to an hour. The fact that the field at the GUKPT Goliath event is going to be limited to 400 for each day means that players that are serious about entering this event would be advised to register as soon as they possibly can. If you are basing your August Bank Holiday weekend plans around this event, you will be sorely disappointed if you end up missing out because you were too slow to get signed up.
The £200,000 prize pool for the Main Event will ensure that this is the big draw for many players but as you would expect from a poker event that is spread out over so many days, there are other games going on too. Players can indulge in some King and Queen Mixed Doubles fun and there is also going to be a guaranteed £25,000 on offer with the 25/25 event.
With the tournament named Goliath, there is no doubt that there needs to be a David and the David at the 2012 event was Les Fenton. He was the player that managed to overcome the challenge of close to 2,000 poker players to grab a prize of more than £30,000. That is the sort of challenge that awaits players in August which may seem like a long time way but with the schedule announcement, it suddenly becomes a lot more real.