Simon Deadman Takes Lead in GUKPT Goliath Day 1B

Dusk till Dawn and GUKPT “regular” Simon Deadman will take an impressive chip stack into Day 2 of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Goliath, having amassed 501,000 chips – almost 50,000 more than runaway Day 1A chip leader Scott Symonds.

Like Symonds, Simon Deadman left swelling his chip stack until the last level of the day, but with less than 100 players (of 588) making it through the 16 levels, there are a lot of large stacks chasing him.

Queens Rule in Coventry

Pocket Queens was the hand to be dealt yesterday, as many of them stood up in shove situations. Stephen Dixon got all his chips in on a Jack high flop and crippled Matthew Green, Fred Russell collected a massive 240,000 chip pot against Kevin Houghton´s A♠ 9♣ and Lee Rawson captured a similar sized pot against the pocket sevens of Nathan Tudman.

One of the biggest pots of the day however occurred right at the end of the day when Peter Lawrence shoved with 4♠ 4♣ on a flop which fell K♥ 4♦ Q♥ (there had to be a Queen involved!). Andy Nguyen, holding J♥ 10♥ could not resist the temptation, and was mighty relieved to see the board conclude 6♥ 3♠ to get close up behind Simon Deadman on the leaderboard.

The Tournament for the Common Man

With many of the UK´s best known poker players off to Spain for the EPT Barcelona, there has not been a great deal of “star-spotting” going on. Many, many regulars on the UK tour have qualified for the event or paid the modest £120.00 buy-in and today (Friday) we expect to see a number of players contesting the top positions on the GUKPT Challenge leaderboard. With a lot of valuable leaderboard points at stake in the Goliath, any of the top 6 could be the new leader come Sunday.

One face which was stuck out in the crowd was that of Adam Golding. Known for being a top Black Belt Poker blogger (AKA Snoopy), Adam was possibly hoping to gain valuable first-hand experience for a sequel to his screenplay “Last Chance Saloon”. Unfortunately, his stay at the tables was shorter than that of his “hero” Bobby Jennings, and he was busted out when his short-stack shove with 10♦ 7♦ was dominated by the small blind on his table who had K♠ Q♥.

1440 is the Magic Number

Yesterday we inadvertently reported the GUKPT Goliath was hoping to smash the record for the largest European live event at San Remo earlier this year. Well, we all make mistakes (just ask Howard Lederer, Chris Fergusson and Phil Ivey!) and of course the record is held by the Boylepoker International Poker Open of 2009 which saw 1440 players compete for more than $300,000. With 979 players already entered in the event and a full house anticipated for Day 1C (max. 600), it looks like a new live poker tournament record is going to be set at the GUKPT Goliath.