There is extra excitement in store at Grosvenor’s giant Goliath festival later this month with the addition of the first ever Mystery Bounty tournament to the schedule. The three-day tournament starts on Sunday, August 28 with a £220 + £200 + £40 buy-in and is one of the highlights of the Goliath’s tenth anniversary festival, which runs from August 25 to September 4 and has been aptly dubbed “Goliath X”.
Grosvenor Poker has now confirmed that the top mystery bounty prize will be a staggering £10,000 with the minimum bounty worth £100. All the bounties will kick in from Day 2, making it more vital than ever to try to make the money! There will be three start flights in all, with two re-entries per flight and all players will start with a 30,000 stack.
Mystery Bounty tournaments have become enormously popular over the last year or so with almost all the major tours now including the event on their festival schedules. A Mystery Bounty tournament is played in the same way as a standard Bounty tournament: a portion of the buy-in goes into a separate pool for the bounties and, once the tournament reaches the money, a player busting an opponent earns that bounty. In a standard Bounty tournament, the bounty value is known in advance and remains constant but in a Mystery Bounty, the prize value can vary enormously. This means that busting any player in the money in the Goliath event could come with a five-figure bonus!
Anyone wishing to play this year’s Goliath, which runs from August 25 to September 4, is advised to book their accommodation soon with MainEventTravel, the Goliath Official Travel Partner.
Mystery Bounties have been around for a while but it’s the $1,600 Mystery Bounty Event at the Wynn Poker Room in Las Vegas – which featured a top bounty of $100k – that is credited with kick-starting the recent MB boom. The popular GUKPT has already included two highly successful Mystery Bounty events. At GUKPT London in June, there were 127 entries in a £330 buy-in tournament with a top bounty prize of £2,500. There was an even bigger turnout for last month’s £440 Mystery Bounty tournament at GUKPT Reading with a £26,460 prize pool and £2,500 top Bounty prize.
Grosvenor Ambassador Katie Swift said: “Mystery Bounty tournaments are the latest craze in poker and I am very excited to hopefully play my first ever one at Goliath! I imagine there will be an added buzz about this event because of the suspense of the unknown bounty prizes but, as with any Goliath side event, it’s guaranteed to be a lot of fun.”
And fellow Ambassador Jamie Nixon added: “The best part about the Mystery Bounty is the added sweat. It’s basically a lottery where it doesn’t matter who you are or how good your game is, if you knock someone out, you could be taking home the big money. It creates a great atmosphere and everyone is buzzing in the room while the big bounties are still in play.”
The £150 buy-in Goliath Main Event is Europe’s biggest live poker tournament and – aside from the online years of 2020 and 2021 - has attracted record-breaking fields every year since its launch in 2011. This year Goliath X is expected to smash attendance records with an estimated prize pool of over £1 million.
As well as the Mystery Bounty tournament and Main Event, there are 14 other tournaments on the schedule which runs from August 25 to September 4. The busy schedule includes the £1k GUKPT Main Event, a £1,650 High Roller, a two-day £110 Women’s Championship, a £150 4/5/6 Omaha tourney and a £150 Seniors tournament. This year, the Main Event comes with an extra start flight so there are now eight in total. Flight A is on August 27 with start flights then running every day through to September 2 when two final turbo start flights take place (Flight G and Flight H).
If you fancy competing at this year’s Goliath, do book your accommodation soon with MainEventTravel, the Goliath Official Travel Partner.
Photo: Grosvenor Poker
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