After seven days of play, 26 homininae converged on the Ricoh Arena in Coventry hoping to be crowned king of the jungle.
And that honour eventually went to Ryan Foster, who was the sole survivor from a record-breaking tribe of 3,394 who took part in the GUKPT Goliath main event from 10-17 August 2014.
With each of the players returning for day three having already locked up £880 for their £100 + £20 buy-in, Jake Rowe was the final table bubble boy pushing all-in with QD-JS on a QH-3H-3C flop only to be called by Mark Adams holding AC-AS. No help arrived for Rowe on the turn or river and the final table was set.
Adams was a massive chip leader with 25,230,000 chips, almost double that of his closest rival, Arjun Ruparel, with 13,845,000 in his stack. Next came Neville Price on 11,330,000 and Rodrigo Hernandez with 10,890,000, with the remainder of the field holding fewer chips than were in Adams' stack.
Adam Nice took 7,095,000 to the final table; Liam Horton 5,130,000; Mihaly Jancso 4,420,000; and Phil Stein 2,175,000. Foster – on 5,020,000 – had less than a fifth of Adams' pile.
Horton was the first casualty of the final table, followed by Stein but then in a pivotal hand to the outcome of the tournament Foster won a coin-flip with AC-KC against Adams' pocket nines to claw his way back into contention.
Foster then saw off Nice in seventh place and Jancso in sixth to guarantee a five-figure sum to all the remaining players. Despite a number of all-in and calls, the next elimination wasn’t for three hours until Ruparel jammed from the button with QH-9H and Adams snapped called with pocket kings in the small blind. The 7H-3H-2S made it a sweat for Adams but the QC on the turn and 8C on the river saw Ruparel heading to the rail in fourth place.
Three became two almost an hour later when Foster claimed Price as his next victim to have a 65.5m to 18.3m lead going into heads-up play, quite a swing in chips over the course of the final table.
The final hand of the tournament saw Adams move all-in for eight big blinds with 7S-6S, which Foster called with QH-7H. Foster’s hand improved with the QC on the flop, leaving Adams drawing to running sixes or running spades.
The AS on the turn was one of his outs, but he needed the river to be a spade to dodge the bullet But the river brought the 4H and with it Foster became top banana, taking down the £62,120 first-place prize.
GUKPT Goliath
1 Ryan Foster £62,120
2 Mark Adam £40,700
3 Neville Price £27,140
4 Arjun Ruparel £18,990
5 Rodrigo Hernandez £13,570
6 Mihaly Jancso £8,820
7 Adam Nice £5,430
8 Phil Stein £3,390
9 Liam Horton £2,710
