Four-Way Deal Prompts Record-Breaking Goliath Finale

With qualifiers to the event on GGPoker, one lucky player received a 20% bonus to his winnings at the final table, as Jonny Elworthy came third but won the most other than the winner, taking home with $270,090, with two other players also receiving over $233,000 on the day. Costing just $270 (£200) to play, there were re-entries galore in the bumper event which seems to set new attendance records every year in the English city.

* following four-way deal

* following four-way deal and additional 20% GGPoker bonus

Three Dozen Return on Final Day

With 36 players coming back on Day 3, Damon Burch-Hyson was hovering in the chasing pack rather than dominating the field. The narrative at the start of the final day centered around the two former Goliath champions who remained in the field, with the 2023 champion Alex Todd and the reigning 2025 winner Paul Worsley both hoping to make it all the way to lifting a second title, something never achieved before in the tournament’s glorious history.

The early levels didn’t go to plan for both players, sadly for poker historians and the pair’s passionate fans who had turned up in support of them both. The reigning champion finally succumbed in 27^th place as the defense of his title lasted almost all the way to the end but not quite far enough. Two eliminations later, Todd joined him on the rail in 25^th place.

From there, it was a race to the final table of nine, where a top prize of $491,600 was the carrot being dangled in front of the players. A rollercoaster period of play ended with the departure of Nicholas Fellone busted in 10^th place. His score of $29,600 was a fine one but he fell just short of the cameras and flashing lights of the final table.

Double Elimination Defines Final Table

The first player eliminated from the final table was the current National Poker League (NPL) leader. Bryan Taylor came into the final table with all the hopes of recreational players behind him but moved all-in with pocket jacks and ran into the brick wall of Damon Burch-Hyson’s pocket aces. The rockets ran out the winner, as Taylor left to amateur acclaim in ninth place for $34,970.

Nittin Sonawane’s exit in eighth place with ace-three against the ace-queen of Lewis Aikman was worth a career-high score of $42,370. His bust-out was followed by that of Hong Kong player Wai Lun Lam and Albanian Lorenc Boci, who cashed for $50,960 and $67,250 in seventh and sixth place respectively.

All-in with ace-jack, Lum was followed into the pot by Boci with ace-king. Both of those hands were behind Burch-Hyson’s pocket queens, however, and they survived the board to take out two opponents. The pot was a huge one and put Burch-Hyson into the kind of lead that players dream about heading into final tables.

Deal Decides Final Fate

Down to five players, it was Reema Bodalia who was perhaps the unluckiest person at the final table. That’s because after her departure for $96,170, king-queen losing to jack-four for four big blinds, there was talk of a deal. The remaining four players looked at the numbers and agreed a deal whereby the minimum that would be won was $233,630.

As Bodalia cursed her luck, Dayle Gallagher soon joined her on the rail, albeit for over double her result. All-in for 13 bigs with ace-eight, he couldn’t overtake Aikman’s ace-queen and left with $240,555 – a monumental score given his previous The Hendon Mob winnings totalled less than $1,000.

Three-handed play saw Jonny Elworthy but for $270,090, a score made bigger by 20% because he qualified for the event on GGPoker, who promised to bolster anyone who got to the final table’s result by that amount. Elworthy’s queen-nine lost to Burch-Hyson’s ace-eight and the heads-up stacks were set, with Burch-Hyson running out a deserved winner soon after, scoring an incredible $491,630, with the runner-up Aikman claiming $233,630 as runner-up.

“I am still in a bit of shock, I don’t think it’s really sunk in,” the winner Burch-Hyson said in his GGPoker winner interview. “It’s a lot of money to me. I think there’s going to be some big changes in my life, to be honest. I’m going to start taking poker a little more seriously.”

After such a big win, who would expect anything less, as Damon Burch-Hyson turned $270 into the best part of half a million dollars.