The Historic 11-Way Poker Tournament Chop at Goliath

Deals are a standard part of live poker tournaments, but a recent event is turning heads. The poker world just witnessed a massive 11-way poker tournament chop. This unprecedented move has completely rewritten the script on how tournaments can conclude.

The Magic of the Grosvenor Goliath Festival

The Grosvenor Goliath festival in Coventry, UK , is famous for attracting massive fields of recreational and professional players alike. This year, the £100,000 guaranteed Monster Stack event drew an astonishing 2,726 entries. Because of this massive turnout, the total prize pool swelled to a staggering £207,100, more than doubling the original guarantee.

While big numbers create massive prize pools, they can also lead to crazy late-game situations. According to reports from the event, the tournament structure eventually caught up with the players. The average stack size dropped to just eight big blinds, and it stayed that way for over two exhausting hours.

The players were incredibly tired, and the variance was incredibly high. Instead of playing it out, the final 11 players decided they had enough. They agreed to a historic 11-way poker tournament chop.

Why an 11-Way Poker Tournament Chop is So Rare

For those new to the concept of dealmaking at tournaments, a poker prize pool chop is an agreement between the remaining players to divide the leftover money. Typically, this only happens between the final two or three players. Getting even five people to agree on the math and payouts can be an absolute nightmare.

Getting eleven players to agree is practically unheard of. Most multi-way deal negotiations fall apart quickly because someone always feels they have a bigger skill edge. According to PokerNews, this 11-handed agreement is completely “unprecedented” in live poker.

Finding any official record of a larger live poker tournament chop is incredibly difficult. Most casinos and tournament directors only allow a deal once the official final table – usually eight or nine players – is reached. For comparison, a famously large 8-way chop occurred at the Goliath Main Event back in 2024 – maybe not a coincidence, looking at this year’s record number of players participating in the deal.

In that 2024 scenario, all eight final table players quickly agreed to an Independent Chip Model (ICM) chop because the pay jumps were massive. However, successfully negotiating an 11-player agreement before a final table is even formed is wild. It makes this Monster Stack deal one of the largest and most unique chops on record.

How the Monster Stack Payouts Looked

When a multi-way deal happens, the money is usually divided based on the current chip stacks. Originally, the first-place prize for the Monster Stack was supposed to be around £30,000. After the 11-way poker tournament chop was calculated, the final payouts looked quite different.

Here is the list of the final payments after the deal was made:

The biggest winner of this massive multi-way deal was undoubtedly Ryan Bignell. He was nursing a tiny stack of just two big blinds when the deal was struck. If the game had continued normally, he was almost guaranteed to bust in 11th place for a standard £1,000 payout.

Thanks to the poker prize pool chop, he instantly boosted his earnings and walked away with a very respectable £4,300. Meanwhile, Hongtao Sun, who held the chip lead, was officially crowned the Monster Stack champion. Sun took home a solid £13,255 for his efforts.

The Grosvenor Goliath festival continues to prove why it is one of the most exciting and unpredictable stops on the global poker calendar. It consistently provides life-changing money for relatively low buy-ins. Sometimes, it also delivers historic, record-setting moments like this unforgettable 11-way poker tournament chop.

The Basics of Tournament Deals

In poker tournaments, a “deal” (or “chop”) occurs when the final surviving players agree to divide the remaining prize money among themselves, rather than playing the game out until a single winner holds all the chips.

Primary Deal Structures

• Independent Chip Model (ICM): Widely considered the most equitable option, this method calculates each player’s true financial equity by weighing their current chip stack against the remaining payout structure.
• Chip Chop: This method distributes the prize pool based strictly on the percentage of total chips each player currently possesses. Because it ignores the payout structure’s mathematical curve, it heavily benefits the chip leader.
• Even Split: Every active player remaining at the table receives an identical share of the prize money, completely ignoring current chip counts.

How the Deal Process Works

• Unanimous Consent is Required: For any deal to be finalized, absolutely every remaining player must agree to the proposed terms. If even a single player declines, the negotiations end and standard play resumes.
• Online vs. Live Play: Major online poker platforms (such as PokerStars and ACR Poker) feature built-in tools that automatically pause the tournament and calculate chop options. In live events, tournament directors handle the math – though it is worth noting that some major events, like the World Series of Poker (WSOP), strictly prohibit deal-making.

Although deal-making at the end of tournaments still creates debate in the poker community, it has become much more common. and ethically accepted than 20 years ago. Major online poker rooms introducing this feature at players’ request clearly showed that modern-era grinders prioritize exact calculations over pushing a tournament to the very end to gain bragging rights. Don’t be confused if you see the final payouts of a tournament and the winning player got less money than the runner-up. It is not a mistake; it is just how the game ended after the deal has been made.