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There were a number of major poker tournaments taking place around the globe this past weekend –with the WPT in Los Angeles, the EPT in Barcelona, as well as the GUKPT and APPT– and two of these events were able to pencil their names into the poker record books by setting attendance records. No small feat considering the sheer number of events players had to choose from!

The GUKPT Goliath tournament set out to break the record for the largest poker tournament in European history, which at the time was held by the 2009 Boyle Poker IPO and its 1,441 entrants. The Goliath was held in the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England and over the course of three Day 1 starting flights 1,765 players registered for the £100 buy-in tournament.  There is some room for argument however, as the GUKPT Goliath allowed for players to re-enter on subsequent days of they were eliminated from the tournament –Expect an asterisk or some other explanation in the official poker tournament record book.

While the GUKPT Goliath was setting the European record, the EPT Barcelona managed to break the record for the largest poker tournament ever held in Spain when 811 players anted-up the €5,000 buy-in; breaking the old record set at last year’s EPT Barcelona of 757 players. The tournament did fall short of the prize-pool record in Spain, a record that is held by the 2010 EPT Grand Final, which took place in Madrid, and attracted 686 entrants, but because of the €10k buy-in the Grand Final sports it easily bested the 2011 EPT Barcelona prize-pool of €4,055,000, topping out at €6,860,000.