Lee Davy catches up with Bryn Kenney during the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series at Montenegro to talk about his win in Montenegro, his pursuit of the All-Time Money list and more.
We take a pew on the veranda of the Maestral Resort and Casino. It’s too cold for the short sleeve shirt I wear. Some nutter is swimming in the cold Adriatic Coast. Kenney sits next to me, also in short sleeves, but he one-ups me with shorts and sandals.
“The sun is shining on me,” Kenney tells me when I complain about the temperature.
Yesterday, Kenney won HK$11.23m (US$1.43m) after taking down the 79-entrant Event #2: HK$500,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold ’em 6-Max, coming from behind to beat the Canadian Daniel Dvoress, heads-up.
I ask Kenney how he rates his performance.
“I think I played exceptionally well,” says Kenney. “I made a lot of really thin values bets and ran a lot of great bluffs. If I dissected every hand in the tournament, I maybe made one loose river call, but everything else was dead on point.”
It was Kenney’s fifth Triton final table, and the third time he has played heads-up for the win, losing the previous two, including Triton’s most recent stop in Jeju. Kenney picked up $3m for that runner-up finish versus Timothy Adams, but as someone who was there, Kenney desperately wanted that title.
“It was a big disappointment not to get the title,” said Kenney, “but I played well at that final table. Timothy had to win an all in coin flip with three left. Otherwise, I would have had 90% of the chips in play. Going into heads-up, I played ferocious and aggressive and made the right decisions. It’s a letdown because I wanted to win. But if you’re happy with how you played there’s nothing to be unhappy about, so I got over that pretty quickly.”
Kenney’s most recent haul catapults him to the top of the 2019 Money List with more than $6m, overtaking the PokerStars Player’s No-Limit Hold ’em Championship (PSPC) winner, Ramón Colillas. It’s a list that Kenney topped in 2017, and I know that one of his goals is to one day top the All-Time Money List. At this rate, and with the £1m buy-in Main Event coming up at Triton London, suddenly he’s in with a shot.
“I am within striking distance.” Says Kenney.
It’s incredible how quickly things have transformed in the high roller scene where we have one of the stars calling a $12m gap within ‘striking distance,’ but that’s where we are today.
“I could make it if I win in London,” says Kenney. “It depends how much Justin {Bonomo} plays. If he keeps chilling and takes a break while number one; he won’t be holding onto it for too long.”
Kenney’s not the type of guy who ‘takes a break’, but then he didn’t play between Jeju and Monte Carlo telling me that the month and a half break is the longest that he’s had in 15-years.
“If you want to be the best in this game you have to put in the blood, sweat and tears,” says Kenney. “Success; despair – to be the warrior that I am, you have to experience these emotions.”
As the face of GGPoker, Kenney has responsibilities these days. It’s been a year since he surprised the poker world with the appointment, and I ask him how he’s finding the ambassadorial life?
“It’s been going well,” says Kenney. “My name and face are maybe the most trusted in poker because I have been around for 15-years. Nobody has a bad story about me, I have always done the right things, despite being screwed over a lot. I value my word and my relationships more than anything. I have a great idea of what people want in poker, and I like offering them solutions.”
With GGPoker and PokerStars running online series simultaneously with Triton’s live action, I ask Kenney, what his plans are for the rest of the series?
“I am going to play the Main Event, but because of SCOOP and The GG Series, I am going to sit down behind a computer and chill. If there were higher buy-in NLHE events here, I would stay. Throw in a $250k, and I am there, for sure, but a $100k is a standard buy-in now.
“To be honest, when I play a $25k it feels like I am working. I don’t have the same desire or hunger. These days we have $50ks, $100ks, $1m buy-ins. I don’t want to play every day anymore. I am at my best when I play when I want to play; that’s how I can continue to put on my best performances.”
Kenney’s win in the Six-Max was his third of the year, after winning the Aussie Millions Main Event and a $25,000 buy-in at the US Poker Open.
As he said, the sun is shining on him.