Bryn Kenney buys a tournament win at Aussie Millions

[Dan Druff]

Bryn Kenney is an accomplished high limit tournament player, but that didn't stop him from resorting to buying a title at the Aussie Millions.

Here's part of the report from calvinayre.com:

Hinrichsen – 15,365,000
Kenney – 4,870,000
Del Vecchio – 4,830,000

With three players left, Del Vecchio took the chip lead when his quad sixes got maximum value from Hinrichsen, who was unfortunate enough to river a straight. Then Kenney then scrapped and scraped his way into a chip lead that would change hands over the next hundred hands, until the three sat down and negotiated a deal, turning the conclusion of the most prestigious tournament in the Southern Hemisphere into a damp squib.

Kenney wouldn’t budge.

He wanted the win.

The pair gave it to him.

The $923,269 that Kenney collected means he’s now earned $26,623,758 in live tournament earnings, good enough for a ninth place finish. Dan Smith drops out of the Top 10, and Phil Ivey takes tenth – only another $19m to go, Bryn.

Final Table Results

1. Bryn Kenney – $923,269*
2. Mike Del Vecchio – $922,953*
3. Andrew Hinrichsen – $796,410*
4. Clinton Taylor – $350,417
5. Mathew Wakeman – $275,908
6. Gyeong Byeong Lee – $224,180
7. Hamish Crawshaw – $175,571

https://calvinayre.com/2019/02/04/po...tz-takes-100k/

Most notably, Kenney had fewer than 20% of the chips 3-handed, AND he didn't knock out a single person at the final table, yet was awarded both the title and the most prize money, just slightly more than #2.

I always felt that this form of "deal making" should never be allowed, and that the winner always should have the highest amount of chips when play ends.

About exactly a year ago, Mike Leah won a title through obvious chip-dumping heads up. Leah took a ton of heat for this at the time, but eventually the furor died down.

On a much smaller stage and a long time ago, I was at a final table where this happened, though I was out of the tournament by that point. In that case, Liz Lieu bought a title when holding 40% of the chips heads up, because the title was important to getting sponsorships, and her opponent was an unknown software engineer from northern CA, and just wanted the money. I called that one out, both because it bothered me and because Lieu had mistreated me a few weeks prior at a cash game.

[DonaldTrumpsHairPiece]

Define "bought a title" so what's the rip here he turns around and hands more prize money to the other two?

[Crowe Diddly]

If I'm 3 handed in the above situation and can negotiate myself to the deal he got, fucking right I'm making that deal every time. If the other guys are that dumb, so be it. But I'm not sure that's what happened exactly.

This line: "Most notably, Kenney had fewer than 20% of the chips 3-handed, AND he didn't knock out a single person at the final table, yet was awarded both the title and the most prize money, just slightly more than #2" appears to be incorrect.

https://www.pokernews.com/tours/auss...ips.256124.htm

Looks like this is what it was. Kenney was about 2 BB under Del Vecchio. He wasnt the leader obv, but he had way more than 20% of the chips. He had a bit more than a third of them.

Mike Del Vecchio us 9,315,000
Bryn Kenney us 8,890,000
Andrew Hinrichsen au 6,505,000

[duped_samaritan]

At one point he was 3/3 in chips...how is that even relevant? He chopped 3 handed and seems to have gotten the best deal....calm down Druff.

[Dan Druff]

At one point he was 3/3 in chips...how is that even relevant? He chopped 3 handed and seems to have gotten the best deal....calm down Druff.

I misread the calvinayre.com article, which frankly wasn't very good. Why not mention in the article the chip count at the time of the chop?

This turned out to not be nearly as bad as I thought, but my point stands that nobody should ever be awarded a title unless they lead in chips.

[MrTickle]

At the EPT you have to leave a % of the prize pool to be played for. Might be a good fix for this.