Bryn Kenney takes down 2019 Aussie Millions Main Event

The American high-roller regular cashed for A$1 million+ in Melbourne after an exciting final table.

"I said that I wasn’t interested in a deal unless I was going to win,"

One of the most prestigious events at 2019 Aussie Millions Championship has crowned its champion during the weekend.  Bryn Kenney managed to outlast a record-breaking field of 822 in the A$10,300 Main Event and added A$1,272,598 ($923,269) to his winnings after a three-way deal with Mike Del Vecchio and Andrew Hinrichsen.

Despite starting the final table as the short stack, Kenney avoided an early elimination after doubling up two times during the first fifty hands of the day. It took a while for the remaining seven, to get down to six, but Andrew Hinrichsen finally drew first blood, when his ace-jack managed to suck out on the pocket queens of Hamish Crawshaw in a pre-flop all-in confrontation. Hamish earned A$242,000 after finishing 7th.

"It would have been nice to take it down," said Crawshaw. "Sometimes you’ve just got to get it in and flip for your tournament life with huge amounts of money at stake. It was a surreal experience. Just happy to get this far. Unfortunately, the final table didn’t go so well but that’s how it is. You’ve just got to take what’s given to you."

The next player to be busted was Korean, Gyeong Byeong Lee, who only had 4 big blinds after failing to win a race with ace-king against Bryn’s jacks. He put his remaining stack into the middle with ace-king once again, this time holding the lead over the jack-ten of Andrew’s but the latter managed to flop a ten and take down the pot. Lee left the table to pick up his hard-earned A$309,000.

At this point, Hinrichsen was the clear chip leader, while the rest of the table were fighting for position. Matthew Wakeman lost a number of hands and became the short stack. He finally picked up queens only to run into the aces of Clinton Taylor‘s. The pocket rockets held, meaning Wakeman was out to pick up his A$380,300 at the cage.

Clinton Taylor

Clinton found himself in another great spot, showing down pocket fours against the deuces of Andrew’s, but a deuce on the flop brought disaster for him and he became the shortest stack in the four-handed play. He busted shortly after losing with ace-king to the chip leader’s pocket nines. Taylor took home A$483,000 and some bittersweet memories.

"Three-handed you start feeling more emotions," explained Kenney. "You don’t wanna come in third once the pay jumps start to get really big."

Indeed, the A$1.2 million pay jump between first and third place is an insane difference, but the players decided to play. The play went back and forth for a while, without any real confrontation and the final three decided to take a look at the number after coming back from the break.

"I said that I wasn’t interested in a deal unless I was going to win," Kenney told afterward.

"If we were going to play to win, then I’m happy to play to win. But if I’m going to make a deal then I feel like the tournament is sort of over. They were big pay jumps; I’ve played for this much before, but this must have been the biggest pay jump that they’ve both ever been involved in."

With this win, Bryn has now $26,615,106 in lifetime earnings and is 9th in the all-time money list.

Final results