Bryn Kenney Scoops $960,000 at the Poker Masters Event #3

It was an amazing day at the Poker Masters yesterday, mainly due to the fact that there were no Germans at the final table! This omission – having seen fully 50% of the money spots going to the German contingent over the previous two $50K buy-in events – left a USA-heavy final seven and a massive $960,000 payday for the winner, Bryn Kenney.

Forty-eight hopefuls had bought into day 1 of the event, a slight drop from the 51 and then 50 of the first 2 events which had seen Nick Schulman and Steffen Sontheimer take down the top spots respectively, and the prizepool of $2.4million guaranteed someone a massive leap into the leaderboard race for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket, which will adorn whoever wins the most money over the 5 events on offer.

In the third of the four $50k buy-ins, which will be followed by a $100k finale, it was only Spaniard Sergio Aido sitting between the six Americans, a who’s-who of top-flight poker with Kenney, Erik Seidel, Doug Polk, Jake Schindler, Dan Smith and Cary Katz all still in the mix – their combined tournament earnings topping $100million.

And it was the lone outsider, Macau-based Aido who hit the rails first, adding some pocket change to his $5million+ earnings. He was followed by Catz, and then Doug Polk – the doyen of Upswing Poker and podcast fame unable to fight back with his short-stack and finishing seventh.

Dan Smith and Jake Schindler were the next pair to leave, the high-roller experts falling at the hands of Kenney and Seidel respectively, leaving the latter two to fight it out for the first prize… and fight they did!

The Aria Casino has been a happy-hunting ground for Kenney, with a mass of high-place finishes at their regular high-stakes tournaments over the past year or so – and he also took 7th spot in the second of the Masters events.

Seidel, of course, needs no introduction, and it looked at times as though he simply would not ‘die’ in the heads-up battle – surviving 10 separate all-ins including having less than one big blind, before Kenney finally managed to catch him out.

In the overall standings, Steffen Sontheimer is still out in front, but Kenney’s second cash has him snapping at the German’s heels and almost everyone else is still in contention if they can do well in today’s 4th event and Monday’s big finale. Doug Polk might just be the man to upset the applecart…

…and PokerTube will have a full report on the final table results for event 4 tomorrow morning.

Event #3: $50,000 NLHE Final Results