Bryn Kenney Overcomes Erik Seidel in Epic Heads-Up Match to Win Poker Masters Event #3
The Poker Masters Event #3: $50,000 NLHE began with 48 entrants, but on Saturday only seven returned to action. Erik Seidel began the day as the short stack, while Bryn Kenney sat fourth in chips, albeit with less than half the top three stacks. Still, the two persevered and wound up battling it out in a truly epic heads-up match that featured a dozen double ups.
Seidel was the beneficiary of most of them, but eventually Kenney managed to finish off his opponent to capture a $960,000 first-place prize. On Friday, Kenney finished seventh in Event #2 for $125,000, which means his total winnings for the Poker Masters currently stands at $1.085 million.
That is good enough to put him in second place behind the $1.104 million of Steffen Sontheimer, who won Event #2 the day after finishing fourth in Event #1. The winner of the first event, Nick Schulman, currently sits in third with $918,000 in winnings, while Seidel ($576,000) and Matt Hyman ($561,000) round out the top five.
If you recall, the player with the best results (highest total earnings) throughout all five Poker Masters tournaments (four $50,000 buy-in tournaments capped by a $100,000 freeze out finale) will win The Poker Masters Purple Jacket™.
Event #3: $50,000 NLHE Final Results
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Bryn Kenney | USA | $960,000 |
| 2nd | Erik Seidel | USA | $576,000 |
| 3rd | Jake Schindler | USA | $312,000 |
| 4th | Dan Smith | USA | $192,000 |
| 5th | Doug Polk | USA | $144,000 |
| 6th | Cary Katz | USA | $120,000 |
| 7th | Sergio Aido | Spain | $96,000 |
It only took 15 minutes for the first player to fall, and it happened when Spain’s Sergio Aido, who now calls Macau home, three-bet his short stack all in holding pocket sixes and was called by the Jake Schindler, the original raiser with the ace-jack of clubs. Two clubs on the flop and one on the river gave Schindler the flush, and Aido was out in seventh place for $96,000.
It took a long time for the next elimination to occur, but happened when a short-stacked Cary Katz tried a stop-and-go play against Seidel, who had flopped a pair of threes. Katz failed to get there with ace-nine and busted in sixth place for $120,000.
Just a few hands later, Kenney open-jammed the small blind with queen-eight to put the pressure on a short-stacked Doug Polk, who called off with pocket fours. A queen on the flop put the final nail in Polk’s coffin. The Upswing Poker founder earned $144,000 for his fifth-place finish.
Dan Smith was the next to go after running pocket sevens into the jacks of Kenney, and then Schindler bowed out in third when he failed to win a race with Big Slick suited against the pocket threes of Seidel.
Kenney began heads-up play with 3,225,000 to Seidel’s 2,745,000, and it proved to be a rollercoaster affair. Kenney whittled Seidel down to a short stack, but couldn’t seem to finish him off. In fact, Seidel got all in eight different times, winning seven of them and chopping once. On many of those occasions, he was saved by the river.
Seidel eventually took the chip lead, but then it was Kenney’s turn for a double thanks to a fortuitous river card. Another double for Kenney left Seidel with less than a big blind, and despite two more doubles, he finally succumbed. It happened when his deuce-trey failed to get there against the king-jack of Kenney.
The third event of the Poker Masters has come to an end, but already Event #4: $50,000 NLHE is underway. That is the final prelim before the $100,000 freeze out gets underway on Monday. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team is providing complete coverage from Event #4 now, which you can follow by clicking here.