Bryn Kenney’s Life: Net Worth, Biggest Profits, Losses and Private Life

Legends of Poker
05/21/2019

– General Introduction –

Bryn Kenney playing poker wearing a white cap

Bryn Kenney is an American professional poker player. He was born on November 1st, 1986 and grew up in Long Beach, NY.

Although he started his career on the virtual felt, he became immensely successful in the live tournament circuit In fact, he was the biggest live tournament winner in the history of the game between August 2019 and December 2021. He now has over $57 million in live cashes to his name.

Kenney overtook Justin Bonomo and jumped on top of the all time money list in August 2019, after taking second place in the biggest-ever buy-in £1,050,000 Triton London event for $20.563 million. However, Bonomo reclaimed the top spot by winning a $100K NLHE event at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December 2021.

He’s a regular feature in the biggest high roller events around the world. He also has a bracelet from the WSOP.

– Key Career Dates –

  • 2003: He starts playing online poker.
  • 2006: He gets staked by Zack “Monkey101” Stewart, a friend he met through online poker.
  • 2014: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet in the $1,500 10-Game Mix Six-Handed event for $153,220.
  • 2017: He becomes the biggest live tournament winner of the year with $8.505 million in total cashes.
  • 2019: He finishes second in a HK$2,000,000 Triton NLHE tournament in Jeju for $3.063 million.
  • 2019: He chops the £1,050,000 Triton London event for a huge career-best score of £16.891 million ($20.563 million) to go $10 million clear ahead of Justin Bonomo at the top of the Hendon all time money list.

– Bryn Kenney’s Career –

→ Beginnings ←

Kenney had an affection for card games from an early age while growing up in Long Beach, NY. His first game of choice was Magic: The Gathering – something he has in common with another well-known poker pro, Jonathan Little. Meanwhile, he was also playing small poker Sit&Go’s with his friends.

He first deposited to an online poker room at age 17, to an account he created under his mother’s name, as he told in an interview for Cardplayer Magazine. When he reached the legal gambling age, he created the account BrynKenney on PokerStars that he still uses today.

Kenney was a winning player from early on, but not enough to sustain himself. This changed when he met Zack “Monkey101” Stewart on a trip to the Bahamas. His fellow online S&G grinder decided to stake him. That is when Kenney started playing live poker instead of online.

“When I was 20, I went down to the Bahamas and met this guy who went by Monkey101 [Zack Stewart] who I was playing in a lot heads-up $5,000 sit-n-gos online. We hung out for a while and after the trip, I lost all of my money online. He ended up inviting me out to Los Angeles to play at the Commerce and offered me a stake.

In the first three days, I made something like $40,000. As soon as I had a little bit to play on my own, I started really gambling. I took my share of the profit and started playing $20-$40 No Limit Hold’em. I was about even after three more days, then for the next 30 to 40 days, I didn’t have a single losing day. By the end of that run, I was playing the biggest game in the casino” – said Kenney in the aforementioned Cardplayer interview.

→ Live Tournaments ←

Bryn Kenney is one of the most successful live tournament players of all time. His Hendon page shows a whopping $57.109 million in tournament cashes combined, putting him at #2 on the site’s all time money list. He did hold the #1 spot between August 2019 and December 2021. Kenney overtook Justin Bonomo in 2019, then Bonomo regained his top spot in 2021.

Kenney has cashed in 184 individual live events. The first one dates back to May 2007, when he finished 2nd in a $1,000 tournament for $34,446 in Verona, WI. The first time Kenney made a 6-figure cash was at the 2010 WSOP.

In January 2011, he finished 3rd in the $100K Super High Roller at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. At the final table, he battled against the likes of Daniel Negreanu and Nick Schulman, eventually earning himself a $643,000 payday.

2016 was when things really started moving for Kenney. That is when he started delivering huge score after huge score from the highest buy-in tournaments from around the world.

In November 2016, he came in 2nd in a HK$500,000 NLHE Triton Series event for $1.401 million.

The next year, 2017, he became the biggest live tournament winner in the world. He ended the year with $8.505 million in live tournament winnings, ahead of WSOP Main Event champion Scott Blumstein.

His standout results from that year are winning a €100,000 PSC Super High Roller in Monaco for  $1.947 million; winning the $50K event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $969,075; and another victory, this time in Event #3 at the inaugural Poker Masters high roller series for $960,000.

Then, in 2019, he went on another massive heater. In March, he scored a runner-up finish in the HK$2,000,000 Triton NLHE Main Event held in Jeju, South Korea. He lost the heads-up battle for the title to Timothy Adams. Kenney ended up pocketing no less than $3,063 million.

He also won two Triton tournaments in Montenegro in May: a HK$1,000,000 tournament for $2.714 million and a HK$500,000 event for $1.431 million.

If that wasn’t enough for one year, he then took part in Triton London, and went on to chop the historic £1,050,000 buy-in event for a titanic score of $20.563 million. This result sent him firmly to the top of the all time money list with a lead over Justin Bonomo of more than $10 million.

→ World Series of Poker ←

Kenney has won one WSOP gold bracelet so far. He beat a field of 445 players in the $1,500 10-Game Mix Six-Handed event and won $153,220. 10-Game is rarely played anywhere. It includes Limit and No limit Texas Hold’em, Limit 7-Card Stud and 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo, PLO and Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz and Badugi.

Overall, the American poker pro has 41 cashes at World Series events for a total of $2.793 million combined.

His first ITM finish is from the 2008 WSOP. It’s a 35th place finish for $16,647 in the $5,000 6-handed NLHE tournament.

He made a deep run in the 2010 Main Event, eventually finishing 28th out of 7,319 players for $255,242. His biggest WSOP cash is $646,927 which he got for finishing 5th in the $100K High Roller event in 2018.

→ Live Cash Games ←

Kenney appeared in 2 episodes of Poker Night in America, CBS Sports’ poker show,  in 2017. He was playing a $50/$100 NLHE cash game session against Shaun Deeb, Jennifer Tilly, and others.

 

In September 2018, he played some lower stakes cash, $5/$10, on Poker Central’s show Friday Night Poker. He also appeared on PokerGO’s revived version of the classic show Poker After Dark.

→ Online Poker ←

As we wrote above, Kenney got his start in poker on the virtual felt. He was playing mainly Sit&Go’s at the beginning. He started getting tracked MTT scores around the same time as live tournament scores. His screen name on PokerStars is “BrynKenney”.

His first recorded cash on his PocketFives page is from July 2006. The first time his payday crossed the $10K mark was in that November – he won a $100 tourney on Stars for $23,953.

The biggest single MTT cash of his online career is $52,360 which he got for beating a 278-player field in a $215 event.

The total cash on his PS account is $434,438, according to PocketFives. However, his latest cash on that profile comes from more than a decade ago, March 2008.

Around 2019-2020, he played and won a number of $25K Blade high rollers on Natural8-GGNetwork. However, those are results were not tracked.

HighstakesDB has over 56,000 tracked hands played by the BrynKenney account on Stars. He’s $307,036 in the black, playing mostly the 8-Game mix. The hands come from between March 2011 and March 2018.

His biggest pots are $50/$100 No Limit Hold’em hands, however.

→ Sponsorships ←

Kenney is the ambassador to Natural8-GGNetwork, one of the biggest online poker rooms out there.

→ Scandals ←

There isn’t anything scandalous that has happened to Bryn Kenney so far.

So much so that when Pokernews.com uploaded an interview with him with the title “Bryn Kenney UNCENSORED”, the most “scandalous” thing that was brought up was why he’s playing poker while wearing a bathrobe over his shirt and pants.

– Bryn Kenney on Social Media –

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brynkenney

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brynkenney

 

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Author:Marton

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