Bryn Kenney Wins 2019 Aussie Millions Main Event

For the second straight year the Aussie Millions $10,600 AUD no-limit hold’em main event set a record for attendance. The 2019 running of this prestigious event saw a total of 822 players turn out to Melbourne’s Crown Casino, surpassing the previous record of 800 entries set in 2018 to become the single largest Aussie Millions main event field in history. The massive turnout built a prize pool of $8,220,000 AUD ($5,984,493 USD).

After five full days of action, it was American Bryn Kenney who emerged victorious with the title and a top payout of $1,272,598 AUD ($916,271 USD). The 32-year-old poker pro now has career live tournament earnings in excess of $26.6 million, enough to see him climb into ninth place on poker’s all-time money list.

Kenney was also awarded 2,208 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event, enough to see him catapulted into sixth place on the overall POY leaderboard.

The final day of this event began with Kenney being the shortest stack among the seven remaining players, sitting with less than 20 big blinds when play resumed. He found a double up through chip leader and World Poker Tour champion Mike Del Vecchio early on, and then managed to win a preflop race with JJ against the AK of Gyeong Byeong Lee. With that Kenney climbed into the middle of the pack.

In the meantime, Australian native Andrew Hinrichsen had scored the first two knockouts of the day. First his AJ outran the pocket queens of Hamish Crawshaw to send him to the rail in seventh place ($174,240 USD). Then his J10 finished off the remnants of Gyeong Byeong Lee’s short short stack, making top pair on the flop against Lee’s AK. Lee earned $222,480 USD as the sixth-place finisher.

Matthew Wakeman was the next player to be eliminated. He found himself on the bad end of a preflop cooler, getting all-in with QQ only to find out he had run into the AA of Clinton Taylor. The aces held up and Wakemen was sent home with $273,816 USD as the fifth-place finisher.

Despite scoring that knockout, Taylor was ultimately the next player to bust out from this event. He doubled up Del Vecchio to fall to the bottom of the leaderboard, and then lost a coinflip to hit the rail. His AK improved to top pair on a 10867A runout, but Andrew Hinrichsen’s 99 made a straight on the turn to win the hand. Taylor earned $347,760 USD for his deep run in this event.

When three-handed play began, Hinrichsen was well out in front of his two opponents. The three battled it out for quite a while, and over the course of the 109 hands they played, Del Vecchio and Kenney were able to steadily work their way up the leaderboard.

The final three ultimately decided to make a deal based on the ICM numbers. At the time, Del Vecchio and Kenney were essentially tied, with the former having just two big blinds more in his stack. Kenney, being the most accomplished player remaining, was able to negotiate his way into the largest payout of $916,271 USD and the title. Del Vecchio, who finished fifth in the Aussie Millions main event last year for $293,973, earned $915,957 on the second of his back-to-back final-table appearances, while Hinrichsen pocketed $790,372.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo via Crown Poker’s Twitter account (@CrownPoker).

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