Riding the strength of his start of day chip lead, Bryn Kenney continued to be the “Master of the High Rollers” as he captured the 100,000 Euro Super High Roller at the PokerStars Championships Monte Carlo on Saturday. As Kenney added over 1.7 million more Euros to his bankroll for 2017, the 5000 Euro Main Event opened its action.
With nine men in the mix and only eight paying spots, someone was leaving the Super High Roller tournament disappointed. That man would turn out to be Isaac Haxton, who got a bit short and shoved with Big Chick from the small blind. The big blind, David Peters, woke up with pocket Jacks and made the call, looking to eliminate a dangerous player from the event. There was a Queen as the dealer fanned the flop, but there was also a Jack to keep Peters in the lead with a flopped set. After the turn failed to bring anything useful for Haxton, he was out of the tournament in ninth place for the big goose egg (zero Euros).
Everyone left at the table was guaranteed a 237,950 Euro payday and those men set about determining just who would get what piece of it. Viacheslav Buldygin, who came into the final table with the second largest chip stack, went on a rampage at this point in knocking out Sam Greenwood in eighth and Martin Kabrhel in seventh to take the lead from Kenney. Kenney, for his part, had been quiet up to this point, but made himself known in chopping a massive chunk of chips from Buldygin after rivering two pair, Kings up, against Buldygin’s pocket Aces.
Now it was Kenney’s turn to pound the opposition and he did just that. Kenney bumped off Steffen Sontheimer in sixth place and shot down Ole Schemion in fifth to extend his lead. After he eliminated Peters from the tournament in fourth place with his Queens standing over Peters’ A-7, he had taken three straight opponents down and held a monstrous lead. Even after Buldygin matched his feat in eliminating three players by taking out Daniel Dvoress, Buldygin still was at a 5-1 chip disadvantage as heads up play began.
The twosome would shuffle some chips back and forth between each other before they paused the action to discuss a deal. The right numbers couldn’t be agreed on by the two gentlemen and, with that, they decided to play on. On the final hand, the aggressive Kenney – he had been punishing his short-stacked tablemates with all-in moves to force them to make decisions for their tournament lives all afternoon – once again moved all in with pocket deuces and, with a suited K-Q, Buldygin made his stand. That stand lasted all of the flop when a deuce landed to give Kenney a set. When the turn blanked, Buldygin was drawing dead and the championship was Kenney’s to celebrate.
1. Bryn Kenney, 1,784,500 Euros
2. Viacheslav Buldygin, 1,290,800
3. Daniel Dvoress, 832,800
4. David Peters, 630,600
5. Ole Schemion, 487,715
6. Steffen Sontheimer, 380,700
7. Martin Kabrhel, 303,350
8. Sam Greenwood, 237,950
The PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo Main Event also saw Day 1A action on Saturday with some of the same players from the Super High Roller jumping over to take part in the action. Ole Schemion used part of the proceeds from the Super High Roller to buy into the Main Event and he did quite well, finishing the day with 144,900 in chips to sit in seventh place. Haxton also made the jump, not finishing quite as well on the day as Schemion but in the game with 65,700 in chips.
The story of the day was Jeffrey Hakim, who seemed to draw the chips in like a vacuum. In a five-way pot, Hakim would flop the ten-high nut straight but have to face down the potential of an opponent catching a bigger straight or a flush with his suited J-9. Once the board came up blanks, Hakim stacked roughly 180K in chips but the best was yet to come. During the last level of the night, Hakim flopped quad fours and found a guppy who wanted to stick around. Hakim would check-raise the flop only to have said guppy four-bet the action, which Hakim was happy to call. On a blank turn, the guppy shoved his stack with a draw and Hakim called to deliver the bad news. The resulting chips pushed Hakim over the 300K mark, the only player to reach that point.
1. Jeffrey Hakim, 305,300
2. Stefan Shillhabel, 203,000
3. Manig Loeser, 195,700
4. Michel Pereira Marques, 168,900
5. Pascal Hartmann, 151,200
6. Igor Yaroshevskyy, 147,500
7. Ole Schemion, 144,900
8. Dmytro Shuvanov, 140,000
9. Bradley Marsh, 130,000
10. Vicente Delgado, 130,000
Although these players will be back on Monday to continue the festivities, a plethora of top pros won’t. Anthony Spinella, Freddy Deeb and Team PokerStars Pros Vanessa Selbst and Jake Cody all found the rail during Saturday’s action. While Day 1B is on Sunday at noon, the tournament is a freezeout and the players cannot rebuy.