A little more than fifteen hours of play, 69 entries, including some of the world’s top high rollers, and a first-place prize of $969,075 up for grabs – this is how the 2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas $50,000 Single-Day High Roller could be described with a few words. However, the air and thrill that surrounded the tournament was probably indescribable.
Failing to scoop a back-to-back title in the $100,000 Super High Roller that was completed on Sunday night, US poker pro Bryn Kenney did not give up but did his best to win Monday’s $50,000 buy-in tournament. The player added another prestigious accomplishment to his already amazing record as well as the above-mentioned first-place payout of $969,075.
Nowadays, it has become on a rare occasion that fairly unfamiliar faces have been entering high roller events of this scale. The $50,000 buy-in tournament at Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas Casino was not an exception. Well-known players like Daniel Negreanu, Dan Colman, Eric Seidel, Isaac Haxton, and Byron Kaverman, to name a few, entered yesterday’s event, all hoping to add more to their enormous bankrolls.
Play kicked off at noon local time. As many as 40 unique players paid the $50,000 buy-in. There were also 20 re-entries throughout the day. The eventual 69-person field generated a prize pool of $3,313,035. There were payouts for the nine finalists, the lowest cash standing at $96,080.
The nine-handed final table was reached at around 10 pm local time. Dan Colman led the final nine with a total of 1,273,000 in chips. Byron Kaverman was not far behind with his 1,139,000 stack. And here are the rest of the finalists:
Dan Colman (United States) – 1,273,000
Byron Kaverman (United States) – 1,139,000
Daniel Dvoress (Canada) – 1,007,000
Mustapha Kanit (Italy) – 968,000
Stephen Chidwick (United Kingdom) – 890,000
Ben Tollerene (United States) – 653,000
Sergi Reixach (Spain) – 429,000
Cary Katz (United States) – 276,000
Bryn Kenney (United States) – 270,000
As it could be seen, Kenney was at the bottom end of the chip counts chart when nine-handed play began. Bearing in mind the toughness of all his opponents, emerging from the short stack to a chip leader was certainly a challenging task. However, Kenney made it look quite easy. It took him four levels and around two hours of play to do this. There were eight players left at the table at that point.
Things sped up a lot from then on. Players went out in quick succession and it was around 1:30 am when there were only two hopefuls left at the table – Kenney and Kanit. Heads-up match began with the US player holding the lead. Kanit quickly fell from 2.5 million to a little less than a million chips. However, the player regained composure and managed to double up. The two opponents even got almost even at a certain point.
Kanit proved to be a real challenge but it was around 3 am when Kenney finally finished off his final opponent. On the last hand, Kanit limped and Kenney moved all-in. The young Italian called instantly, tabling [9h][9d] to clash with Kenney’s [Ac][Jc]. The board ran out [Js][Qc][2d][7c][3h] to secure Kenney with the better pair. Kanit had to console himself with the second-place prize of $695,740.
PokerStars Championship Bahamas $50,000 Single-Day High Roller Payouts:
Bryn Kenney – $969,075
Mustapha Kanit – $695,740
Byron Kaverman – $452,220
Dan Colman – $341,240
Stephen Chidwick – $265,040
Ben Tollerene – $205,400
Sergi Reixach – $162,340
Daniel Dvoress – $125,900
Cary Katz – $96,080
