How A Former 'Magic: The Gathering' Player Became the Top Tournament Poker Player Of All Time

Joe Weisenthal (0:12)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal, and unfortunately, my co-host Tracy Alloway is out this week, and it's especially unfortunate because we're going to be discussing one of Tracy's favorite topics, and that is poker. And of course, as longtime listeners know, that's kind of a joke because it is not one of Tracy's favorite topics, it's one of my favorite topics, and she always reluctantly agrees to do these episodes on this subject. Nonetheless, she would have actually wanted to make this one, it just didn't work scheduling-wise, because today we're not only speaking to one of the most successful poker players of all time, and in fact, by one measure, the most successful poker player of all time.

The guest today got his start, not by playing poker, but by playing a game that Tracy herself is really interested in genuinely, which is not poker. So without further ado, I want to bring in our guest today and talk about how he became successful, how he got his start in the game. Bryn Kenney, thank you very much for joining us, or joining me.

Bryn Kenney (1:26)

It feels great to be here.

Joe Weisenthal (1:28)

You're by one ranking the number one, most winningest tournament poker player of all time. There's this database called The Hendon Mob, The Hendon Mob attracts tournament winnings and you're number one on there, right?

Bryn Kenney (1:41)

Yeah, which is pretty cool. I mean, actually for a long time, I always said that I would hit number one in poker. And I mean, I won the one or chopped the biggest tournament of all time this year, which like catapulted me from number four to number one.

Joe Weisenthal (1:55)

So I was looking at this database, it's online, it's called The Hendon Mob, you should check it out. And you've won about $55 million in total tournament money.

But you mentioned that tournament, and I couldn't believe this, I thought maybe I was looking at a typo, but you won $20 million in a single tournament, and I didn't even realize prize pods got this big ever. So how is there a tournament that had a $20 million prize?

Bryn Kenney (2:21)

Yeah, so there's only been about three tournaments of all time with this prize. This one was ran by guys at Triton Poker, where pretty much I think for any high stakes tournament, the most important thing to draw good attendance or strong attendance is by having a bunch of VIP players. So they made a really good ruling in this one where if you were a pro and you wanted to play, you had to get an invite from a VIP player. Like you couldn't just go and play there, which made it an exclusive tournament and won.

Joe Weisenthal (2:53)

What does that mean, a VIP player? How is that different from a pro?

Bryn Kenney (2:56)

I guess businessman, I should have said instead, yeah.

Joe Weisenthal (2:58)

So basically what it was was this gigantic buy-in tournament. It was like a million dollars to buy-in.

Bryn Kenney (3:03)

Yeah, like a million pounds to buy-in. Million pounds plus 50,000 pounds given to charity to buy-in.

Joe Weisenthal (3:09)

But it's a mix of poker pros and just like people who have a ton of money that probably aren't pros, but like the idea of being in a tournament with pros.

Bryn Kenney (3:18)

Yeah, exactly, but then also like the idea where it's 50-50 pros to recreational players, where usual tournament for high stakes could be 95% pros or something. So it makes it much more enticing to come and play where actually in the beginning of the tournament for the first six levels, you played with only, if you were a businessman, you played with only businessman, and if you were a pro, you played with only pros, and then it mixed in afterwards.

Joe Weisenthal (3:45)

This makes sense. So if you were to just have a million dollar buy-in tournament and it were just pros, that's not that appealing, and it's just people who are really good going up against each other, but the businessman gets something out of it because they get to play with pros, and the pros get something out of it because businessmen are probably easier money than other pros.

Bryn Kenney (4:05)

Yeah, exactly. So a bunch more pros will be able to play and sell action pretty much. Because once a buy-in gets so big, it pretty much comes down to how good the other people in the community that buy action think that you are.

Joe Weisenthal (4:19)

Explain this. So if a buy-in is a million dollars and you want to enter that tournament, you would sell some of your action to investors, so maybe someone buys in or buys a piece of you for that tournament for 50,000 or 100,000 or whatever it is. Talk about that market where a pro sells action. How does that work? How do you find the people who want to stake you?