The attractive Triton SHRS London festival had several tournaments yesterday - the $125k NLH Main Event took place, we got to know the champion of the $25k PLO event (Seth Gottlieb - $511,000), but another event attracted the most attention. That was the unique quarter-million Luxon Invitational, in which the final nine led by Talal Shakerchi played for a prize worth $6,860,000.
Although the deep structure and almost 40bb average from the beginning of the day promised a long evening, in the end it was all over in four hours. The mix of world professionals and savvy businessmen graced the final table with the presence of Chris Moneymaker, the man who was behind the birth of one of the most significant poker booms in the history of this game.
This time, Chris was not the one to win the title from this table, but no one will take the 7-figure bonus from him. Luckily for him, James Chen, Kayhan Mokri, Nick Petrangelo and Robert Flink left the final table before him, which meant for Chris the final 5th place for $2,030,000.
The brutal pace of the game continued even after Chris's elimination, but a spot from which there was no escape sent Aleks Ponakovs home. With 98, he got hold of the 86J8 board against Shakerchi, who in the showdown turned his full house with a pair of 66, but after the blank board we moved to the final 3-handed game.
Until this moment, the fast final table sent most of the players home after losing with a worse hand, but the spectators did not see any significant suckout. We had to wait for that one until the elimination of the champion of the Main Event of Cyprus Triton Punnat Punsri. He prefloped with AQ for 25bb against Shakerchi with AJ, but it was a flopped Jc that decided his fate and moved the tournament to heads-up.
The chip leader at the start of the final table, Talal Shakerchi, faced former world number one Brynn Kenney, but the stacks were almost completely even at the start of the game. Both players went all out, chips flying from side to side, but gradually piling up before Kenney. Although Shakerchi achieved one double-up, the second all-in/call spot already became the last one. Shakerchi with AA was better against Kenney's 98, but the eight on the board definitely decided everything.
With today's win, Kenney followed up on the record hit he scored right here at the London Triton four years ago. In the world's most expensive tournament with a buy-in of one million pounds, Kenney fought his way to heads-up, from which he emerged as the loser, but thanks to the heads-up deal he took the largest share of the prize pool and at the same time the largest individual win in the history of poker - $20,563,324.
Another title earned Kenney the aforementioned $6,860,000, a trophy, a luxury watch and an exclusive trip from Bombay Superyacht for him and five friends. "It's unbelievable, literally crazy. Four years ago I didn't manage to get the trophy, but today I finally did. I am very grateful for everything, it's an amazing feeling", the three-time Triton champion and the old leader of the world all-time money list concluded his speech.
Event #9 – NLH Luxon Invitational
- Bryn Kenney, USA – $6,860,000
- Talal Shakerchi, UK – $4,650,000
- Punnat Punsri, Thailand – $3,107,000
- Aleks Ponakovs, Latvia – $2,540,000
- Chris Moneymaker, USA – $2,030,000
- Robert Flink, Sweden – $1,582,000
- Nick Petrangelo, USA – $1,170,000
- Kayhan Mokri, Norway – $860,000
- James Chen, Taiwan – $680,000
Source: Triton-Series, YouTube, HendonMob, Twitter