The pots get bigger and bigger in High Stakes Poker Season 9. In the latest episode Krish Menon has won one of the largest pots of all time in High Stakes Poker History worth a staggering $934,500 against Bryn Kenney. We provide an in-depth analysis of this sick hand in our Poker Hand of the Week.
Poker Hand of the Week Setup
Our Poker Hand of the Week comes from the latest episode of High Stakes Poker Season 9, which features poker superstars Tom Dwan, Bryn Kenney, Patrik Antonius and Garrett Adelstein.
They recently raised the stakes at High Stakes Poker to NL$500/$1,000 with straddle making it basically NL$1,000/$2,000. Krish has Bryn Kenney just covered at the start of our Poker Hand of the Week.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop:
The founder of the huge online food delivery company DoorDash, Stanley Tang straddles to $2,000 and Krish Menon open-raises to $7,000 from UTG with 
. Bryn Kenney decides to make a play at the pot in position by making a very loose 3-bet to $20,000 with 
. Krish quickly calls. Pot Size: $44,500
Flop:
The flop of 
is gin for Bryn Kenney as it gives him very well-disguised Trip Sixes. As if this would not be enough the loose-aggressive Krish flops an overpair! A big pot is brewing, when Krish checks over to Bryn, who makes a sizeable continuation bet of $30,000 into $44,500 (67% pot) and Krish calls. Pot Size: $104,500
Turn:
The 
on the turn is a very interesting card, since Bryn Kenney improves to a disguised full house, while Krish is still holding an overpair.
Menon checks over to Bryn for a second time, who elects that $80,000 (77% pot) is the right sizing with his full house. Krish seemingly doesn’t believe Bryn and make a surprising check-raise to $200,000. Bryn has two options: Sticking it in right here or slowplaying. He chooses the second option and calls. Now there is already a whopping $504,500 in the pot with Kenney having only $215,000 behind.
River:
The 
is the sickest card in the deck as Krish hits one of his only two outs! He almost instantly puts Bryn Kenney All-in for his remaining $215,000, and Bryn snap-calls.
Krish says “I have Sevens” before turning his cards over and Bryn couldn’t believe his eyes. Krish rivers Bryn Kenney to win one of the biggest pots in High Stakes Poker history worth an incredible $934,500!
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
Garrett says to Krish after the hand:
“No exaggeration, This is one of the sickest hands I’ve ever seen”, and that pretty much sums it up.
Let’s go through this very sick hand street by street.
The basis for this massive pot is laid preflop through Bryn Kenney’s very loose 3-bet to $20k with 96s. Although Krish is the only one calling there is already $44,500 in the pot pre.
The flop spells big trouble for Krish as he plays a very loose-aggressive style and tends to overplay hands. A player like this usually doesn’t fold an overpair and this is exactly what happens here on the flop and turn. On the flop, Menon check-calls a hefty $30,000 cbet.
On the turn, Bryn fills up and Krish checks again. Kenney now sizes up to $80,000 and Krish makes a very unexpected check-raise to $200,000, which hardly anybody saw coming. Bryn contemplates his options and understandably choses to slowplay his hand by just calling.
In general, I recommend to avoid slowplays and rather play your big hands in live cash games fast and build a pot. However, there are very few spots, where a slowplay is the better and one of them is when you are up against an overly-aggressive player like Krish, who tends to overplay his hands.
That’s why the call and slowplay by Bryn Kenney makes a lot of sense, since he can be pretty sure to have the best hand and wants to extract the maximum.
Sometimes poker is just brutal as the river brings the Two-Outer for Krish! He obviously puts Bryn All-In, who snap-calls and sees that he just got rivered in a $935,000 pot.
Poker Hand of the Week Conclusion
There are days, where you can do everything right and still end up losing. However, that doesn’t mean that you have to doubt your game and you need to keep your composure even after such bad beats.
It was the right play by Bryn Kenney to slowplay on the turn, when he made the nut full house and you sometimes have to take the risk to get rivered, when your opponent only has very few outs in order to maximize your value.
Short-term there is a lot of luck and variance involved in poker, but keep in mind that long-term always the player, who makes the better and more correct decisions wins the money…
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