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

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

According to the website The Hendon Mob, the top tournament poker player of all time is the American Bryn Kenney, who has won a staggering $55.5 million. In fact, he got there in just the last six months, having won $20.5 million at a single tournament! So how did a former Magic: The Gathering player vault to the top of this leaderboard? On this week's episode of Odd Lots, Kenney explains how it all came about.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks for listening to Oddlots. Follow the show on Amazon Music for more future episodes or just ask Alexa, play the podcast, OddLots on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall. And unfortunately, my co-host Tracy Allaway 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 Kenny, thank you very much for joining us or joining me. It feels great to be here. You're by one ranking, the number one most winningest tournament poker player of all time. There's this database called the Hendon Mob. It tracks tournament winnings.

And you're number one on there, right? 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 catapulted me from number four to number one. 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 pot got this big ever. So how is there a tournament that had a $20 million prize? 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 that... What does that mean a VIP player? How is that different from a pro? I should have said instead, yeah.

So basically what it was was this gigantic buy-in tournament. It was like a million dollars to buy in. Yeah, like a million pounds to buy in. Million pounds plus 50,000 pounds given to charity to buy in. 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. 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. 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. 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 businessmen get 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. Yeah, exactly. So a bunch more pros will be able to play and sell action pretty much. Because once like a buying gets so big, it pretty much comes down to how good the other people in the community that buy action think that you are.

Explain this. So if a buy-in is a million dollars and you want to enter that tournament, you would sell some. 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? Yeah, so pretty much, I mean, if you're talking about buying pieces in huge tournaments like million or 250,000 or so, it's like a small group of people who invest pretty much, unless if you have an outside businessman man who wants to invest in you or stake you, which happens very rare.

So pretty much the other, like, best poker players in the world have to think that you're one of the best poker players in the world also. And then there's a whole market, like a markup scale also. Okay. Where some people will, let's say, sell to the tournament at no markup, and some people will sell at, let's say, a 1.1 premium. So everything they're selling, they're getting paid at 10% premium. And this is, like, their cut of...

of their expected value. It's like the investor and the player sharing whatever they feel like the expected value is of that tournament. So in a particularly juicy tournament, let's say there's a lot of rich businessmen, and there's only a handful of pros. And so theoretically, all the pros, because they're better than the businessmen, have some reason to expect that they'll be profitable. Because you have access to that tournament, you can charge a premium to the investor such that maybe they buy 10% of your, initial winnings, but they actually pay you 11%. And so you're kind of pocketing that premium right off the bat. Exactly.

And you're just getting a better price for whatever piece you're having of yourself. Or even there's been cases where someone will sell 95% of themselves, wind up with a 5% free roll or so and pay nothing for the tournament. Got it. No, that makes sense. You know, when I was most closely paying attention to poker, It was like a lot of people. It was, there were the poker boom of the mid-aughts.

And then the, the World Series became this big thing. And those buy-ins were like, I think, $10,000. And a big buy-in, like sometimes I think there was, it was like a $50,000 buy-in, I remember, from the World Series. When did this world of mega-huge buy-ins emerge, where you would have a tournament organized and the buy-in was actually a million dollars? Yeah, the millions, I think the first one was maybe,

five years ago where they ran a one-drop tournament where they got a lot of recreational players like Gie Lalaverte ran it for his organization and had one-drop it was called and had a bunch of his friends play and a bunch of other businessmen play. What does that mean one-drop? That's what it was, that's the name for at the World Series and last year actually they had the

I think it'll be the last one-drop since it had pretty much no recreational players so I mean it can never survive like that as the It all comes down to if you're going to raise the stakes for super high, you need to have a few guys who are playing for fun pretty much to make it so that people are going to want to gamble big that they have a decent advantage. Pro poker doesn't work without, frankly, people who are not that good at it playing. Like, you can't just be pros playing against each other. Yeah, I mean, then, like, the best pros are just going to eat the, like, decent pros. But then those guys will stop playing after a little bit, too.

Yeah, exactly. So has the mega buy-in tournament, you could sort of argue, is essentially a market response to the collapse of the poker bubble. That brought in a lot of sort of medium or small dollar people who wanted to play. Maybe people who, you know, they did all right online but weren't amazing. Or people with a modest amount of money that may be going to Vegas for the tournament was kind of a vacation. That market sort of collapsed. So in its wake, the only real opportunity for like, really top-notch pros is the sort of mega buying level with like people with more money than God

who want to play with guys like you. Yeah, because like, I mean, when you're younger, you don't even really think about it. You spend so much money traveling and playing main events where the Biden's $5,000, $10,000. And unless if you're one of like the biggest crushers, you're not really going to be doing so well with all the expenses that you have to pay. Right. So it's completely different. Once you get older, you realize you need to make, if you're at the top of the game,

want to be making more for your time or playing higher stakes if it's possible. So, I mean, Triton did an amazing job where they found a way to make it more fun for the recreational players, where they played with half field of recreational players. I thought that was a genius idea, actually. And that's why they, instead of, I think the one drop, the last one drop had maybe 21 players in the last Triton million, which was even a bit bigger buy-in. Same rake, I think, had over double the field like 56 players and I think that it'll only go up because a lot of people who weren't there watch this amazing production that they put on also and it's like oh man if I could have went and played right I love

poker why shouldn't I go and play so I think for the highest stakes there's just been a great rise I think maybe seven years ago or so was the first time a hundred K event even happened and back then there would be two big 25 Ks a year one in Bahamas, one in Monte Carlo. Now there's like a 25K every week or every other week somewhere. 100K is at every festival. Now I think it's even going to make a turn

to 250K buy-ins towards every festival. Maybe $2, 3 million buy-ins a year or so. Does the game change at those levels? I mean, theoretically, it shouldn't. But when there's that much money on the line and when you're looking at potentially a $20 million dollar, pay out or more for the winner.

Does the psychology of the game change? Well, it like changes a bit in two ways where if you're playing a big field of players, you're not really playing against the same people all the time, where if you're playing these events, you're playing against the same people all the time. So your strategy potentially could be a style that you think works well against the style that everybody else is playing. And then, of course, at the highest stakes, I mean, you need to look for any type of advantage you kind of can where I'll even walk into a room and feel how all the people are

feeling and the people maybe who aren't having a good day aren't very confident that day like that's who you really want to go after aren't going to be thinking as clear and the guys who come in just like they had enough sleep they've been winning recently it's like oh okay stay away from these guys where I would always see it as like a jungle do you want to go against like the other do you really want to hunt against the other strongest animals or do you want to go against, like, the weakest animals and, like, try to play cautious in the other senses? So in the ultra-high stakes, sort of opponent selection is a more important facet of the game. For me, at least, I don't think for most people really think about it.

I think they've geared themselves more on a math-based, GTO-style perfect strategy. Which GTO? It's like game theory optimal, it's called. So this is what everybody says that they're playing this game theory. optimal strategy and studying charts and looking at numbers, which works for sure. But the thing is, I just feel like it doesn't work as well as everybody really thinks because you would need to input so many different variations of how people play to actually figure out what the real chart is. So like, for instance, if you're studying a chart that says this is the best style to play,

it's only the best style to play versus the style that the numbers are input up against. So let's say now another person's playing a completely different style and you're playing the same GTO that you think is unexploitable and perfect. Yeah, that may be true. But you're also going to be playing completely incorrect in some scenarios where you're just like not adjusting what your own chart should be based on what their range actually is. Right. Intuitively, if you think about like the old days and those those World Series events with thousands of players, many of whom sort of came up through online. It's probably somewhat easy to play, at least in the early rounds, a sort of GTO style in

which everyone's sort of this generic online player. I imagine in a tournament with just 50 people and you could sort of identify them all, you can't just take it for granted that there's going to be this sort of generic optimal play. And that probably, I guess what you're saying is requires someone to really shift gears and to actually change their style of play because there's just so few, such a variation. and what you're going to be up against. Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, deep in a tournament,

when you're playing for so much, it's tough to really just blank out that you're not playing for so much and that it's a normal day. Like, that's the most important thing. When I was in the Triton million dollar buy-in, I kept honestly having to tell myself, hey, look, it's a normal day,

not even think it's like a normal day. You have to tell yourself, trick yourself in whatever way. How do you do that? How do you trick yourself? What's your technique? I mean, like, breathing and kind of just trying to get myself in my own zone.

and my own space where I don't care about anything else that's going on, which when you're getting messages from every single person that you know, good luck, and they're all watching and you have this big production. Shouldn't you turn off your phone? Yeah, I mean, kind of, I guess. But also I'm writing, like, my mom and grandma, like, to go and watch it and some friends, like, to make sure that they could watch it. And I don't think that really, I mean, when you wake up,

I was barely sleeping and barely eating anyway. I got myself into some type of trance. I would say, where I didn't really care. I gambled way too much than any, like, any feasible person would want to gamble in one tournament, especially where, like, the number guys would say that you maybe make 10 or maybe the biggest winner makes 20 or 30% or something. I just, I don't know, when the tournament got announced,

I just felt like it was a perfect tournament for me with half businessmen and half pros. And for like the maybe four months, before I kind of told myself that this is a tournament for me and just prepared myself in every way. Let's say my dad would do research and my dad and girlfriend would do research and find me like brain pills that I should take to keep like optimal, have changed my diet completely, just go and take a road trip, turn my phone off for a bit. Just I think the most important thing is if you're gambling for huge amounts or in a spot

where you're taking huge risks. So trading is the same. You have to feel your best and your most relaxed. And whatever makes you feel your best and most relaxed is exactly what you should do because you're going to make big gambles or big moves. I mean, it's always a gamble even if it's a great decision in trading and poker. You're going to have to just feel good no matter what and be able to take a hit no matter what. Let's go back. I mentioned in the intro that Tracy, it's really sad that she's not here because all.

Although she's normally a little cool on the poker episodes, you have a background that she was really interested in when she saw, and that is you started prior to playing poker as you played the card game, Magic, the Gathering. And you were a pro at that, right? Yeah, I mean, it's considered pro. You were doing really well. Explain to people who haven't played that,

the sort of essence of that card game, which is its own cultural phenomenon, and the crossover skills that you had with that game that lent themselves to the poker table. Yeah, so Magic was a great game. I played mostly from 12. I don't remember if it was 12 or 13 that I started playing until I turned 16. There was a junior super series who was called. So it was all people 15 and under. So actually I traveled just from Long Beach I was living in. I would travel to Brooklyn in New York City and New Jersey. And sometimes Washington, D.C. even my mom would take me to in Baltimore and fly to Florida even and San Diego just for these. magic events where it's a car it's like a strategy card game I would say

it's like chess with cards but a lot of interchangeable factors and more luck than chess instead of because it's hard to really compare it to anything because the other comparison is to like a Pokemon or a Yu-Gi-o where it's not really the same at all there's not much strategy

or there's some strategy in these games but a way more strategy in magic where the most important thing I think that it did was it taught me to just play a game just to have in my head just to win, to make the best decision and have your goal just to survive, to accumulate, to win, not care about anything else where I'd already had my mind set after playing magic once I started playing poker where I was pretty much desensitized with the money involved. Explain that just to win because intuitively everyone plays games to win. So what do you mean specifically when you say, get yourself into mindset just to win. Well, poker, when you get into your first spots where you're playing big pots or in tournaments

where the pay jumps are very big pay jumps, you find yourself in a situation you've never seen before. And even if it's a situation that you've seen before, there are going to be times in life when you are not doing as well. And when you're deep in a tournament, you see these big amounts of money up top. If you think about the money that you, you're playing for, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage if you're playing against someone

like me because I'm trying to scout exactly that. I'm trying to see the people who it feels like they are playing less hands and they're thinking more about the money and just going up in pay jumps because it's very easy to push these guys off their hands with big bets on the river. Are these, when you're talking about the people you're spotting, are these people who are, say, trying to backdoor themselves into the money just by surviving. They see when the cutoff is going to be. They know how many more players need to be eliminated before it's money. And so, in other words, the big opportunities are exploiting those people who get anxious

around the bubble. Yeah. Is that sort of what you're saying? Yeah, around the bubble and also when the pay jumps become large amounts of money at final tables and high roller events also. With magic are the tournament structured the same way? Is that... Well, the different thing is in poker.

you would just have chips and accumulate chips. In Magic, you would play one-on-one rounds versus people. And then at the end of however many rounds are, it would formulate into a top eight, like a playoff pretty much. Two questions. So first, when did you realize playing magic? I assumed you maybe just started playing against friends, like most people did, that you were like better than them.

What would you attribute, like, what did you have, even when you were just sort of an amateur or just picking it up, that you would say, like, made the difference between you versus them? So it was very random where I got introduced to magic at a family picnic where one of my cousins brought some magic starter decks. And I asked my mom, I guess, at the picnic, hey, I wanted to get these cards. And I think it was because I had already connection to cards where before I could read, my mom and dad, they said that they would show me 75 different baseball cards.

And I knew the name and position of all the people before I could read. read. So one of the things for sure that has helped me in magic and in poker is that I have a phenomenal memory, like better than I've ever seen anyone else have where I've heard other people having photographic memories. I can pretty much see like a video replaying in my head where not only do I remember hands that I play against people or tendencies that they have. I remember even who's at the table and saw these type of hands so the way that they think about me. So, in magic I got very good

I would say just because I pretty much go all in with anything that I'm interested in so all I would really think about was making different at school I remember

I would just be writing different deck lists that I would be making in class not really care about school So when you say go all in you mean in your life like you devoted yourself to

yeah like I mean poker I started playing poker mostly at 17 and from 17 to 29, I pretty much played every waking hour I had. Even when I would travel around to other countries, I wouldn't do anything else other than play poker. Didn't take a single vacation. Literally, I had only one focus where even friends of mine,

or one friend was telling my mom when we were having lunch that at 18 years old, I would say that I was going to be the best poker player in the world. And one thing that I say is that I just wanted it more than everybody else. just put my whole life into it. When I was winning a lot, I played all day every day. When I lost everything, I was playing all day every day. In the middle, I was playing all day every day.

I would just wake up, go straight to a computer back in the online days, play online all day. How do you distinguish that between someone who's just a gambling at it? There are a lot of people who did that, and then they lost everything, including their family and their entire future. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a tough line for sure. But it's like a skill that it takes a long time to build. So if you just go in and start gambling at high stakes in early stage, when you have a bunch of money,

it's very likely that you're going to lose this money. So it's completely different where I started with no money and I would build it up and then lose it all. You would have to win and then lose. So you're feeling like the sense of winning and losing. And to be able to win, you're going to need to put in a lot of work to be ahead of everybody else because it's a lot of other smart people who are playing cards.

If you have money already, it's like it's a danger, danger zone then pretty much because you can play high stakes very easily. You can lose the house. You can lose whatever amount of money, just like casinos. I mean, I have friends who say that their friends have lost $200 million, $500 million, $500 million, like whole savings in casinos in Asia. That's impressive. Yeah, it's very depressing. So this is, this actually gets to an aspect of poker, professional poker, that's highly. relevant to the investing audience. And this is the concept of risk management and bank role management.

And you talked about how you would go up and then you would lose it all and then go up some more and then lose it all. What have you learned over time about bank role management so that you don't lose it all? Because ultimately, I mean, you were able to build back up. But from the investing game and trading, often if you lose it all, you're just out of the game and that's it. Yeah. I mean, I tell everybody went and when I see someone young and it's someone that I like I try to always tell them hey like just you have to protect your money because it's like your most valuable asset right when you have money it's very easy to build on the money if you're making good decisions if you're a smart person but it's very hard to turn no money into a lot of money yeah where people couldn't even be in

have done the same situation that I've done where most of the time if you lose all the money that you have you're just out of business yeah yeah how are you going to do any else. I just did a lot of business with a lot of people where I would stake them or I would help them out and give them loans before or they would buy pieces of me. And since my word was always 100%, and I made a lot of money for people, I would be able to get loans that were unheard of pretty much where there were points at 20, 22 years old where I owed friends half a million dollars with, I mean, for the real world with no credit. No assets and somehow able to borrow half a million bucks and not have people even really ask you for it is pretty unheard of. Before moving on, I have to ask you a question about and at any level, these staking arrangements, how formalized are they? So if I were to stake you in one of these big tournaments, would we like sign a whole contract and everything so that there's no ambiguity or is it just like trust and respect? I mean, it's mostly just trust and respect, except if, I mean, if you're doing a big deal, deal maybe someone will have you sign a contract or if you're doing business with someone who's a

businessman where they're used to always signing contracts for any type of deal that they have. Lots of poker deals have just been from just trust. And I mean, that's a huge mistake. But it all comes down to a lot of when you're a kid and you start making a lot of money. Of course, you're going to make bad financial decisions where I was staking a lot of my a lot of people that you thought were your friends and wouldn't. sign a contract and in the end of the day they would just lie straight to your face about things to you. So you've made internment poker something like $55 million. Obviously, you have a lifestyle

and travel to support and all that. Do you feel at this point that there's, like, there's no way you could ever go bust again? I mean, it's funny though, because going into this year, I had, let's say, $25 million in cashes and I had a negative bankroll already. So. Oh, you did? You were in debt even with the 25 million? Yeah, yeah. Because I had actually my first losing year ever last year. So let's say on the staking arrangement, I think I was down like 3.5 million going into this year

and owed maybe another million bucks on the side from that. And actually I wound up in a spot where I think most people would have taken the easier route where at the start of this year, the guy who stakes me, he's very wealthy businessman. And we became good friends. pretty much tells me, hey, the 3.5 that you're down, I think it's an insurmountable amount of money. I'm fine. We should just, we can wipe it away and start the number at zero.

But the thing is, I've been in an unfair business deal before where I got screwed over completely. And I've always been completely fair, but actually it really made me think in every deal that I make with anyone. I always want to think on both sides and make sure that it's fair that I'm not like using leverage or taking advantage of anyone, which, like, other. people will do. So as soon as he tells me this, the thing is, if I take this, it means I took a completely unfair deal. Like, it's easy to justify that the money doesn't matter to them or so. But for me, it's more about morals where I just don't do it all. I never give up when things are bad. Actually, I told him, I said, hey, look, don't worry. I'm not going to do this, but let's just continue it how it is. And I'm going to be number one in the world again this year.

And that's exactly what happened. So we're just going into this, start. Starting into this year, before this 20 million, when was the $20 million cash, by the way? It was in the beginning of August. Okay. So up until that, even with all this. I won a lot. Like from January to August of 2019, I had won a lot and already cleared that number. But even still going into 2019, technically you were like busted? Well, I mean, worse than busted. Like I had to pay, I had to pay my next three and a half mill, give or take a few hundred thousand in winnings from poker. And I, oh, I owe him.

owed money on the side too. So I was way worse. I guess you could say worse or better because at the same sense, even if I'm down three and a half million, I get to play large buying tournaments. If my mindset's good and I get back to winning ways, I can win a big tournament for five million and have money. Well, at that point, I almost have money again since I owed a million on the side. So, I mean, no offense. If someone's listening to this for advice of like bankroll management, I mean, obviously your life is and trajectory has been extraordinary. But it doesn't sound like you couldn't get back there again. Yeah, because, I mean, I was at the top of the game, so it's different.

But it sounds like you really like the massive swing. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I didn't mind the massive swings at all because. Were you stressed out owing, I mean, only $3.5 million and not having anything? No, actually, to be honest, to start this year, I felt like amazing. I mean, the thing is, it's all relative. So as long as I can borrow money on like the number that I owe on the side to live whatever lifestyle that makes you happy. Yeah.

That's like an agreed upon thing and no problem. Then life is still fine. You don't necessarily. See, it's all about what you create is stress in your head, I feel like. Yeah. Where you can just eliminate things completely and just take it like it's breakfast where it destroys other people. You just, I mean, I accept whatever, wherever I'm at and just kind of. of have trained myself to have the mindset that you can only you can't change the past you can only

make good decisions in the present moment and sometimes like a big mistake it'll take a long time to get you back to where you want to be it's all about changing your mindset to where you maybe were playing huge stakes before a few months ago and now you have to make a few hundred bucks a day just to like come back where I mean I've been in smaller ones where I had let's say three million dollars and six months later I had no money and owed my friends half a million dollars. Yeah. And at that stage you can't play high stakes anymore. You have to train your brain that you have to try to make 500 bucks a day and then try to raise it a little bigger and bigger just to get yourself back to knock where you were just to build yourself back to comfortable or

more comfortable and just take small wins. So do you ever think about it? just stopping? I mean, I assume you're several million now after your huge win, you could just like have Or play for fun. I mean, that's the thing. To get so good at anything, you have to love it also. Right. So, I mean, every athlete who's the best

at what they do, they all love it because you have to play all day every day. You have to be great at anything that a lot of other people want to be great at, you just have to want it more than they do. I mean, you could say that there's some like natural born talent and everything

there are reasons that make me good at poker that maybe... Just playing for ultra-high stakes make what used to be considered high stakes seem boring to. Like, I'm thinking about, like, beer drinkers who drink really high alcohol content IPAs, and then they can't go back to drinking normal beers because they can't even taste it. Just the thought of buying into a $10,000 tournament just bore you at this point? Yeah, even like $25,000. Even I start to think about like $50,000. It doesn't really...

Like, it just doesn't excite. Yeah. Well, I mean, I played so much. anyway, so I was transitioning more to playing less and going to places that I won to play and not just going to, let's say Florida, for instance, they have nice tournaments where the buy-ins, $3,500, $10,000, $25,000, $50,000. I don't really have any interest ever to go there again and play. What about cash games against high rollers?

Do you play that? Because I spent so much time playing tournaments, I would just want to rest my brain for for time where some people play all night tournaments, cash games. For me I feel my sleep is so important actually. So I try to always make sure unless if I'm like for the million I was very antsy so I didn't sleep much maybe five six hours but usually I'll try to get eight or nine hours

make sure I have rest and just yeah feel good because I feel like it's a long day of of a mental battle where the way that you're going to think and do your best is if your body is, not just your mind, body and mind is most prepared just to sit there and feel good and play good.

So what's your next goal? Like what do you, what are you trying to accomplish now? That's tough. I think my next goal is actually to be healthier and try to have a healthier lifestyle because, I mean,

hitting number one all-time winner. Yeah, it makes you, poker is like, okay, well, I mean, I did what I set out and said that I was going to do for so long. It's even, it takes a little time even to accept it in your head that that's reality because so much of poker is kind of convincing yourself like something and getting into a mindset where nothing really matters and you're so focused on exactly what you're focused on where when I was younger, I would say that plays a negative effect where you don't really think about, you can't really think about many things that are going on because you're so focused on one thing that everything else takes a hit pretty much. On that note, I think that's a

good place to stop Bryn Kenney, the number one earningest poker player of all time on the Hendon Mob database. Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah, great being here. Nice talking to you. Yeah, that was Great. Thank you. Well, I'm sad that Tracy wasn't here, but I can't wait until she hears this episode. You know, I don't really have any extra thoughts. You heard it all there, so I'll just sign off. This has been another episode of the Oddlott podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall.

You can follow me on Twitter, and you should follow Tracy at Tracy Alloy. Check out Bryn on Twitter at Bryn Kenney. And be sure to follow our producer on Twitter, Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. as well as today's guest producer, Tofor Forges, who I've filled in today. He's at Forges T. And be sure to follow all of Bloomberg's podcasts on Twitter, at the handle, at podcasts. Thanks for listening.