Bryn Kenney Addresses Allegations on Joey Ingram’s Podcast

Bryn Kenney Confirms Ghosting and Shaman on Joe Ingram’s Poker Live Podcast

Joey Ingram has been quiet recently. In fact, he hasn’t released a new episode of his popular podcast Poker Life since 4 months ago. That time, he had Doug Polk on to react to Bryn Kenney’s interview with Pokernews.com’s Sarah Herring.

Four months later, the topic remains the same. Back in April of this year, all time money list leader Bryn Kenney was accused of a number of questionable practices by one of the horses in his stable, a man named Martin Zamani. The accusations include:

• Ghosting, meaning another player taking over one’s account
• Colluding, meaning members of the stable being instructed to play soft against each other
• Use of RTA, software that gives GTO solutions in real time.

However, the most memorable of Zamani’s claims was that Kenney told him to see a shaman and inject frog poison if he wanted to stay on his team. Now, Kenney went on Ingram’s interview show to take a second crack at explaining himself - his first try with Pokernews.com left many feeling unsatisfied.

First off, he did concede two of Zamani’s points. He admitted that there were some instances of ghosting, and that there is in fact a shaman he knows. He said:

“I don’t really think I’ve said that none of it is true, because I admitted to, you know, that ghosting happened in the past. I said that no version of collusion, RTA, had any truth to it at all. I also said that some of those stories, you know, let’s call it with shamans involved or any of these things, these were things that were recommended to people. (...) I’ve staked hundreds of people in my career and there’s only been one person who’s ever done that combo with me.”

As you can tell, he also stressed he never forced anyone to do the ritual with the shaman, it was only a recommendation. Kenney also went on a little bit of an offensive. He claimed that Zamani was “a very troubled person”. He said that at times Zamani was yelling at other players on the rail in live events, was rude to casino staff, and told him that he had never been happy in his life.

In Kenney’s mind, he just wanted to help him out with the recommendation of seeing the shaman,

Kenney Claims to Be “Negative Millionaire” From Staking

The all time money leader then went on to tell Ingram that he is very particular about how he handles people he stakes because the only time he went broke wasn’t from a downswing at the poker table, rather, it was from staking. In fact, he claimed to have gone “from millionaire to negative millionaire” due to the money he invested in other players’ games. However, thankfully, his fortune has turned around since.

He used this fact to try to defend himself, saying:

“To insinuate or imagine that I would ever be involved in any type of collusion, cheating, in any type of way, is something crazy, because, I kept my integrity when I was negative millions in the hole. Now, I find myself in the spot where I won the Triton tournament, I was at the best point in my career, to say that now I’m gonna do these things that I would never do at any point in my career doesn’t make any sense.”

Kenney also elaborated on his relationship with GGPoker. According to Kenney, he originally wanted to open his own skin on the GGNetwork. However, instead, he ended up being an ambassador and advisor to the poker site - although originally, GG had Johnny Chan in mind for that role. Kenney was heavily involved in setting up the games, especially tournaments, from the very beginning. He does admit to having placed some of his horses in GG tournaments to hit the guarantee.

However, he also stresses that he was never involved in security and game integrity issues, so he never had any involvement in certain players getting banned or not getting banned.

New poker site project: 4Poker

In the end, Ingram asked about the new poker room project 4Poker. Kenney stated that his idea was to learn from every opportunity (including his experience with GGPoker), try always to be a better person, and finally, offer the community a site that takes security, loyalty, and support as top priorities.

He says there is strong competence, but he wants to offer a poker room where people feel safe and that the site will positively impact employees and customers with the help of the community and a team open to feedback. Overall, Kenney confirms that 4Poker is gonna be a massive success.

To sum up, Kenney has admitted to ghosting and having seen a shaman, but he denies using RTA or instructing the players he stakes to collude. He claimed that Martin Zamani lied about many issues. 

Joe Ingram pointed out that some of Zamani’s claims have been seconded by Kenney’s close personal friend, recreational poker player Lauren Roberts. In response, Kenney accused Roberts of owing him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Watch the Full Bryn Kenney Interview With Joey Ingram Below

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