News
Omaha/8 Event Turns Into A Race Against the Clock
Feb 25 2010 05:06 PM EST
Council Bluffs, IA—The game was Omaha Hi-Lo, not H.O.R.S.E., but it turned into a horse race as a new record of sorts was likely set tonight. The 15th event of the WSOP Circuit tour at Horseshoe Council Bluffs, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, may very well have been the first tournament in poker history to have been played with a time limit.
Here’s how it happened. Late in the final heads-up match, the two remaining players, Jeffrey Bryan and John “J.C. Lovejoy, agreed to chop the money evenly and play for the trophy. When it was pointed out that with no money or ring at stake the tournament was effectively over, Lovejoy proposed that they play out the 17 minutes left in the round, and whoever had the most chips would be the winner. So it was a race against the clock.
Lovejoy was well ahead at that point, but Bryan steadily gained ground. With two minutes left, either player could win, but Bryan surged ahead with a wheel, to take the lead, and Lovejoy, unable to catch him, just folded the last hand and trotted to the sidelines as Bryan raced across the finish line.
First officially paid $9,154, but with the chop, each player took home $4,786. Bryan, 52, lives in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska and is a sales manager for a concrete equipment company. He’s played poker all his life, tournaments, which he prefers because it is a “low investment, high return” endeavor. He plays mainly Hold’em, and this was only his fourth Omaha try, the third being the night before. He describes his play as tight-aggressive. He was surprised at the high level of skill among the players at the final table, and that particularly of Lovejoy, who he noted played super-aggressively, but knew what he was doing. Bryan’s cashes include four at the WSOP, his biggest being $333,490 for finishing 27th in the 2007 Main Event. He also had praise for his wife Donna who supports his poker activities.
Five spots were paid in this event which had 47 entrants and a $13,677 prize pool. When we got to the final five, Lovejoy was the leader with 133,500 chips. He was also the undisputed leader in gab, loudly chattering away and commenting on every single hand.
Here’s how it happened. Late in the final heads-up match, the two remaining players, Jeffrey Bryan and John “J.C. Lovejoy, agreed to chop the money evenly and play for the trophy. When it was pointed out that with no money or ring at stake the tournament was effectively over, Lovejoy proposed that they play out the 17 minutes left in the round, and whoever had the most chips would be the winner. So it was a race against the clock.
Lovejoy was well ahead at that point, but Bryan steadily gained ground. With two minutes left, either player could win, but Bryan surged ahead with a wheel, to take the lead, and Lovejoy, unable to catch him, just folded the last hand and trotted to the sidelines as Bryan raced across the finish line.
First officially paid $9,154, but with the chop, each player took home $4,786. Bryan, 52, lives in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska and is a sales manager for a concrete equipment company. He’s played poker all his life, tournaments, which he prefers because it is a “low investment, high return” endeavor. He plays mainly Hold’em, and this was only his fourth Omaha try, the third being the night before.
Five spots were paid in this event which had 47 entrants and a $13,677 prize pool. When we got to the final five, Lovejoy was the leader with 133,500 chips. He was also the undisputed leader in gab, loudly chattering away and commenting on every single hand.
Here were the starting chip counts:
| Seat | Name | Chip Count |
| 1 | John Lovejoy | 133,500 |
| 2 | Robert Rearden | 61,000 |
| 3 | Kelly Vandemheen | 51,000 |
| 4 | Jeff Bryan | 80,000 |
| 5 | David Kerrigan | 7,000 |
Opening blinds were 2,000-4,000 with 4,000-8,000 limits, and 10:33 left on the clock.
5th place: Early action brought a three-way pot. Robert Rearden was all in and his opponents, Lovejoy and David Kerrigan, checked the hand down. The board showed J-2-Q-7-Q. Lovejoy turned up Q-3-5-8, winning with trip queens. Rearden, with an A-4-6-J low hand that went nowhere, checked out fifth for $684.Rearden is 45 and from Nantucket,
Kerrigan, meanwhile, was down to 1,000 after the three-way pot. He stayed around for a while, going all in three times and escaping, once doubling up with a full house, once tripling up with a straight, and once chopping the pot.
4th place: Blinds went to 3,000-6,000 and 6,000-12,000 limits. Kerrigan finally went out in a hand where he thought he had a winner with two pair until Bryan pointed out that he had a straight. Kerrigan, 53, is a jockey’s agent from Omaha. He cashed in the WSOP $1,500 shootout event in 2007 and had a third in a Hold’em event here four years ago.
3rd place: This match very quickly got heads-up. Pre-flop, Kelly Vandemheen was all in with an excellent low starting hand: A-2-4-7, against Lovejoy’s A-A-5-9. But no low came when the board showed 2-10-K-7-K, and Lovejoy’s aces left him in third place, paying $2,052.Vandemheen, 47, is a small business owner from Omaha. He had a fifth in the $2,500 WSOP six-handed event, cashing for $96,000.
After a few hands, limits went up to 8,000-16,000. Bryan continued to build his stacks, and when he had about 90,000, the two agreed to a chop, playing for the trophy and then set a time limit.
2nd place: Bryan was behind, but not very much. The key hand came with a board of 4-2-6-J-5. Bryan had an A-3 in his hand for a wheel, and with the clock running out, Lovejoy walked off the field, making Bryan’s last hand irrelevant.
Lovejoy, who says he plays full time but is not a pro (“I just love playing cards”) is 35 and from Papillion, Nebraska. He won a bracelet in a World Poker Open Omaha event in 2008, and has an eighth in an L.A. Poker Classic tournament. –Max Shapiro
