Event 7: John Holley Wins His 3rd SHRPO Trophy in the Seniors Event

2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open 
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino 
Hollywood, Florida
Event #7
$300 Seniors 50+ NLH (Re-Entry)
Entries: 147
Prize Pool: $37,485
August 6, 2018

Event 7 Champion John Holley
Event 7 Champion John Holley

The Seniors Event began at 11:00 am, and they reached the final table shortly after 9:00 pm. The field steadily dwindled after that until there were four players remaining, and they played for nearly two full hours with nobody busting and unable to agree to a chop. But shortly after Marc Sacheli was eliminated in third place, the final three agreed to a three-way chop that gave the victory to chipleader John Holley.

When four-handed play began, these were the approximate chip counts:

Ofer Peleg  –  620,000  (62 bb)
Ozzie Amor  –  565,000  (57 bb)
Dave Roy  –  190,000  (19 bb)
John Holley  –  107,000  (11 bb)

At one point, the other three players were ready to make an ICM chop but Holley nixed it as the short stack. “You don’t get deep a lot of times, and it’s fun to play short-handed when there’s something on the line. I didn’t want to chop, because I thought, ‘You know what? I just want to gamble.'”

Around midnight, Holley finally caught some momentum when he got it all in with AcJd against Ozzie Amor’s 8h7h, and it held up. He finally had enough chips to work with, and steadily built up his stack.

They had been playing nearly four hours when Dave Roy got it all in with 9s9d against Ofer Peleg’s As10s. A ten on the turn sent the pot Peleg’s way as Roy busted in fourth place.

Stacks were shallow from the lengthy four-handed play, and Holley lost a huge pot when his KsKd was cracked by Amor’s Ac7h, but Holley continued winning smaller pots to reclaim the chip lead.

Shortly after the blinds increased to 12,000/24,000 with a 4,000 ante, the final three players had 15-25 big blinds each, and they agreed to a chop it evenly three ways, with chipleader Holley claiming victory and the trophy. Here were their final chip counts:

John Holley  –  605,000  (25 bb)
Ofer Peleg  –  497,000  (21 bb)
Ozzie Amor  –  370,000  (15 bb)

Holley explained his thought process behind the chop. “I don’t normally like to chop, but we got down to three-handed with the two biggest gamblers at the final table, the biggest wildcards. And the reason I decided to make the deal is because they were such wildcards. It wasn’t gonna be easy for me to just run over them. I felt like I could out-play them, but once you get that shallow …” Holley’s statement ended with a shrug.

This is the third SHRPO title of Holley’s career, and his fourth victory here at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Holley said, “This is my favorite casino. If I could only play one place in the entire country, this would be the place.”

Final Table Results:

1st:  John Holley III  –  $6,924 + Trophy
2nd:  Ofer Peleg  –  $6,923
3rd:  Osvaldo Amor  –  $6,923
4th:  David Roy  –  $2,344
5th:  Paul Balzano  –  $1,818
6th:  Marc Sacheli  –  $1,501
7th:  Jeffrey Silverstein  –  $1,312
8th:  Julian Wohlgemuth  –  $1,171
9th:  Spencer Liebmann  –  $1,035