Early Years
In the early years of online poker, Jason Mercier was one of the many hard working youngsters attempting to build a bankroll on their way toward the pinnacle of the game. Within a few years he had attained Supernova Elite status and was rubbing online shoulders with some of the most talented names in the online world. Although an outstanding Holdem player, Mercier was also sharpening his skills at many different variants of the game.
Live breakthrough
After gaining his first taste of major live events, Mercier decided to take his shot at the EPT in 2008, and at San Remo, he found his reward. He defeated the field of 701 players to win the 869,000 Euro (US$1,372,893) 1st prize. It was his first ever recorded live cash. From there, Mercier expanded his live schedule to begin taking on the WSOP, cashing three times in his first outing, before notching another big EPT score; 6th place at the EPT Barcelona Main Event three months later for 227,800 Euros (US$324,946). He was just 21 years old.
Goals and career plans
His earliest goal was simply to make Supernova Elite. After achieving that in 2007, he won EPT San Remo in 2008, his first ever WSOP bracelet in 2009, before signing a sponsorship deal with PokerStars. The fact that he won a HORSE tournament that same year underlines what an excellent all round player Mercier already was, despite only being in his mid twenties.
Having enjoyed spells as the number one ranked player on the GPI since it’s creation, Mercier has always been a regular feature of the top ten. If you want to know how the man himself views his poker goals, then his own words tell you the story.
“When people look back on my career, I want to be considered the best all-around player to ever play the game”, said Jason. “I recognize my career is still young and I have a long way to go, but I’m determined to put in the work to achieve my ultimate goal.”
WSOP achievements and major wins
While there is no question that EPT San Remo kick started his career, Mercier has gone on to win twenty one live tournaments, including a fourth and fifth WSOP bracelet in 2016. He also won the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open High Roller last year for US$517,187 along with the Alpha 8 Super High Roller in late 2014 for US$727,500. This is in addition to other huge scores such as the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic High Roller in 2011, which netted him US$709,767, and the EPT London High Roller of 2008 for US$944,847 to name but a few. His WSOP bracelets include two for PLO, one for Holdem, one for 2-7 Draw, and one for HORSE. Mercier’s total lifetime cashes stand now at $17,291,112.
The spotlight
With everything that he has already achieved, Jason Mercier is already one of the most recognisable stars of poker, but in the last two months, events have generated a new level of publicity. Doug Polk’s assertion during a live stream before the WSOP that Mercier was a “Bad Reg” led to a Twitter argument in which many big names weighed in with their opinion.
@JasonMercier I think you are a nice guy. I just think you ran massively over ev in your career and don’t have respect for your poker game
— Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) May 22, 2016
In a sense, those opinions weren’t entirely required to win the argument, as Mercier blew Polk’s opinions out of the water with his WSOP performance. In the process, he ignited another Twitter argument as Selbst desperately tried to buy out of the 180 to 1 odds she offered Mercier on him winning three bracelets at the 2016 series. At that point he already had one, and now has two, with many events yet to play.
You know ur running bad when a “win” is one tourney lasting long enough so @JasonMercier can’t enter the next. Congrats man, insanely sick.
— Vanessa Selbst (@VanessaSelbst) June 18, 2016
Other top pros such as Fedor Holz have also lost six figure sums this year as Mercier has been dominating the $10K Championship events.
One thing is for certain – with public conflicts exploding on Twitter and Mercier winning bracelets with apparent ease this month, he has perhaps propelled himself to an entirely new level of poker stardom.