Jason Shows No Mercier

Another story developing at the WSOPE as we speak centers around Jason Mercier. I met Jason for the first time in Uruguay when I was covering him in the LAPT event. He only lasted a couple hours in the tournament, but he and I hung around the same places for the better part of a week. I bumped into him again in Cannes, France just a couple weeks ago where he was playing in the Partouche Poker Tour main event. Once again, he lasted only a short time before being relegated to the rail.

So, Jason leaves Cannes and heads next door to Barcelona, Spain for the EPT event there a couple days later. He proceeds to cut a swath through the field, racking up a sixth place finish and pocketing a cool €227,000. I'm sure he was disappointed by the result, but making it through a field of 619 players to be among the final six is still impressive.

Move it forward just a week or so, and Mercier is up to his old tricks again. At this moment, they are on break in Event #3 of the WSOPE, which is a £5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament. With 23 players remaining, Jason is the commanding chip leader, sitting on a stack of more than 425,000 chips. The next man closest to him is Shaun Deeb with about 260,000.

Jason was just moved to another table -- Shaun Deeb's table, in fact -- requiring him to rack up, carry, and then un-rack all 425,000 of those chips. "Now I gotta redo this whole thing," he complained with a sigh, as he started rebuilding his chip fortress.

"What a problem to have..." muttered his new neighbor, Deeb.

Jason Mericer rebuilding
(Photo: www.pokernews.com)