Still one of the hottest players on the tournament circuit well over three years after his first big win at EPT San Remo, Mercier is another $683,767 richer after taking down the Bellagio $100k High Roller event last night.
Along with the $680k, Mercier also takes a $25k seat in the WPT Championship in May.
The first-place payout was originally scheduled to be just under $1 million but the final three – David “Doc” Sands, Isaac Haxton and Mercier - chopped it up three-ways to ensure a big payday for everybody.
As Mercier explained the payouts on his Twitter feed:
“Stax are Doc 3.68, me 3.36 Ike 2.96 We did icm chop and left 105k for first and 45 for second Doc got 619k I got 604k and Ike got 582k."
Once the deal was made they played on to the finish for over an hour with Mercier building a 3-1 chip lead on Sands before knocking him out for good with AA vs 55.
Sands, for his part, wasn’t too bothered by missing out on the extra $60k for the win in his first-ever $100k buy-in event:
“Got 2nd. He won it w AA vs my 55 aip. @JasonMercier does run hot but also plays incredibly well. #veryhappy #Bellagio100k."
With just five money spots in the event, the pressure was high from the get-go and even more so when they reached the final 10.
It was as good a final ten as it gets in poker with Tom Marchese, Matt Waxman, Nick Schulman, Justin Bonomo, Daniel Negreanu, Justin “BoostedJ” Smith and an unknown “businessman” all still in along with the final three.
Waxman dropped in tenth. Schulman in ninth after losing a big flip to Mercier and Negreanu dropped in eighth when he moved in with K8 suited and Haxton called and held with K9o.
Bonomo busted in seventh and Marchese was the bubble boy out in sixth.
A total of 25 players entered the event including Erik Seidel, Ben Lamb, Brian Rast, Sam Stein and Sorel Mizzi.
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