After a long and dry spell of 15 months, American poker pro Jason Mercier has finally broke the curse and won €2,150 Open Face Chinese Poker Event at 2013 European Poker Tour (EPT) Monaco. His last win in any major tournament came in December 2011 when he won the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic $100K High Roller Event and received $709,767 as the prize money.
Mercier, who is a member of Team PokerStars, made a last minute flying entry in the tournament by a helicopter. There were a total of 52 players who participated in this event of the tournament. A lot of renowned names like Scott Seiver, Shaun Deeb and Luke Schwartz were there in the race for the title. Right from the beginning, Mercier displayed an outstanding game and cemented his place on the final table in no time. He maintained his winning streak on the final table and eliminated seasoned players like Joseph Cheong, Victor Ramdin and Alex Kravchencko. For the title, Mercier took on Russian Poker pro Yakov Onuchin. Russian Pro gave him a good fight but in the end he was unable to keep up with Mercier’s game.
After winning the title Mercier looked very happy and relieved. He described the final table as a hard one and was happy to outplay his opponents. This victory has certainly gave him some relieve and he was looking excited for the future. Mercier himself admitted that the last year was a nightmare for him. He quoted, ’I can honestly say that 2012 was pretty brutal for me. It was my first losing year as a professional poker player’.