No Mercy at the Poker Table
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a pinnacle of poker culture and has provided countless remarkable moments for fans and participants alike. Players constantly compete to prove themselves, battling through intense competition with sharp skill, keen observation, and a cool head. The number one spot in poker is a hotly debated topic, with countless metrics to decide who is truly the best.
Do we count bracelets? Number of tournament cashes? Total of tournament winnings? While we may never arrive at a definitive conclusion, many potential players qualify to contend as ‘the best’, the Global Poker Index attempts to combine these statistics to come to a comprehensive conclusion. Today, we will look at one contender, a man who can be arguably hailed as the king of the Global Poker Index: Jason Mercier.
Player Overview
Jason Mercier is an American professional poker player from Florida. He is best known for his record of spending the most weeks in first place on the Global Poker Index, with a whopping total of 81 weeks.
The Global Poker Index ranks over 450,000 poker players worldwide based on live tournament results, with rankings being updated on a weekly basis. It’s considered the foremost authority on poker rankings and used in most major poker facing newspapers as a trusted point of reference.
Mercier’s total tournament earnings exceed $20 million, with five WSOP bracelets and one European Poker Tour title. He was crowned Bluff Magazine’s Player of the Year in 2009 and World Series of Poker Player of the Year in 2016.
Early Life
Jason Mercier was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on November 12, 1986. From a young age, he was interested in many sports, from basketball to soccer to baseball. He started playing poker with his high school friends, quickly transitioning to online poker when the boom happened in the mid-2000s. Under the username “treysfull21,” he regularly played cash games and occasionally joined tournaments. By 2007, Mercier was juggling a full schedule consisting of his college studies, poker gameplay and working as a basketball coach. He prioritized poker, becoming a serious online grinder, putting in around 50 hours of poker each week to improve his poker skills.
An Explosive Start
By the end of 2007, Mercier shifted his focus to make poker his full-time career. He had been one of the sixteen players to achieve PokerStars Supernova elite status, becoming a member of the world’s most lucrative online poker VIP program. In 2008, his professional career began with a bang and his first-ever recorded tournament cash was a first-place finish in the European Poker Tour’s €4,700 + 300 No Limit Hold’em – EPT Main Event, winning over €869,000, over $1,000,000 USD. He had qualified through online satellite tournaments and swept through other online poker pros, including Dario Minieri and William Thorson, to establish himself as a force to be reckoned with. In his debut year, he claimed two more six-figure cashes at the European Poker Tour in Barcelona and London, earning another first-place victory in the latter.
The First Bracelet of Five
In 2009, Jason Mercier won the WSOP $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event for $237,462 and his first WSOP bracelet. With this win he was made a member of Team PokerStars Pro. In 2010 and 2011, he had numerous strong showings, winning two events at the North American Poker Tour, taking down the WSOP $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha – Six Handed event for his second bracelet, and winning the $100,000 No Limit Hold’em – High Roller Event at the World Poker Classic. His net worth at the time was estimated to be between $5 and $8 million. He also won a World Championship of Online Poker bracelet and was even named as one of the top five young poker players by Daniel Negreanu himself. Between the years 2011 and 2015, he was in the top position of the Global Poker Index for an astonishing 63 weeks, a record yet to be broken.
Jason Mercier has had a steady streak of tournament success, with the occasional seven-figure score thrown into the mix. In 2015, he claimed his third WSOP bracelet at the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Six Handed event. The following year, he claimed two more bracelets at the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship and $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship events. With a staggering 11 cashes, four final tables and two bracelets, it’s no surprise he was granted the honor of WSOP Player of the Year. He also proposed to his now-wife, Natasha, at that year’s final table. In 2017, he continued the trend, cashing in 11 more times at the WSOP.
Aside from his outstanding career showings at the World Series of Poker, Jason was also a regular contender at the European Poker Tour, claiming cashes across the continent, from London to Monte Carlo.
In 2018, he announced he stepped down from tournament poker and retired from Team PokerStars to focus on his family. These days, he is enjoying a comfortable life with his wife and their three children with poker far further down on his list of priorities than it used to be.