Continuing to deliver in the live and online poker tournament worlds, Team PokerStars pro Jason Mercier outlasted a monster field in the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Event #42, $1,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em, to win the title and its $435,000 payout.
The two-day tournament drew an outstanding crowd of 3,122 players, which cracked the $3 million guarantee that PokerStars put up. As the tournament wound down, Mercier cranked up his activity on Twitter to let people know that he was potentially on the road to victory. “MASSIVE CHIPLEADER NOW! 22 left Have over double avg chips with 4.55 million,” he Tweeted late Monday night to his followers.
As Event #42 reached the final table, Mercier – who is in London for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe tournament schedule – continued to make inroads towards the championship. “Final table!,” he Tweeted upon making the final table. “5 of 9… stealthmunk just coolered dude AA vs AK… here we go!”
Chad Brown, also in London for the WSOPE, looked to challenge for the WCOOP bracelet, along with DoylesRoom Brunson 10 member Dani “ansky” Stern. Brown’s attempt to take down the title ended with his ninth place finish that he Tweeted about to his followers: “Busted 9th at the final table of the 1k WCOOP. Flopped top 2. player was drawing to 4 outs and hit. I would have been 2nd in chips. oh well.” Mercier continued his running commentary over Twitter in reporting the departure of Stern from the game: “anski gets cooled off to bust in 8th place… i’m hella short 7 of 7 here we go son!”
Although his massive chip lead had disappeared by the time the final seven were in action, Mercier continued to take the battle to his opponents. As the tournament approached the witching hour, he reported to his railbirds, “Grinding this short stack so hard!!!! 7 of 7 still… one guy with all the chips, 4 medium stacks, and one other shortie besides me.”
Approximately an hour after being on the short stack, Mercier was able to chirp to his Twitterpeeps, “HUGE DOUBLE UP! 3rd in chips,” which was quickly followed by his report of ascending to the chip lead: “o my bad HUGE DOUBLE UP AGAIN!!!! QQ beats AA CHIPLEADER!”
With action at three players, discussion of a chop began. Mercier gave the details of the deal as the clock struck 3:00am in the United States, Tweeting, “Just did a 3 way deal… I take 375k guaranteed and get 15k more if I finish 2nd and 60k more if I get 1st… LETS GO!” Approximately an hour later, Mercier finished the grueling two-day event by announcing to his Twitter fans, “THATS HOW WE DO SON! Ship the WCOOP bracelet baby! #WCOOP 1k… took 435k for first!” The final table ended up as such:
1st – JasonMercier (United States) $435,862.07*
2nd – osten (United States) $317,435.13*
3rd – loooser17 (Israel) $367,500.80*
4th – DHUSTLER15 (United States) $179,515
5th – Justin “APerfectGent” Schwartz (United States) $135,807
6th – Team Wispy (United States) $104,587
7th – bastet2004 (Germany) $73,367
8th – Dani “supernova9” Stern (United States) $42,209
9th – ChadBrownPRO (United States) $26,537
* – reflects three-way chop
With his victory in Event #42, Mercier catapulted himself into the middle of the WCOOP Leaderboard race. The 180 points he earned for winning the tournament put him in fifth place, with Russia’s “Kroko-dill” (winner of Event #13, the $215 PLO) at the top with 260 points. Closely following the Russian is Norway’s “Donald” (winner of Event #34, the $320 Triple Draw Deuce To Seven Lowball) at 210.
To date, the 2010 WCOOP has built prize pools totaling almost $38 million and welcomed 111,049 players to the virtual felt. There are still 16 events remaining on the 62-tournament schedule, with the WCOOP Main Event scheduled to start on September 26th.
