WSOP Finalist Greg Merson on Freeroll After Battling Addiction

In one way, 24-year-old Greg Merson is the most experienced player to ever make the World Series of Poker main event final table in its more than 40-year history.

The Maryland native, who has made a living from online cash games, said he’s played about seven million hands on the virtual felt. Has Merson played more than any other finalist?

When asked about it, Merson said: “I’ve never really thought about it, but I’d certainly think that it’s not even close. I’ve been playing 20-24 tables at time, putting in 1,500-2,000 hands an hour, for the past four or five years. There aren’t many people who do that.”

Christian Harder, a fellow poker pro, said that Merson is likely in the “top 25 all time in terms of hands played.”

To rank Merson, also a recent bracelet winner after winning the $10,000 six-handed hold’em event for $1,136,197, up there in experience level with other great finalists of their time, such as Dan Harrington in 2004, Phil Ivey in 2009 or Stu Ungar in 1997, might sound crazy, but by factoring in volume of no-limit hold’em hands seen, it’s not a stretch.

Although winning the main event would be OK, Merson is trying not to be like Ungar in one way — falling victim to the perils of drug use. Ungar passed away in 1998 after years of addiction. Merson was abusing a slew of drugs in 2011, before fearing death en route to getting clean a year ago.

The Drug Downswing

After rising through the online poker ranks, Merson, a byproduct of home games around Maryland that have included tough competitors such as Scott Palmer, Dan Cates, Dan Smith, Anthony Gregg and Harder, began last year by losing command of his finances. He had three $100,000 losing sessions in the first six weeks of the year. He had about 20 days where he lost at least $30,000 each.

He had lost more than half of his bankroll.

Merson became addicted to drugs at 18. He was clean at 19 and then sober for about three and a half years. In addition to synthetic heroin, Merson said he has also been addicted to cocaine and adderall — used in conjunction with overindulgences of marijuana and alcohol.

He relapsed during the downswing, and things started to spiral. It was February.

One of his worst moments around this time was in a game at Bellagio in Las Vegas. He was playing at a table with blinds of $200-$500 and lost a huge sum. He was high on adderall during the session, which was the drug he abused every single day at the 2011 WSOP, he said.

“It was a big disappointment,” Merson said. “It’s always a dream for a cash-game player to take a shot in Bobby’s Room [at Bellagio] and play with the best in the world. I felt like I was ready for it skill wise, but at the same time I’d lost my grip on reality.”

He stumbled through fall 2011, before hitting rock bottom near the end of the year. Merson got clean on his own in the unlikeliest of places — a hotel room at a casino in Las Vegas.

“It was the worst F*^@$&g week of my life,” Merson said of his detoxification process.

He was sharing a room at Aria with Harder and Gregg, both good friends. There was a big tournament in town that attracted pros from all around. “Christian saw me using at one point during the trip, and I was losing a lot of money so he called me out on it – super hard,” Merson said.

Merson said he didn’t get out of the hotel bed for nearly three straight days. He eventually regained his strength and made a flight back to Maryland. He still remembers Dec. 10, 2011 as the day he last used drugs. He hasn’t even had a beer since.

“Even if I win the main event [in October], I’m not going to have a drink,” Merson said. “The most important thing to me is staying sober.” About $8.5 million is on the line when play resumes.

Harder said he doesn’t remember exactly what he told Merson during that fateful week: “I just know that he knew I was disappointed with him. The drugs put him in such a bad state.”

While Harder might have uttered the right words to embarrass Merson enough at the time, he said that Merson “deserves all the credit” for figuring out a way to snap out of it.

As for the possibility of another relapse, Harder isn’t worried.

“I think he sees how well he’s doing when he’s clean and realizes how much better he feels,” Harder said. “Greg has only done well [at poker] when he was clean.”
The Upswing

Since getting clean, Merson has had a remarkable run. He entered the WSOP on a huge heater. In contrast to his disastrous 2011, his largest downswing this year has been just $40,000. And he’s still playing some of the priciest stakes around.

The key for Merson is, as always, both simple and difficult: knowing when to quit.

“My emotional control and ability to walk away when I’m tiling or about to tilt is so sick these days,” he said. “I avoid the super big losing sessions.”

Merson was out of debt to Gregg, his backer for live games, before the $10,000 buy-in shorthanded event, but he decided to keep the deal in order to feel less financial pressure. The decision paid off. Merson won the event for more than $1 million. With the bracelet and all the attention that it brings, Merson had some tangible proof that he had somehow turned his life around.

“I’m just so lucky to even be alive,” Merson said. “When I won that bracelet I just started crying. To have a second chance at life and to do what I want to do — it’s amazing. It really is.”

Merson remembers how easily everything could have been so different.

“My daily [Roxycotin] use was at a pretty high dosage last year,” he said. “It’s pretty easy to not even realize you are overdosing. You just nod out and don’t wake back up. Your heart stops beating. You die peacefully. That easily could have happened to me.”

Less than two weeks after his huge win, Merson outdid the performance. He was standing among the final nine in the $10,000 buy-in main event, poker’s most prestigious and largest tournament of the year. He now has a shot at millions more, a lot of which will be sent to Gregg thanks to their business relationship.

“I will be writing him a big check,” Merson said. “But, I’m not bitter at all. He’s done so much for me in my career. To repay him like this is so cool.”

Merson really couldn’t be much happier. He’s staying focused on the game’s nuts and bolts.

Since making the final table, Merson has been playing in private games in the Baltimore area, ones that he previously had a hard time getting into. As a poker celebrity these days, he’s found invites.

Aside from playing more and spending some money on his family, Merson said he has only spent about $500 on himself — just some new clothes. Online grinders like Merson are known for playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars in mesh shorts and the most casual of t-shirts while in front of a computer. Don’t expect Merson to change if he soon has multiple millions sitting in a checking account.

Merson, while humble, said that it’s been nice to obtain some recognition after spending years grinding almost anonymously. But, again, it likely won’t change him:

“I’m not going to think that I’m better than I actually am. There’s still plenty I need to improve on.”

Merson added that he’s “not going to ride off into the sunset” after the incredible summer. He wants to remain in the trenches, playing for a living and perhaps helping promote the game as its online version begins the slow process of attempting a U.S. comeback.

The recovering drug addict and college dropout has positioned himself to be a part of it.

“The six-max victory validated him as a live pro, and the main event is making him a legend,” Gregg said shortly after Merson, who was down to just a handful of big blinds on day five, made the final table. “It’s crazy. It doesn’t seem like real life.”

Preparing for the final table

When he’s not keeping up on his game (both live and online), Merson has been trying to relax a little bit in preparation for the biggest final table of his young life.
When asked if the huge amount of hands he has played in some way makes the main event final table, with its relatively shallow chip stacks compared to cash games, pretty straightforward, Merson hesitated.

“A lot of it comes down to game flow. I think early on most of the stuff is going to be fairly standard. Though, it’s kind of hard to put the word ‘standard’ on the main event final table, because certain people will be doing certain things because of the pay jumps. For me, I think when we get shorthanded, if I’m fortunate enough to make it to that far, a lot of things won’t be standard.”

Taken all together, Merson said he really wants to at least finish in the top three spots. He won’t be upset if the cards just don’t go his way, but he will be if he thinks he played poorly.

“I’ll be able to live with any outcome, but I’ll be really disappointed if I don’t play well,” he said. “If I were to get unlucky or something; I obviously ran really well to get there, and I already won the bracelet this summer. [The final table] is a bonus at this point.”

Merson on his final-table competitors

This year’s final table has been called a dud by some, just in terms of a lack of big name players who have recognizably solid games. However, Merson kind of disagrees with this sentiment.

“The table is full of capable players who no one really knows about,” Merson said.

Merson is happy that Las Vegas professional Jeremy Ausmus is the short stack. Merson thinks he’s pretty tough. “He’s really hard to take chips off of,” he said. “I think he’s one of those players who won’t give anything away.”

Merson is unfortunate to have the chip leader, Jesse Sylvia, directly on his left. Merson describes Sylvia as a “high-variance player like myself, but with less experience.”

He added that Sylvia is an “outside-the-box” type of player, who could be tricky to deal with from out of position. “He doesn’t take standard lines, but I feel that I can hand read him fairly well. We will see, because people are going to change their games between now and then. I’m going to have to adjust on the fly, which I think is the best way to address this specific situation [with Sylvia].”

Robert Salaburu, who enters play with the third shortest stack, is really good for TV, Merson said. Only as long as he gets a hold of some more chips. “He’s just an absurd person, and I really like him, even though I don’t know much about him. He’s really good.”

Andras Koroknai, who has a World Poker Tour title on his poker resume, is three seats to Merson’s right and of some concern because Merson doesn’t know too much about his game, yet. “He played fine leading up to the final table,” Merson said.

Michael Esposito, in seat nine, might be the least experienced poker player among the finalists, according to Merson. Merson said he’s curious to find out more about the New Yorker.

Merson said that Jake Balsiger told him after the final table was set that he doesn’t play for a living, and that he hasn’t played much online. “I was surprised. I definitely thought he was a full-time player,” Merson said. “I was pretty impressed.”

As for veteran grinder Steven Gee, Merson said that Gee likely won’t “put up with any of my shit.”

“We played a bunch together, and I was shoving a lot on him on day four and five,” Merson added. “He folded to me every time that I shoved on him. I just feel like he’s going to be aware of that moving forward and isn’t going to be looking to fold to me. I’m glad that I have position on him at the final table. He’s not afraid to play pots with me, which is fine at this point because of the position.”

Merson didn’t address Russell Thomas, who is an amateur player.

Despite possessing a pretty solid grasp of his opponents at the moment, Merson still doesn’t have any specific game plan. He stressed that he will have to pay attention to how the big pay jumps affect his competitors.

Thanks to his experience and earlier success this summer, Merson should be able to not think about the prize money as much as others. But perhaps the real reason is this: His rebound from a disastrous 2011 has really made October a freeroll for him. ♠