Greg Merson – A Fitting Champion

After one of the longest final tables in World Series of Poker history — the threehanded battle lasted longer than 2007’s entire main event final table — Greg Merson was crowned champion, earning his second bracelet of 2012.

However he is the champion that almost wasn’t.

After battling addiction to synthetic heroin and cocaine he believes he is lucky to be alive after his most recent detox in December 2011.

Additionally with around 150 players left in the main event this year he was down to just a couple of big blinds but doubled up, and doubled up again, and again and soon he was back to average and in fighting shape.

He was many people’s favourite to push on and win the final table. Sitting third in chips at the start of play, the great Phil Ivey fingered him out as the possible winner and stuck an Iveypoker.com patch on him — now there’s a man who knows a poker player when he sees one.

It helped that he has perhaps, at around seven million hands online, played more than anyone who has ever made a WSOP final table before.

With four players left 888 looked like a lock to be the winner’s sponsor with three badged players’ outgunning Merson but the young Baltimorean’s class shone through and he dispensed his opponents with aplomb.

Congratulations to Merson who, by his own admission, has had a second bite at the cherry. The poker world is his oyster now, Here’s hoping he becomes the champion we deserve and Merson finally lays his demons to rest.

Full Tilt Returns To Fitness

November 6, 2012 will forever be remembered in poker history as the day Full Tilt Poker started offering real money online poker games again around the world (except in the U.S. which could only look on forlornly, awaiting both legal online poker and the return of hundreds of millions of dollars in bankrolls).

Players could withdraw their balances which had languished in limbo for 16 months but, if the number of players who took to the site on day one is anything to go by, it wasn’t a priority for many.

Within a week Full Tilt had effectively taken second spot again in terms of online poker traffic behind its new owner PokerStars. The natural order of things had returned.

Players seemed to welcome Full Tilt back with open arms like a prodigal son returning and all at the site, and its parent company, must have breathed a sigh of relief as the backlash against the ‘old’ Full Tilt had not manifested itself with the ‘new’ brand.

It’s testament to the brand and the software that players returned in their droves and an indication to all other poker sites that they need to step up their game if they wish to compete seriously in the new online poker landscape. They had 16 months to get to grips with the yawning gap Full Tilt’s disappearance left but the vast majority didn’t. Indeed the market continues to consolidate and as all of this plays out many more sites and networks are likely to disappear. We haven’t seen the end of the big changes in online poker yet. ♠