Tournament Trail Q and A: Jason MercierMercier Talks About his Early Success and a Wild Day at EPT Barcelona |
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Jason Mercier won the first major poker tournament in the history of Italy when he walked away with the $1,364,330 first-place prize at the European Poker Tour San Remo event during season four. His battle and subsequent victory over local favorite Dario Minieri at that final table earned Mercier a nomination for Performance of the Year at the EPT Awards for season four. He followed up that performance by making the final table at the first event of season five -- EPT Barcelona. Mercier finished in sixth place in Spain, missing a chance to become the first player in EPT history to win two titles, but he has made two of the last three final tables in Europe, and he is arguably the best American player on the EPT these days. Thanks to his European success, Mercier currently sits in 28th place on the Card Player Player of the Year leader board, with 2,720 points. Card Player caught up with Mericer during wild day 2 action in Barcelona, and he spoke about how European tournaments and American tournaments compare, as well as how he has handled early success in his career.
Ryan Lucchesi: The second level of the day has been quite crazy for you; tell me a little bit about all the hands you were involved in?
Jason Mercier: I lost the hand right before [the break] with A-7. I raised in early position and a guy called from the small blind. The flop came king high, he checked, I bet, and I had no hand. Turn came a jack, he checked, I checked. River came an ace and he checked again. It made a flush so I guess you’re scared of that, and he checked. I thought he had K-10 or K-Q, so I bet three-quarters of the pot and he took two minutes to call with K-J for two pair. I lost that hand, and just now I doubled up with pocket threes. I raised under the gun to 2,700, and some guy made a small re-raise to 6,600 and I had 45,000 in my stack. I called and flopped a set with 3-J-Q. I checked, and he bet 6,600 again, I raised to 15,000, giving him room to shove if he didn’t have anything. He went all in and I called and he had A-7.
RL: The chips are just flying today. How does the speed of play in these EPT events compare to the World Series tournaments you played in this summer?
JM: They’re relatively similar. I mean it just depends on which WSOP event you’re in, because some of them, like the $1,000 re-buys, will be really deep so there is a ton of play. This is very similar to a $5,000 WSOP tournament; the blind structure is very similar so it’s about the same.
RL: Your first big win came on the EPT in San Remo. How much confidence did that give you to move forward with your poker career?
JM: That gave me a ton of confidence, almost too much actually. Going into the World Series I think I was just going to run over people and go to a bunch of final tables and I ended up only having three cashes out of the 22 events that I played, and no final tables. I got a 13th in a $2,500 (no-limit hold’em event). It kind of made me humble and it made me realize I still have a lot more to learn, and a lot more work I need to put in to get better at poker.
RL: Are you going to play primarily in Europe during the fall, or are you going to mix it up and play some World Poker Tour events back in the States as well?
JM: I’m going to play EPT London and I’m going to play World Series of Poker Europe and I’m going to stay here for about another month. I think I probably won’t play very much after that until maybe the WPT in December in Vegas. I’ll kind of take the rest of the year off; I’ve been playing too much.
RL: How did it feel to be nominated for an EPT award so early in your career?
JM: It felt pretty good. I didn’t even know there was going to be an EPT awards…It was pretty exciting to be nominated with all of those solid players and guys that have done well on the EPT. It was a very nice honor.
RL: How did you start playing the game? And how did you make the jump to the professional tournament level?
JM: I started playing in high school with my friends. You know, play all night at somebody’s house, and then I started playing online when I went away to school. I got really into it there and started playing multi-table tournaments, and then transitioned into cash online. And then I started playing live events, by satelliting in.
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