We’re heading into the summer months and that is about right on time for the World Series Of Poker to start heating up. Two players in particular had a big week on the tables, taking home some big prizes.
Mercier Captures A Pair
Jason Mercier was on fire as he won two tournaments in five days, and that means he’s now collected four World Series Of Poker wins in his career. He won the $10,000 no-limit 2-7 Lowball Championship and after a brief detour where he came in second to Ray Dehkharghani at the $10,000 Razz Championship, he returned to his winning ways by winning the $10,000 HORSE Championship in Las Vegas.
After those three events, Mercier was sitting with $865,145. However, Mercier’s hobby is that he makes side bets with other players and he is very successful there too. He has over a million dollars to his credit, just off those three events. The Hollywood, Florida native is rolling and he’s hard to stop. He’s close to making the final table at the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Eights-Or-Better Championship and if he does, that would be his fourth final table of the season. His run is comparable to a time that Phil Ivey had four years ago, when he made the final table five times in 12 days, although Ivey didn’t win any of those tournaments.
Mercier is powering through these tournaments, showing incredible stamina and handling the pressure with ease. What Mercier is doing is really unprecedented in the poker world and he has now earned over $17 million in career winnings. That puts him 11th on the all-time poker list and if he earns another win this year, he would become just the sixth player ever to win three events in a year.
Glaser Wins Omaha Bracelet
Benny Glaser also had a big week as the 27-year-old British poker professional earned bracelets for the World Series Of Poker in back-to-back summers. Glaser won the $1,500 Omaha Eight-Or-Better event and it was the third time that he had made it to the final table at a World Series Of Poker event. He has now won over $484,000 in tournament winnings. Perhaps more importantly, he had to beat out some very good players to get his bracelet such as Philip Hui, Brandon Shack-Harris and Max Prescatori, among others. To win a final table against the caliber of players he was up against has to be a huge confidence boost for Glaser. He said that he felt pretty good going into this event because he mostly plays Omaha online anyway
Glaser has had a fairly strong run at the World Series of Poker this year. Even without the win he had reeled in a fifth-place result at the $10,000 207 Draw Lowball No Limit and a 12th place finish at the $1,500 version of the same event. That’s not a bad run for someone who had never won before. We’ll see if he can keep the momentum going and produce a few more strong finishes as we move into the summer months.