After my 3^rd place finish at the High Roller event in LA, I knew I needed to make my way back to Las Vegas. I had an invitation to play in the NBC Heads Up Championship, how could I say no to that? 

I came back that same night after the finish of the High Roller event. I rode back with a couple buddies crammed in their tiny 2 door car... I rode in the back seat! 

We left around 2 am and arrived in Vegas around six. It was a miserable drive, but I was happy to finally get here. 

I chilled out the first day I was here, just hanging with friends, drinking some beers and having a good time. The next day was the drawing party for the event. It was pretty cool, I was able to bring two of my good buddies, Andy and the one and only- Daniel O'Brien, and two of his friends as well. 

We all had a great time there and I found out who I was matched up against, Daniel Negreanu.

He's not exactly my first choice from the field, as there are plenty of much weaker opponents. However, I was not totally opposed to the thought of playing him as I knew there would be a good chance our match would be the featured one. 

I have also played a lot against Daniel and feel like I have a good read on how he plays. 

Our match did end up being on the featured table, and also the fastest one. I knocked him out of what I would guess to be around the 10^th hand of the match. 

I got all the money in on a board of J-3-3-2 holding QQ vs his 55 in a 3-bet pot. The structure of these matches are fairly fast paced, as they are made for TV.  

Saturday, I will be playing Pieter De Korver in my first match. If I win this match, I will be in the money and down to the final 16. Hopefully I can win both matches tomorrow and be on the final day on Sunday when only 8 players are left. 

First place in this tournament is a cool half million.  Not bad eh?

Stay tuned to pokerlistings.com to follow the action

Jason Mercier checks in before playing the final table of the $25k High Roller Event at the LAPC.

Right now, I just jumped on a media person's computer (Julio- thanks bro!) to write a blogpost during Day 1 of the Main event at LAPC.

We are on our 2nd 15 break of the day. I am still at around starting stack with around 21k from 20k starting stack. There is a large field for today's tournament, over 710 players have showed up.

Unfortunately, my table is pretty tough, I know 6 of the 8 other players at my table... Aggrifrod, Kenny Tran, Bazeman, Blair Hinkle, Cody Slaubough, and Brent Roberts are all at my table.

I'm going to try and pick my spots well and hopefully chip up and head into Day 2 with a decent stack. I keep running into these tough starting tables at supposedly soft main events. Guess I'm going to have to get nasty with it and start crushing regs.

The High Roller event at NAPT did not go as planned. I got a hold of the chiplead only to lose KK vs moneymakers AK all in pre for over 40% of the chips in play at my 1st table. Then ground it out and busted 4th. It was pretty missssserable.

O well here in LA for main event and then the high rollers weeeeeeeeeee GL going back now!

peace it

I'm sitting here in the media room at the Venetian, after doing a few interviews over the last couple hours.

I feel like I have been really lazy lately when it comes to every aspect of my life except for poker.

Since arriving in Vegas, I have been sleeping about 10-12 hours a night, which has been great by the way. While I was in LA I was getting some of the worst sleep ever, only sleeping 4 hours or so a night.

I played the NAPT main event on Saturday and made it to Day 2 with 41k in chips which was a little bit below average stack.

Today I will be playing the $1k 8 game event at LAPC. This will be my 7th event played out here, having bricked the first six I played.

I bubbled the $1,500 NL last night after playing around 11 hours. I went out in 23^rd and 18 got paid.

Sam Simon, the creator of the Simpsons, was the one who busted me. He's a really nice guy and fun to have at the table, but oh, did he get me good!! Sigh!

Anyways, I had a rough online day on Sunday too, going deep in a few tourneys. I finished 8^th in the 109 turbo, losing 2 pots for the chiplead at the final table, 6 outed on the river and 3 outed on the river... yuk.

Also got 20^th in the 109 freeze, and bubbled the 200 rebuy AK<AA.

I will probably only be playing this 8 game tourney and the $1,500 Chinese poker tournament out in LA before heading to Vegas for the NAPT at the Venetian.

I will be playing the 5k main event there and also the 25k high rollers event. I'm really excited for these two events and looking forward to kicking off the NAPT season.

Later!

I'm sitting here in my hotel room while my roommate is passed out enjoying his sleep and I couldn't be more jealous.

Since arriving in LA on Tuesday night, I have had 3 nights in a row where I woke up after only 4 hours of sleep, and could not fall back to sleep. I don't know what it is, jetlag perhaps? I really don't get it, but it's starting to annoy me.

I've played three live tourneys since being out here in LA for the LAPC. I played a 1k NL, $500 stud8, and $500 NL.

In both of the NL events I last around 5-6 hours, getting coolered to bust both. The $500 Stud8 tournament however was quite a grind. I probably shouldn't have played this tourney, as it was only 17k for first place. I ended up bubbling getting 18^th, sigh! Lol  

This was the closest I have ever been to being exact bubble of a live tournament before as 16 people got paid.

The event today is a $500 limit holdem, so I am going to take today off from playing tournaments. I'll be playing tourneys everyday for probably the next 2 weeks, so it will be nice to have a little break.

Dan O'Brien just texted me inviting me out to romp around Cali and do some site seeing.

G2G! Later!

-Jmerc

It's my last day home, in Florida, for at least a month. Tomorrow night I'll be off to Los Angeles to start my reign of terror on the west coast.

I'll be in LA for 9 days playing a bunch of 1k prelims. I have played basically no poker since busting the Borgata main event.

I had a flight booked for Sunday morning to go to Tunica, having booked it long before I realized it was Super Bowl Sunday. I didn't really feel like going to Tunica and sitting there in a hotel all alone to watch the Super Bowl.

After figuring out there was no practical plan to get there the morning of the event, I decided to bag the trip and just post up for a couple more days at home.

I watched the Super Bowl with my family which was a lot of fun, ate wayyyyy too much food. I only booked two small bets both of which I lost.

I took tails on the coin toss- it was heads. Then made a bet with Scott Clements - I had the colts to win, he had the Saints.

If I won, I would get 80$ in equity of him in a live tournament of my choice, but because I lost I have to give him 100$ in equity in whatever live tournament he chooses that I am in. I will probably win whichever one he picks, which I'll be fine with lol.

I have only played 2 online tournaments since coming home, one-tabled the Sunday Million during the Superbowl- no good there. And I just got 2^nd in a NAPT satty on stars which was awarding one package- AK cant beat Q5 for the seat. L

O well, looking forward to getting back to the live grind ASAP.

Next blog will probably be after I ship first event I play in LA.

Jmerc

I had the opportunity to chill with Michael Phelps a few times while out here at Borgata. He was out here playing a few tourneys and chilling with his friends.

He's a really cool dude, we partied at a club on Saturday night, and then a bunch of guys played online in his suite all day on Sunday. 

My friend Phil and I were talking the other day about Phelps and how he has to be considered, one of, if not THE greatest athlete of our generation or the last 50 years. Definitely, hands down, the most dominant athlete at their given sport.

Anyways, poker out here had been pretty miserable up until today. I had played the 2k heads up, which was a double elimination tournament, lost my first 2 matches. Then played the 1500 the next day, and busted about 4 hours in.

My friend Phil final tabled that one, but got 8th sigh. Then Sunday I played about 25 tournaments on stars and only cashed one, 20th in a 50 cubed... yuk!

So today was Day 1b of the main event out here... $3500 event. It drew over 750 players and first place is over 600k... SICK!

I had a fairly steady day... stack was between 25-55k all day... lot of interesting pots, anyways ended the day with 50,825 chips. We restart at 11 am tomorrow which is too early if you ask me. Oh well, I guess that's what you get when you have a good structured tournament.

You can follow updates on borgatapoker.blogspot.com/ or my personal updates on www.jasonmercier.com, which is my facebook fanpage.

Pz 

J Merc

I'm sitting here in the Atlanta airport with my buddy Phildo, waiting to get on our flight to Philadelphia, where we then have to get a cab to Atlantic City.

We left Biloxi, Mississippi a few hours ago. We were both hoping we were going to be staying in Biloxi an extra day, as our buddy Dan O'Brien was still in the main event in Biloxi late last night.

They were playing down to the final 6, but unfortunately Dan busted out in 9^th. This was another deep run for Dan, I know he's going to win a big one soon, the kid is playing amazing.

I'm going to be playing only a few tournaments in AC at the Borgata. There's a 2k NL heads up tomorrow, a 1500 NL on the 29^th, and the 3500 main event starts on the 31^st.

As soon as I bust the 3500 in AC, I'll be heading back to Florida for a few days before heading to Tunica for the 5k WSOP circuit event and then off to Los Angeles for the LAPC.

I was happy I was able to have a successful trip to Biloxi and am looking for more of the same at Borgata.

At the beginning of the year, I booked a bet against Mike Matasow. He said I won't have 1 million dollars in cashes in 2010. I am on pace now, with just under $70k, but I hope I can lock this up before the World Series even starts.

Bluff Magazine's next issue will be coming out soon and I am supposed to be on the cover, which will be pretty cool. Also, the World Series of Poker Europe starts airing on ESPN in a few days, and I should be on the majority of the coverage making my US TV debut.

Word!

My last blogpost, I mentioned how I wasn't going to take my flight that morning to Biloxi because I wasn't feeling good and didn't want to fly sick.

I ended up finally leaving the walk in clinic that Sunday night around 2 am, prescriptions in hand, and made the decision to stay up and leave for the airport at 4:45 am for my 630 flight.

I hadn't packed yet or anything so I headed to Walgreens to get my prescriptions, and then back to my place to pack. I had to take 2 flights each around 1 hour and 45 minutes long to get to Biloxi, with a short layover in Charlotte. 

It was a pretty miserable trip as my ears were clogged, I was really tired and falling in and out of sleep, but luckily I was able to make it here safely, arriving at 11 am.

I can't keep living like this. I'm sitting here on the side of the road 2 miles away from my place in Florida because I just got a flat tire.

I was on my way to a 24 hour walk-in clinic because I have been sick for the last week and haven't been getting any better.

This is probably the 6th or 7th time that I have been sick in the last 12 months. I don't know if it's my diet, lack of exercise, irregular sleep schedule, constant travelling, or a combo of a few or all of these things.

Either way, something has to change, I refuse to let myself continually get sick.

Is it sad that I don't know how to change a tire? I'm waiting for triple A sigh! Should probably take like an hour ugh!

As far as poker goes, I played only 4 tourneys today on stars. I cashed in 1 tourney... The early 100 rebuy. 83k to first, I got 13th... Pretty miserable.

I'm supposed to get on a flight to Biloxi in 7.5 hours, but I'm definitely skipping it. I'll just go there when I feel a bit better. I think I'm gonna start taking a multivitamin and also start drinking orange juice everyday.

I need to get healthy asap.

Sent from my iPhone

I arrived in the Bahamas a few days ago and I’ve pretty much been busy the entire time. I have played two events so far- the main event, which I busted in the last level of day 1, and the 1k 6-max, which I busted late in day 1 as well.

Because the PCA is the biggest Pokerstars extravaganza, all the Pokerstars pros have way more media activities to do then they would at a normal EPT.

I have been having to squeeze in interviews and all kinds of other media activities in between playing poker. I am also working with Bluff Magazine on the cover article for their next issue.

My best friend, Darko, just got here yesterday so I’m going to try to hang out with him a bunch and have a good time while he’s here.

The weather has been the pittz as it’s been cold and windy the first few days here. I’m pretty sure it’s warmed up now and is going to be great weather for the rest of the trip.

I am going to be playing the 2k tag team event today at 2 pm with Christian Harder as my partner. He is going to play the PLH and I will play the PLO. I’m pretty sure we are the favorite in the field. Hof!

I am really looking forward to this event and tomorrow’s event which is a 5k plo 8 max event. What what! First plo event of 2010, gotta win it!

On January 1, 2009, exactly one year ago, I came up with a short list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in 2009.

I guess I could have came up with more things, but I didn’t think about it much and kind of rattled off a few things and then put the piece of paper away.

Yesterday, I looked at that piece of paper and this is exactly what it said:

1. Win a WSOP bracelet

2. Six figures just in staking

3. 3 wk period off from drinking

I accomplished the first and third things, by winning a bracelet and taking 35 days off drinking in September and October. I found it very ironic that I didn’t put the word “win” in second goal.

This was ironic to me because I actually lost six figures just in staking. So I guess I accomplished all three goals!!! Lol

I am sitting here in my condo with 15 minutes left before I am supposed to get started playing online for the next 10-12 hours. This will be my second to last blogpost that I will write for 2009.

I am planning on writing my last one about my new year’s resolutions and 2009’s resolutions and how I did with them.

I am first going to have to come up with my 2010 resolutions, but my brain has been mulling this over for a few weeks now and I got a rough outline of what I want them to be.

Well, I’m home now, sitting in my condo, getting ready to start playing a Sunday. 2009 is pretty much wrapped up for me.

Looking back, I’ve had a really good year in poker. I clinched the 2009 Bluff Player of the Year since my last blogpost. I locked up the win with the conclusion of the Five Diamond series at Bellagio.

The main event at Five Diamond was a big disappointment. I busted really early on day 2, which was really frustrating.

I had put two of my horses in the event as well, and they were both in and healthy when I busted. I had planned on heading home as soon as I busted, but ended up having to stay an extra day to do a photoshoot for bluff magazine.

I then decided to stay another extra day as both of my horses were still in the main event at the conclusion of day 3.

With 36 players left, both of them were around the middle of the pack, and I decided to stay and sweat them. I was really hoping for a big score from one of them, which would close out 2009 on a really good note.

Day 4 ended up being really miserable, as my first horse, Daniel O’Brien bubbled, taking 30^th place and no money. Brent Hanks, my other horse, busted near the end of the night in 17^th place. I then hopped on a plane first thing the next morning to head home.

Congrats to Eric Baldwin for winning Cardplayer Player of the Year. Hopefully we can swap next year and he can win bluff and I’ll win Cardplayer… lol we’ll see!

I’m going to be grinding a little bit while I’m home before PCA, but mostly will just be relaxing and hanging with friends and family.

PCA is in two weeks… ready to kick off 2010 with a bang!

Sitting here for 45 minutes on break of the 1k rebuy event at the bellagio, I realized I should be doin something ... It was quite a waste of time waiting around for the staff to figure out all the rebuys and addons in what was supposed to be a 15 min break.

It finally dawned on me I should be writing up a blogpost about my win on Wednesday.

Tuesday was the start of the 5k horse event at bellagio which I was not planning on playing, until I woke up that morning feeling good.

I’m sure you are all wondering, what do you mean Jason? Well I’m about to tell you, so hold your horses!

I’m going to elaborate as much as possible, but basically I’m going to try to share the experiences that I’ve had and the emotions I have been feeling since my last blogpost.

In my last post, I mentioned how I had bubbled the last 2 live tournaments that I played and that I wanted to do really well in the next one.

Since my last blogpost I’ve played two days of online tournaments and two live tournaments. I played on Saturday and Sunday online while I was still in Florida, playing all the big MTTs on Stars.

Saturday was a pretty rough day, was semi-deep in a few tournaments, but didn't really have any results. Sunday, I decided to play only 11 tourneys and go to my parents’ house and watch football all day with my Dad and play on my laptop.

Normally, I would play about 20-25 tournaments on a Sunday.

As I sat at my parents' house next to my only sister, I asked her what I should write in my blog, as I wanted to post something about Thanksgiving.

She suggested (being the intelligent person that she is <3) that I should make a list of things that I am thankful for. So here it goes.

Today is Day 4 of the WPT Main Event at Foxwoods. There are 27 players left, I'm 12th in chips right now, with just below average stack.

Today we are supposedly playing down to 10 players, and then day 5 we will play from 10 players to 6 for the TV final table. I am hoping to make my first WPT final table, and hopefully get my first WPT win.

Yesterday was Day 1 of the WPT Foxwoods Main Event. I finished the day well above average stack with 84,750 chips. The average is around 51k.

I had a fairly interesting table draw, with Kathy Liebert, who I really enjoyed talking to all day. She was very entertaining and funny.

She even made a bet against the guy next to her who was saying that Miami John is a really good player. She took me vs Miami John, but only if one of us wins the tournament. Obviously, I would be the favorite in this bet.

I think she was also really impressed with the way I played, as I pretty much played perfect all day. Not to mention the fact, I called her hand about 5 times.

I just looked at my table draw for day 2 and it seems to be a fairly tough one. I have Adam Levy, Tommy Vedes, John Hennigan, and Isaac Baron all at my table, who are all pretty solid players from what I've seen.

Isaac is the only one with position on me and I have the whole table covered, so it's not a terrible draw.

With the final table of the main event of the WSOP coming up, I wanted to make a prediction. My prediction is not about who is going to win, but about who I think is going to make a run at the win.

I'm predicting James Akenhead to go on a rush, early, and finish in the top 4, possibly even win it. I had the chance of playing against James in the WSOPE main event for a ton of hours, and let me tell you, the kid's game is SOLID.

Also, he's a super nice guy, and I would like for him to take that shortstack and run it up.

As for an update on me, I played the 5k at Caesars a few days ago, and that obviously didn't go so well. Played pretty well, just had aces cracked twice for big pots near the end of day 1 to bust.

I played on Stars a ton in the last week, making the final two tables of seven online MTTs with zero final tables. 11th, 13th, 14th, 13th, 13th, 14th, and 18th, UGH, it hurts so bad.

I'm going to play MTTs on Stars all day today, and then tomorrow I'm off to Foxwoods to play the last prelim (5k) and the main event.

I will probably be going home after that and then heading to Portugal for the next EPT.

Big Sunday coming up, then my WPT title. One time?

I don't know what it is about WPTs, but somehow in almost every single one I play, I bust on day 2 playing a hand in a way that I normally would not.

I have had countless brain farts, if you will, early in WPTs. I still have not even sniffed the money of a WPT. Granted I have only played like 10-12 of them, but still it has been frustrating.

I busted WPT Festa al Lago on the 5th hand of Day 2. I put basically 100 bbs in on the river on a massive bluff, risking my tourney life. It was atrocious, and I was very disappointed with myself and my play, and it was a tough one to swallow.

I have no problem when I bust a tourney losing a flip or get cooled off, or take a bad beat, but when it's something that I know that I could have changed and know that I shouldn't have done, that's the most difficult thing to deal with.

I decided I was going to wait until Saturday before I played anything online. Yesterday, I played all the big MTTs and sattys on Stars during the day.

I had an extrememly frustrating day in which I got 11th in the 162, and 11th in the 100 cubed turbo. I also came close and should have won 2 packages. I got 14th in a satty to EPT Portugal which was awarding 6 seats, my AQ crushed by AJ all in pre for a top 3 stack.

I also got 4th in a PCA satty in which I lost QQ vs KJ all in pre for 70% of the chips 5 handed. J turn J river… MEH! It was an all around rough day, looking for much better results today. I will be playing all day today, tons of big MTTs and sattys on Pokerstars.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I promised a blogpost after I shipped the 10k PLO at Bellagio. Unfortunately, I was not able to ship the whole thing.

I did however manage to get 3rd place out of the tiny 16 player field, which was good for $31k. Only 3 players made the money, which made the tournament very interesting and also very excruciating to play.

We went from 16 to 6 players on Day 1, which took only 14 hours lol. We also played about 3 hours of 4 handed play on the bubble.

I skipped playing on Sunday, and then on Monday I put in basically a 16 hour session, which including playing the 5k prelim at Bellagio, a 1500 satty, 10/20 NL, and 200/400 mixed. In short, it was a decent end to a long painful day.

I plan on possibly going to play the 1k Caesars heads up event tomorrow (Tuesday), and then the 15k main at Bellagio the following day. Looking for that first WPT title son!

I'm heading off to Vegas in a few days for WPT Festa al Lago at Bellagio. I'm probably only going to play the 10k plo event and the 15k main event.

I'm really excited to play this event as I haven't played a WPT since Bay 101 in March. This will be my first shot at becoming the next player to win a triple crown, or the first to ever win a quadruple crown (FTOPS win).

I am hoping to stay on a heater for the rest of the year.

The last time I posted I had made day 2 of a side event at EPT London. With 23 players left, I said I was going to win it, and I talked about how I don't plan on ever settling and I plan on always being a grinder.

I did just what I said, I won that event for 115k pounds. It was a great way to end my trip and I came home completely satisfied. I have just been chilling since I have been home, only putting in a few hours here and there playing PLO cash.

Next blogpost will probably be after I ship the 10k plo at Bellagio. I'm thinking it will probably be a really small field 40 players or so, but who knows could get a lot. Later!

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