Mercier wins EPT San Remo
April 5, 2008
Three PokerStars online qualifiers and a Team PokerStars pro made it to the final table of the European Poker Tour event in San Remo, Italy.
Jason Mercier, a math teach from Florida took out the $1.36 million first prize.
From Fort Lauderdale in Florida, Jason turned his back on a career in teaching after discovering online poker and developing that into a lucrative source of income. The EPT San Remo was just his second major live poker tournament and having busted out of the PokerStars Caribbean adventure on the first day (his first live event).
The tournament was the biggest poker event ever held in Italy, with a total prize pool of €3.1m ($4.8m USD). It was good to see that two Italians, including PokerStars' pro player Dario Minieri made it to the final table.
Ironically Dario started the pot that would eliminate his countryman, a 90k raise before Gregory moved all-in. What looked to be a simple case of Italy versus Italy took a different turn when Mercier called the all-in. Dario did the same but took no further part in the hand when, on the 7-A-5 flop Jason bet out again, changing Dario’s mind. It left Gregory’s fate to be determined by the two cards Jason had in front of him – A-3 for a pair against the T-9 of Gregory. The result was predictable, Gregory Genovese out with € 188,500.
The final placings ended up like this.
| Place | Player | Country | Prizemoney |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Jason Mercier* | USA | €869,000 ($1.36m) |
| 2nd | Antony Lellouche | France | €505,000 ($793k) |
| 3rd | Dario Minieri | Italy | €287,600 ($452k) |
| 4th | Eric Koskas* | France | €223,600 ($702k) |
| 5th | Gregory Genovese | Italy | €188,500 ($296k) |
| 6th | William Thorson | Sweden | €140,600 ($221k) |
| 7th | Dag Palovic | Slovakia | €111,800 ($176k) |
| 8th | Marcus Bower* | USA | €76,600 ($120k) |
* PokerStars Online Qualifier
Jason Mecier almost didn't play the event at all. His friends were in Amsterdam and he nearly cashed in his San Remo seat to join them!
He had this this to say after winning, “Oh my god, no! Actually the funniest thing is I was planning on selling my San Remo seat because my friend backed out of coming three weeks before. Two of my online friends said they were going but they weren’t going to play the event ‘you can meet up with us’ and I thought screw it and I go. They’re very good friends now.”
He's now off to the EPT grand final in Monte Carlo, and after that the 2008 World Series in Las Vegas.
You can qualify for both of those events, and many others, by playing the online satellites from just $2 at PokerStars, the world's most popular online poker site.
