Jason Mercier: wins €50,000 of buy-ins to EPT Season 8 events
PICTURE: EPTMercier wins EPT Champions event
POKER professional Jason Mercier beat the cream of international poker when taking down the first ever European Poker Tour Champion of Champions tournament.
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He said: "I'm extremely happy. It was a tough tournament. Really good players came out and, when we got deep, I did think at one point that I was going to bubble it."
The tournament was the final event of the EPT Grand Final Festival which ran May 5-13, 2011.
Mercier first came to fame when he tookdown the inaugural EPT San Remo event in Season 4 for €869,000. It was the start of a sensational run which included winning the £20,000 EPT London High Roller six months later for £516,000, a WSOP bracelet in 2009 and, most recently, the NAPT Mohegan Sun High Roller event in back-to-back years. Overall Mercier has made more than $5.5 million in live tournament winnings since his San Remo victory.
Galen Hall, 24, was already a top 50 internet pro when he took down the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure this January. He has been a professional poker player for 18 months and last year cashed for around $200,000 profit. This autumn he is returning to college at Stanford University but, thanks to his runner-up finish in the Champion of Champions event - which brings €25,000 of Season 8 buy-ins - will also now be making trips to Europe to compete in EPTs.
A total of 50 champions from all seven seasons of the European Poker Tour took part in the unique €100,000 freeroll including 11 members of Team PokerStars Pro. The entrants included the very first EPT winner - Alex Stevic, who won €80,000 at EPT Barcelona in September 2004 and the latest EPT champion, Ivan Freitez from Venezuela, who won €1.5 million at the EPT7 Grand Final here in Madrid in the early hours of Saturday morning.
