It has not been made official on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) website yet, but 2012 WSOP Main Event Champion Greg Merson appears to be the first sponsored pro of the WSOP.com online poker room.
It was last week that his new role as a WSOP.com pro came up in a bit of a roundabout way on the Two Plus Two forums. A poster was confused to see what he believed to be multi-accounting by Merson. With the WSOP recently running in Las Vegas, Merson often promoted the site on his different social media accounts such as Twitter and Instagram. The Two Plus Two poster noticed that the pictures Merson had shared showed him playing under the screen name “Toddmcshay,” named after the ESPN draft expert, but later displayed pictures of his WSOP.com table where he was using the screen name “GregMerson.”
There was also a question about whether or not he used “seat script” software, or software that would automatically seat him at tables based on pre-determined conditions, such as the quality of the opponent. A couple days later, Merson responded, saying:
I do not use a seat script and if you’ve seen my tweets regarding scripting on stars it is the reason I dont pay on there much anymore as I dont believe its fair.
I am on the other hand very good at watching the lobby while I play and its something I got good at on ftp back in 2011 and I think its a big strength of mine to be able to get into games when they start.
My name change was due to signing with WSOP.com and apologize if that wasn’t more clear by my tweets and instagram. Since the name change I have not played on my other screen as it has been terminated afaik.
Bill Rini, Head of Online Poker for WSOP.com, confirmed in the Two Plus Two thread that Merson has not played with his old screen name since the name change.
This relationship with WSOP.com possibly explains his odd Tweets at the beginning of the Main Event this summer. Overlapping the start of the Main Event was a special World Poker Tour event at the ARIA Resort and Casino nearby, the WPT500. The WPT500 was a $500 + $65 that had five starting flights going from July 4th through July 8th and a “Day 2” on July 9th. The WSOP Main Event’s starting flights were July 5th through July 7th with Day 2 flights on July 8th and July 9th. Merson had an issue with the WPT500’s schedule and was not afraid to share his thoughts on Twitter.
He ranted through a series of tweets, saying, “Can’t breath [sic] on partypoker/WPT trying to step on the toes of the WSOP main event. Of course you can play both but very disrespectful IMO”
“The main event is our Super Bowl, save your 5 day re-entry money grab for another date,” added, “Just a desperate attempt by a company trying to hold onto a glimmer of the spotlight as they have continued to slid since 2006 #showers”
It was very odd, as not only was he the only person on the planet with any sort of problem with the WPT500, but he also felt VERY strongly about it. Like it was a personal disrespect. A budding sponsorship relationship may very well have played a part, though it was still awfully strange that he cared so much.
