Jason Mercier Champion of EPT High Rollers Event

Jason Mercier, who has a championship already this year on the European Poker Tour, took down his second event in 2008 with his win in the EPT’s £1 Million Showdown Monday evening.

With only 86 players willing to pop the £20,000 entry fee, only the final table would be paid from this event. Also typical of a high buy-in tournament was the quality of players at the final table. After a first day of poker to get the field to 14, another few hours were needed to determine the starting table, which lined up like this:

Seat 1: Peter Jetten – 347,000
Seat 2: Michael Watson – 104,000
Seat 3: Online phenom Isaac Haxton – 193,000
Seat 4: Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier – 86,000
Seat 5: France’s David Benyamine – 175,000
Seat 6: WSOP HORSE champion Scotty Nguyen – 68,000
Seat 7: EPT San Remo winner Jason Mercier – 204,000
Seat 8: Recent APPT champion Masaaki Kagawa – 142,000
Seat 9: WSOPE champion John Juanda – 302,000

With his short stack, many in the crowd at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London believed that Scotty Nguyen would be the first to go. That dubious honor went to the only lady at the table, Isabelle Mercier. Pushing her chips to the center with A-J resulted in Michael Watson calling and dominating with his A-K. Once the board blanked out, Isabelle was done in ninth place.

Continuing on his outstanding play of 2008, David Benyamine left the table soon after in eighth place and once again it was Watson delivering the defeat. This time, his pocket Aces held up against Benyamine’s K-J. Watson continued to be a one man wrecking crew at the table as he proceeded to use the chips earned to eliminate Masaaki Kagawa in seventh and move into second at the final table behind Full Tilt Poker pro John Juanda.

Juanda, fresh off his victory at the WSOPE Championship Event, continued his hot streak in London by eliminating Isaac Haxton in sixth place. A pre-flop raise by Haxton was met by Juanda’s re-raise and Isaac decided to make a stand and move all in. Juanda instantly called and tabled his pocket Aces against Haxton’s pocket eights. An unnecessary Ace on the flop all but sealed Isaac’s fate and, once the turn brought nothing to help, knocked one of the best in the online poker world out in sixth place.

Scotty Nguyen entertained the audience at the Vic, but his play did most of the talking.  After coming into the final table as the short stack, Nguyen made timely double ups to stay in the running at the table. Eventually, though, Nguyen couldn’t fade his all in confrontations all night, finally ending up on the losing end against Juanda when John made a flush against him. Nguyen would have to be satisfied with fifth place.

Juanda continued to play big stack poker, pushing around the shorter stacks around him, and left it to Jason Mercier to eliminate our fourth place finisher. Peter Jetten lost to Mercier when his A-J couldn’t catch up to Jason’s pocket deuces and, Juanda then finished off Michael Watson in third when Watson’s A-7 was demolished by Juanda’s Big Slick.

While Juanda held a 3-1 edge in chips over Mercier, Jason was able to get back in the mix on the very first hand of heads up play when he paired his Jack and doubled up. Twenty minutes into the duel, Mercier had surprisingly turned the tables against Juanda and held a 3-1 advantage. Mercier didn’t release that lead and, on the final hand, flopped a King high straight to eliminate Juanda and capture the EPT Million Pound Showdown.

Here are the final table results and payouts for the event: