Jason Mercier has one WSOP bracelet this year, but narrowly missed out on a second on Wednesday night.

For the last 72 hours the attention of the poker world has been squarely on Jason Mercier thanks to his first bracelet win of the summer and the six and seven-figure bracelet bets he made before the 2016 World Series of Poker began.

On Monday night, Mercier won the $10,000 No Limit Deuce to Seven event for his fourth career bracelet and in the process won more money from his side action than he did for winning the actual tournament.

Mercier has multiple bets on his own success this summer including bets for one bracelet, which are head-to-head bets against other players, bets for two bracelets that pay somewhere around 18-1 and a bet with Vanessa Selbst that pays a staggering 180-1 on a $10,000 wager should Mercier win three bracelets this summer.

Shortly after Mercier captured the first bracelet, Selbst took to Twitter looking to hedge her own action.


This opened up the conversation where eventually Selbst expressed disappointment that Mercier didn’t allow her to buy out of the bet in the days after making it. Selbst claimed she had been drinking with Mercier the night she made the bet and the alcohol may have influenced her decision. This lead to a number of poker players and others on social media taking sides. All of this was happening while Mercier was on his way to another $10,000 buy-in event final table.

“I don’t really wanna comment necessarily publicly about what happened between me and Vanessa,” Mercier said. “We have different views on prop betting I guess, and what exactly happens between friends or whatever. But I don’t really want to get into it too much more.”

On Wednesday night, Mercier entered the final table of the $10,000 Razz event with the chip lead and eventually found himself heads-up for his second bracelet. After two and a half hours of heads up play however, Ray Dehkharghani emerged victorious, leaving Mercier to settle for second place.

“Pretty disappointed. I mean, I don’t feel like there was too much I could have done heads up. He played very well and it just wasn’t meant to be,” said Mercier. While there may have been very little he could have done, Mercier can’t help but think of the final table as a squandered opportunity to cash in more bets and put himself in position to scoop the biggest one of them all.

“That’s what I’m most disappointed about. I have a bunch of bets on winning two bracelets and the huge one for winning three. It’s almost impossible to win three when you get a second (place) because that means you’re going to have to go heads up four times,” said Mercier. “It’s just a little disappointing for the equity in the bet. I mean, obviously I won more money and I can’t be too disappointed to get heads up for a bracelet, ever.’

With 46 events remaining on the WSOP schedule, Mercier has no intentions of slowing down in his pursuit of more bracelets including late-regging the next Championship event that began as Mercier was sitting at the Razz final table.

“I’m definitely going to hop in the $10K HORSE now,” said Mercier. “I feel like I’m playing very well right now, I feel like I’m running well and there’s still plenty of big tournaments to play. I looked at the schedule this morning; $10K HORSE, $10K O8, Stud, $25K PLO, $10K PLO, $5K PLO, $50K, $100K. There’s ton of huge buy-in small field events that are very good chances to win. So if I can get myself to a couple more final tables who knows what will happen.”

With the controversy over his bet with Selbst taking center stage on social media, Mercier said he was still able to focus on the task at hand.

“It’s hard to keep up with all the mentions on Twitter, but besides that it’s not too big of a deal. It doesn’t even really cross my mind when I’m playing. It’s more about at the end of the night or before the day starts catching up on what the hell is going on,” said Mercier.

The thought of playing for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of more dollars than other players he’s playing against is something Mercier admits to having thought about but believes the opportunity to win an additional six or seven figures makes it much easier for him to focus at the table.

“It is a little daunting when you’re like the difference between first and second is $100,000, but for me it’s like $500,000 or $600,000 or whatever it is,” said Mercier. “I think it helps me just be even more focused and try to take down the title.”

As for the bet with Selbst and the furor it caused on Twitter, Mercier claims it’s all in the past now after Selbst sold most of her action on the bet to Mike McDonald.

“It’s pretty much squashed I think,” said Mercier. “I know that she pretty much bought out or sold the bet, if I end up winning three I guess I’ll end up getting paid from somebody else.”