Jason Mercier: Home for a Minute

In my last post, I talked about how I was on to round 2 of the NBC Heads-Up Championship after I defeated Daniel Negreanu.

I faced Pieter De Korver in my next match and ended up beating him as well. I had the chiplead for almost the whole match and was winning probably 70-75% of hands, but when the blinds went from 600/1200 to 1k/2 we got it in for his 11 bb stack, him holding A10 vs my A9… 9 on the river, no big deal!

If I had lost this pot, we would have been back to even in chips with 20 bbs each.

In my next match, I faced Phil Laak. This match started out completely opposite to the match with Pieter. Laak crushed me in the beginning stages of the match beating me on almost every hand.

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On to Round 2 of the NBC Heads-Up Championship

After my 3^rd place finish at the High Roller event in LA, I knew I needed to make my way back to Las Vegas. I had an invitation to play in the NBC Heads Up Championship, how could I say no to that? 

I came back that same night after the finish of the High Roller event. I rode back with a couple buddies crammed in their tiny 2 door car… I rode in the back seat! 

We left around 2 am and arrived in Vegas around six. It was a miserable drive, but I was happy to finally get here. 

I chilled out the first day I was here, just hanging with friends, drinking some beers and having a good time. The next day was the drawing party for the event. It was pretty cool, I was able to bring two of my good buddies, Andy and the one and only- Daniel O’Brien, and two of his friends as well. 

We all had a great time there and I found out who I was matched up against, Daniel Negreanu.

He’s not exactly my first choice from the field, as there are plenty of much weaker opponents. However, I was not totally opposed to the thought of playing him as I knew there would be a good chance our match would be the featured one. 

I have also played a lot against Daniel and feel like I have a good read on how he plays. 

Our match did end up being on the featured table, and also the fastest one. I knocked him out of what I would guess to be around the 10^th hand of the match. 

I got all the money in on a board of J-3-3-2 holding QQ vs his 55 in a 3-bet pot. The structure of these matches are fairly fast paced, as they are made for TV.  

Saturday, I will be playing Pieter De Korver in my first match. If I win this match, I will be in the money and down to the final 16. Hopefully I can win both matches tomorrow and be on the final day on Sunday when only 8 players are left. 

First place in this tournament is a cool half million.  Not bad eh?

Stay tuned to pokerlistings.com to follow the action

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NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship Field Announced – CardPlayer.com

Casino City Times

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