Mercier leads WSOPE main event final

WSOP Europe / Dave Allan / 01 October 2009 / Leave a Comment

Chip Leader Jason Mercier

A fascinating Day 4 ended just after midnight in London yesterday at the World Series of Poker Europe. 36 players returned to do battle for their place in the WSOPE main event final and following a steady stream of eliminations, some very famous eliminations at that, we have our final 9 players for the last day of action later today. Jason Mercier leads the final with a huge 3,198,000 in chips but "November Niner" James Akenhead, Daniel Negreanu and Praz Bansi are all still in contention.

Many were predicting a "big name" laden final for the WSOPE main event and the final nine certainly hasn't disappointed when it comes to star quality. Barry Shulman, Jason Mercier, Praz Bansi, Chris Bjorin, Daniel Negreanu and Matt Hawrilenko have all won WSOP bracelets previously and all will be looking to add European WSOP glory to their poker C.Vs.

The unlucky final table bubble boy was Eric Liu. The high stakes regular pushed all his chips in with Qs,Qd and he found a caller in the form of Jason Mercier. Mercier held Jc,Kc leaving Liu with a great chance of doubling up. The flop decided otherwise with Ac,Ks,Tc leaving Liu hunting for a Jack to make a straight. The turn and river couldn't improve his hand and San Francisco professional had to settle for 10th place and £51,536 to ease his bubble pains.

Other big names that missed out on final table glory were Doyle Brunson in 17th (£31,198), Ram Vaswani in 15th (£40,481), Teddy Sheringham 14th (£40,481) and Keith "The Camel" Hawkins in 11th (£51,536).

Perhaps the most remarkable story of Day 4 was James Akenhead and Antoine Saout reaching another WSOP final. Both are already guaranteed a huge pay-day after their exploits in the WSOP in Las Vegas resulted them making the "November Nine". There is a real possibility that a player could win both the WSOPE and WSOP main events in the same year!

The final table players and their chip counts are as follows:

Seat 1 - Barry Shulman - 1,090,000
Seat 2 - Jason Mercier - 3,198,000
Seat 3 - Praz Bansi - 1,160,000
Seat 4 - Markus Ristola - 784,000
Seat 5 - Chris Bjorin - 518,000
Seat 6 - James Akenhead - 1,398,000
Seat 7 - Daniel Negreanu - 438,000
Seat 8 - Antoine Saout - 701,000
Seat 9 - Matt Hawrilenko - 674,000

The final gets underway at mid-day, UK time, today. Follow all the action as it happens via our WSOPE LIVE UPDATES AND CHIP COUNTS page.