The World Series of Poker festival has already started its seventieth event, which with the planned 95 means that we are slowly but surely going to the finals. Along the way, a number of more or less well-known faces managed to take away their valuable jewelry, and we will talk about some of them even today.  

Jason Mercier, once one of the best players in the world, made a spectacular comeback in the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw event, after he took a break from poker and devoted himself fully to his family in 2017. "When my son was born, I knew a lot would change. Becoming a parent is an absolute personality transformation where you completely reevaluate your priorities in life." Mercier completed his deep run at the final table in the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball event, where he beat Erik Seidel and the two-time EPT champion Mike Watson in heads-up.

It's Mercier's sixth bracelet in total, following up on his double win from 2016. Mercier appeared on the scene in 2008 and by 2017 had managed to win over $18 million, including over $4.5 million at the WSOP. In total, he managed to win 5 WSOP bracelets during this period, and in 2016 he even became the WSOP Player of the Year. "The game has changed a lot in that time, everyone has improved enormously, the fields are no longer full of players who literally don't know what to do. I didn't study much during "paternity", I'm more of a learn-by-do type of player. So I came back and found it was like riding a bike – I just hopped on and it went.”

A similar fate, as Mike Watson, also befell the long-time leader of the world all-time money list, Bryn Kenney. He, along with Joao Vieira and Chino Rheem, made it to the final table of the $10k Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better, where he missed out on the second bracelet by the narrowest of margins. Among 141 players, he only found an opponent in heads-up, where the bracelet finally went to Ryan Miller.

Another from the mass event category, which was the $1,500 MillionaireMaker, also recognized its champion. Thanks to 10,430 entries, it produced a prize pool of almost 14 million, of which the Moldovan representative Pavel "3P3NIPA" Plesuv took home the most. After many online and live successes, the long-time regular finally won a valuable piece of jewelry, which is also the first bracelet for the whole of Moldova.

Source: WSOP, PokerNews