2023 WSOP Day 31 & 32: Jason Mercier Dusts Off Cobwebs to Win Sixth Bracelet

Jason Mercier was an absolute poker stud back in the day seemingly always making the right reads, correct bluffs, and timely value bets regardless of the poker variant. A child changed Mercier’s path in life and he temporarily left his poker success in the past.
 
Mercier dusted off the cobwebs and was back on center stage at the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) after winning his sixth bracelet before the weekend. He wasn’t the only player to recently shine with Klaus Ilk, David Simon, Ryan Miller, William Kopp, and Gabriel Schroeder all finding WSOP gold for the first time.
 
Many big names are still in contention in ongoing events at the Horseshow Las Vegas and the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.
 
Read more about what went down on Day 31 and 32 of the 2023 WSOP:

Jason Mercier Wins Sixth Bracelet in Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw ($151,276)

Former Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier denied Canada’s Mike Watson a chance to notch his name off the list among the best players to never win a WSOP bracelet after defeating the Canadian heads-up in Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw for $151,276 and his sixth bracelet.
 
Despite his massive poker success, Mercier temporarily left PokerStars and temporarily abandoned the game that has provided him countless wealth and fame as he discovered there are more important things than poker in his life.
 
“After my son was born, I knew things were going to be different,” Mercier said on the PokerStars Blog after his wife Natasha gave birth to his son Marco. “Becoming a parent brings about a complete transformation of who you are. I no longer let myself be so concerned with what I want, but more so the well-being of my wife and my child (and future children). Serving and leading my family is of utmost importance.”
 
Mercier won two WSOP bracelets in a week in 2016 including Event #16: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship and was also facing off heads-up against Watson just like in the smaller bracelet even this year. Mericer got the best of him seven years ago just like he did this summer to win his fifth bracelet at the time and the $273,335 top prize.
“I’ve been three-handed with him four separate times in major events and I’ve won all four,” Mercier shared after his sixth bracelet victory according to WSOP. “So, he’s gotten second twice and third twice. But in particular, we played heads up for the no-limit deuce bracelet in the $10K in 2016. So, it was definitely a bit of déja vu. You know, going into heads up, I was a little worried that he was finally going to get me. But luckily I ran hot and was able to beat him again.”

Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw Final Table Results

Event #60: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw attracted 548 entries to create a $731,580 prize pool with the top 83 players banking at least a $2,404 min-cash. Check out the final table results below:

Klaus Ilk Wins Event #61: $1,000 Super Seniors Championship ($371,603)

Austria’s Klaus Ilk will need to move hotels before celebrating his maiden bracelet victory after shipping Event #61: $1,000 Super Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship for $371,603.
“First, I need to move hotels and check in to the new place,” Ilk said about his celebration plans after his victory according to the WSOP. “My phone did not stop vibrating all day so I need to message my friends and family back home in Austria and hopefully, I can settle down with a nice bottle of wine.”
 
Ilk began the final table near the bottom of the pack while the runner-up Robert Lane began with the chip lead. Lane had some early momentum but Day 2 chip leader Farhad Davoudzadeh snagged the lead with some relentless aggression.
 
Meanwhile, Ilk was down to just five big blinds before his Cinderella story began. He doubled through Davoudzadeh with five players remaining when his ace-seven suited held against king-five suited. He gained even more breathing room after ousting the short-stacked Kevin Danko in fifth place with his ace-trey holding strong against seven-five suited.
 
Lane then got hit with the deck. He first ousted Ronald Swain in fourth place when his aces proved to be unstoppable against ace-queen. Shortly after, Lane woke up with cowboys and held a 7:2 heads-up chip advantage against Ilk after Davoudzadeh hit the rail in third place with ace-queen.
 
A little luck never hurt as we could easily be calling Lane the champion today as Ilk doubled up with ace-seven against ace-queen to nearly even the stacks. Ilk then took the lead before closing things out. Lane shoved over the top of a bet by Ilk with a double-gutter and overcards with ten-eight on a seven-six-four flop. Ilk got it in with his nines and the rest was history after blanks came on the turn and river.

Event #61: $1,000 Super Seniors Championship Final Table Results

The four-day Event #61: $1,000 Super Seniors set a new gold standard for this event with 3,121 runners creating a huge $2,777,690 prize pool. The top 469 players earned payout slips of at least the min-cash of $800. Check out the final table results below:

David Simon Ships Event #62: $1,500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em / Pot Limit Omaha ($410,659)

David Simon had a day to remember on Friday as he defeated a star-studded final table including the likes of four-time WSOP champion Robert Mizrachi and three-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva to earn his first bracelet in Event #62: $1,500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em Pot Limit Omaha for $410,659.
 
“To have a result like this is not so much validation or anything, because I’ve never really put myself on that level,” Simon said after his victory according to WSOP. “But it definitely just increases my confidence level and makes me so thankful for all my friends and family who have been so into everything that I’ve been doing.”
 
Simon denied a fellow “David” in David Prociak his second bracelet in an impressive heads-up performance. Prociak had nearly double Simon’s stack and extended his lead to nearly 80 percent of the chips in play before Simon doubled up in a hand of pot-limit Omaha. Shortly after the stacks were nearly even and the chip lead went back and forth several times before Simon won a key hand of hold’em to take a huge chip lead. Although Prociak did double once, his comeback ended there after losing his stack in a hand of pot-limit Omaha for the bracelet to be awarded to Simon.
 
“I think that honestly, David (Prociak) is a better player than I am,” Simon said about his heads-up opponent. “I know he’s a better PLO player than I am, for sure. I didn’t really want to try to mix it up with him in PLO too much. Obviously, once we’re heads up then that’s out the window. I was thinking that I was going to try to make him uncomfortable by playing bigger pots than he would probably want to. ‘Cause I think that, in his mind, he had the advantage heads up – and I think he had every reason to think that way – so I made some bigger bets at the very beginning of heads up just to kind of put that fear in him a little bit.”

Event #62: $1,500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em / Pot Limit Omaha Final Table Results

The four-day Event #62: $1,500 Mixed No-Limit Hold’em / Pot-Limit Omaha attracted a banner field of 2,076 entries to create a new WSOP record prize pool for this event of $2,771,460 with the top 271 players securing at least a $2,402 min-cash. Check out the final table results below:

Ryan Miller Wins Event #63: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship

Ryan Miller has been battling at the WSOP since 2007 in hopes of won day securing what all poker players dream of in winning a WSOP gold bracelet. Miller’s dreams came true after he came out on top of the tidy field of 141 poker beasts in Event #63: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship.
 
“I’ve waited a long time and I wasn’t sure if it would ever come,” Miller said about winning his first bracelet according to the WSOP. “But, I’m super excited to get one. I feel like I put a lot of time in poker and was deserving of one, and now it finally came and it’s great to get it in a Championship event.”
 
We could have been waking up to Twitter being on fire as the controversial Bryn Kenney, who last year was very publicly accused of cheating in online poker, began the heads-up battle with Miller with double his chip stack.
 
It appeared that Kenney would go on to win his second bracelet with all the early momentum on his side as he had Miller on the ropes with an 8:1 chip advantage before things began to fall apart. Miller came back and eventually took a 3:1 chip advantage himself but this wasn’t the end of the story as Kenney managed to hang around and even regain the chip lead one last time.
 
“I was always slightly confident, not really expecting that I could win just because of the chip disadvantage,” Miller said. “But once I reached heads up, I said: ‘You know what, anything could happen.’ And right when I got back from dinner, I won a big pot pretty quickly, and at that point, I thought I could do it.”

Event #63: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship Final Table Results

The four-day Event #63: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship boasted a $1,311,300 prize pool with 141 entries getting into the mix. The top 22 players went home with at least a $16,000 min-cash. Check out the final table results below:

William Kopp Ships Event #66: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better ($259,949)