Meet the poker player who has won and lost six figures betting on himself

Betting big on sports brings a certain level of pressure. Betting on your own team brings another layer. But what about staking $150,000 on yourself?

For Jason Mercier, all that matters is knowing your money has a positive expectation of winning. Mercier, one of the world's best poker players and a member of Team PokerStars Pro, has won more than $16m from live tournaments. When you factor in cash game earnings and online winnings, the total is anyone's guess. And that's not factoring in his side bets, many of which run into six figures. Oh, and he doesn't turn 30 for another six months. https://www.instagram.com/p/BEtzJK9JuEM/?taken-by=realjasonmercier&hl=en Mercier spoke to SportsJOE ahead of PokerStars' Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), one of the largest online poker tournament series in the world. The series comprises more than 150 tournaments, with buy-ins from $7.50 up to $10,000. No player has won more than six SCOOP tournaments since the series first ran in 2009. Mercier won three just last year, all in the space of a week. "I'm basically going to be playing 16 hours a day, every single day, for a period of about 15 days," he explains. After that it's off to Vegas, where another three-bracelet haul would prove very lucrative thanks to a prop bet which he says is "not the kind of bet you would normally hear about in the poker world."

"I bet on myself to win three WSOP bracelets just in the summer in Las Vegas," he says. "To give you a little perspective on that, I've won three bracelets in my entire career of playing in the world series and I've been playing for 8 years. But I got laid 180/1 on this bet, so I bet $10,000 to win $1.8m."

It would be a huge win if it comes off, but the Floridian has bet more – and lost more – in the past. While he doesn't always have action on the side during the World Series, the Vegas showpiece was responsible for what he describes as "probably" his biggest loss on a single prop bet. He staked $150,000 at odds of 3/1 that he would win a bracelet (awarded for winning any of the series' 50-plus tournaments), only to come up short. But he won it all back, with interest, after pocketing more than $300,000 on a near-identical bet a year or two later. And he's happy with his decision in both cases. https://twitter.com/RyanCorpora/status/611499727654416384 "In gambling and in poker, you don't really want to be results-oriented," Mercier notes. "It's just like if you're playing blackjack and you have 16 and the dealer has a 10, you're always going to hit so you can't be like 'oh, I hit it and I got a 10 so next time I'm not going to do that'. "You always want to make sure that you're playing optimally, you're making bets that have a positive expectation – at least in your mind – and just always trying to get your money in good. And ahead of the 2016 WSOP, which begins in Las Vegas at the end of May, Mercier says he is feeling "really good" and is confident in his ability to perform well over the summer. That explains his willingness to risk $10,000 on an 180/1 shot, as well as betting on himself to win two bracelets in Vegas (at odds of 19/1) and he plans to add some more bets into the mix to ensure he has the motivation required to play as many as 40 tournaments in a six-week spell. That volume of poker can take its toll on a lot of players, but after playing the game professionally for close to a decade, Mercier feels as though he has adapted to the rigours of long poker sessions. He's now able to switch off his brain and get to sleep within 15 minutes of finishing a session ("it's not that I'm necessarily trained to do it, but I think it's just more from being mentally exhausted") so that - at least throughout SCOOP, he spends every hour of every day either playing, eating or sleeping. But if you're the type of person who just plays the odd poker tournament here and there, you can still learn from Mercier's approach. "The only thing that I really try to do physically is make sure that I eat and pretty much try to sleep at every moment I'm not actually playing," he says. "You just need to be mentally prepared for that which just comes from your poker experience in the past." Two straight weeks of 16-hour online poker sessions are very different from the live circuit, though, and aside from two dedicated periods in May and September, Mercier spends a lot of his time travelling to and from live tournaments. It's not just Vegas, though - when we speak to him he's in Monaco preparing for the European Poker Tour Grand Final, and he has recorded cashes in Ireland, Australia and the Bahamas in 2016 so far. The requirements for a live festival are different - the days are shorter, and you're generally playing just one tournament at a time (compared to 12 or more at a time in a standard online session for a professional player). That means a lot more downtime, Mercier tells us, and a slightly different kind of mental preparation.

"You have to be ready to make the most of whatever extra time you're given," he says. "My girlfriend is here with me, and there are definitely some activities she would like to do in the city, so it's just about managing your time and making the most of every opportunity. "You can't let it get to you that much when you get knocked out of a tournament because then you'll be ruining your vacation experience as well. "I get asked on a plane sometimes 'where are you going?' and when I reply 'Nice' or 'Monaco' or wherever they'll ask 'vacation?' and I'll just laugh and say 'sort of'. "It's hard to say I'm going for work when I'm going to be playing poker - yes, it is work, and it is my main source of income, but I really enjoy doing it so it is work but it's also a game and it's really fun."

The added downtime also provides an opportunity for Mercier to catch up on his other main passion - sports. Due to the time difference, time spent playing poker in Monaco does not overlap with US sports schedules, meaning he has been able to watch the Miami Heat - the team he follows - from the principality. So, does have enough faith in his own team to back them as frequently as he backs himself? "Yeah, sometimes too much, actually!" he laughs. "More often than not for me it's fun to bet on your own team because you're rooting for them anyways, just as long as you're not always betting on your own team. "It makes it that much sweeter when they win." If Mercier delivers on his three-bracelet ambitions this summer, we imagine he'll be feeling much the same about himself. The Spring Championship of Online Poker runs from May 5-20 on PokerStars. Jason Mercier is the current favourite for the Team PokerStars Pro SCOOP Leaderboard Challenge.