Shock News: Jason Mercier Hits A Downswing

The game of poker contains a great deal of variance and nowhere is this more true than in tournament poker where pros can go months without cashing, thus skewing a players perception of reality and affecting their play.
However, Jason Mercier is one pro who seems to have remained relatively free from the sickly influence of high-variance in tournaments giving rise to the expression “running like Jason Mercier.” Since cashing in at his first tournament in 2008, Mercier has been on an incredible hot streak and notched up $7,852,900 in winnings, recording seven figure scores each and every year along the way. Nevertheless, the 25 year old now appears to have encountered his first real downswing and so far in 2012 has earned just $265,529 from tournaments.
That figure may not sound too bad, but for the Florida pro that amount doesn’t even cover the price of his accumulated tournament buy-ins for the year. It was therefore interesting hearing Jason Mercier decrying his bad run on twitter the other day, where he stated:
“Really over the ridiculous losses, beats, and #justbadluck that I have experienced at every single point in this wonderful year of 2012.”
“I am very fortunate to be where I am today in poker…. This I know. However, this year has been unbearable. Almost any pro poker player…”
“… Would be completely broke if they ran like I have run this year.”
Before venting his frustration, a series of events seems to have pushed Mercier over the tipping point, including leaving his laptop on a plane to Amsterdam explaining; “Now I’m on absolute #RAGINGTILT,” followed later by a particularly brutal session on PokerStars playing 1k/2k Omaha 8/b  in which he eventually finished the day down $163,561 over 1,527 hands. As he explained on twitter:
“Played 1k/2k Omaha 8/b all day today on stars with a few tards that were just mashing buttons. I swung from +160k to -140k in a few hours.”
In the midst of his current downswing, the good news for Jason Mercier is that there are still four months remaining in the year, which is plenty of time for the 2 times WSOP bracelet winner to see a reversal of his fortunes and close 2012 out with a bang.