Jason Mercier Departs PokerStars After 8 Years as a Sponsored Pro

Jason Mercier has been a member of Team PokerStars since 2008, but the 31-year Florida pro has now decided to end his tenure with the site, with his farewell news announced via a PokerStars Blog post this week. Mercier’s departure comes soon after Vanessa Selbst also left PokerStars, in her case in order to pursue a career working for a hedge fund.
Unlike Selbst, however, Mercier said that he was “not retiring from poker by any means,” but that the birth of his son last year was a major factor in reshaping his approach to his professional poker career. Mercier said that his contract with PokerStars was due expire at the end of 2017, and that before deciding on how to proceed from there he first had to address a whole bunch of life questions rolling in around in his head. Elaborating further, Mercier said:
“Do I even want to travel now? How much can I travel? Should I continue playing poker so much? How’s it going to be on the road with a baby? Does PokerStars want me to do more? Is my wife going to continue to play poker?”
In the end, it appears Mercier opted to spend more time with his wife and child, leading to a “short and sweet” contract discussion with PokerStars. Mercier was also keen to point out that he departed on amicable terms, and that he would always be grateful to the site for taking a chance on him when he was a 22 year-old just into his second year as a live tournament pro.
Back then, Mercier had around $3 million in earnings, including winning the 2008 EPT €5k Sanremo Main Event for €869,000 ($1,372,893), and the £20,300 EPT London for £516,000 ($944,847). PokerStars subsequently snapped him up after he captured a gold bracelet at the 2009 WSOP $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event for $237,462, and since then he has gone on to amass a total of $18,559,070 in live winnings, placing him at number 12 on poker’s ‘All Time Money List’.
While he may not be sporting a PokerStars logo at future events, Mercier said that he still intended on competing at some of the main tournament series, including the 2018 WSOP, the 2019 PCA, and those taking place in his home state of Florida.
In the meantime, long-term pros still sponsored by PokerStars includes the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, Liv Boeree, and Barry Greenstein.