Jason Mercier wins. That's what he does. Put him on the EPT, he wins. Put him in the WSOP, he wins. Play him in a game of Hi-Ho Cherry-O, he'll win. That said, despite his many years on PokerStars, he has yet to go really, really deep in a World Championship of Online Poker event. As he explains below, he's ready to change that tout suite.

by Jason Mercier

As the start of the WCOOP gets closer and closer, I am getting more and more anxious. I have looked over the schedule and planned out what events I will be playing. This year's WCOOP has even more events and more of a variety of events to choose from than last year. I hope to play around 25 events this year. Last year I was travelling in Europe during the entire WCOOP and played very few events. This year I am really looking forward to playing more than half the events.

I haven't had much success in previous WCOOPs, which is one of the reasons that I am so motivated this year. My best result in any WCOOP event so far was getting 50th in a 1k WCOOP event in 2007. I am going to be in Barcelona for the EPT for the first week of this year's WCOOP, so I am planning on only playing a few of the WCOOPs while there, but will be playing almost every event starting September 11th when I arrive home.

When starting a WCOOP, you have to understand that these tournaments take much longer than a standard online MTT. It's a much slower structure and a lot of times the stacks are much deeper. If you're not used to playing long hours, get ready, because you're in for a wild ride if you go deep in a WCOOP event.

Winning a WCOOP bracelet would mean a lot to me. I have been playing on PokerStars ever since I started playing poker. It was the first site that I ever played on, and it's the only site I play on now. Winning a WCOOP bracelet is one of the things that I have not done yet in my poker career, and that makes it one of my most important goals I hope to accomplish.

Jason Mercier is a member of Team PokerStars Pro USA. WCOOP starts September 3.