June 04 2012, Brett Collson

Jason Mercier was running around the Rio multi-tabling events on Monday. We don’t expect him to be doing the same when the Big One for One Drop rolls around next month. We’ll bring you more on that story, plus the schedule for the PokerStars MicroMillions II series, in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It

Former November Niner Joseph Cheong made the championship round of the WSOP Event #6 on Sunday. We break down that event and more in the Day 8 WSOP recap.

Did you miss Sunday’s World Poker Tour coverage on FSN? Read our WPT recap to get caught up.

How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took down the biggest score? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.

Looking for a fun, behind-the-scenes perspective of life at the WSOP? The Muck will offer several daily stories from inside the Rio, so check it out!

Mercier Playing the Big One

On Saturday, Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier announced via Twitter that he has registered for the $1 million Big One for One Drop at the World Series of Poker. The two-time WSOP bracelet winner will join poker pros Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, Jonathan Duhamel, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Erik Seidel, and several others at the richest poker ever from July 1 through 3.

Mercier has done very well in small field, high roller events in the past. In December 2011 he won the $100,000 buy-in Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic High Roller event for $ 709,767. He also won the £20,000 buy-in High Roller Event at the 2008 European Poker Championships, defeating John Juanda heads up for the $944,847 top prize.

Several other poker pros have expressed interest in playing in the One Drop event, including Justin Bonomo, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Trickett, Andrew Robl and Phil Hellmuth. A World Series of Poker spokesman recently told PokerNews that an updated list of entrants will be released early this month. The event will be capped at 48 players.

You can find the official list of entrants at allinforonedrop.com.

Kool as Ice

French rap star Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes is becoming a dominating presence on the European poker circuit in 2012.

Lopes won his second title of the year at the World Poker Tour National Cannes Main Event over the weekend. The $2,045 buy-in event attracted 338 players to generate a prize pool of $604,165, and after three days Lopes took it down for “100,500.

2011 WSOP bracelet winner Antonin Teisseire was the other notable joining Lopes at the six-handed final table, but Teisseire made an early exit in sixth place. He was followed to the rail by Thomas Fara, Robert Giordano and Yannick Massa, respectively, leaving Lopes heads up with Louis Gorostis for the title. Gorostis finished runner-up for “70,500.

Lopes’ win in Cannes follows up a win at the Euro Finals of Poker Diamond Championship for $127,514 in January. He also took fourth place at the European Poker Tour Madrid Main Event for $183,660 in March. Lopes was 26th in last week’s Global Poker Index Player of the Year Rankings, but he’s in line for a big jump after the win in France.

Here’s a look at the results from Saturday’s final table:

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Catching Up With Darvin

We spotted 2009 WSOP Main Event runner-up Darvin Moon playing the $1,500 re-entry event on Sunday. Sarah Grant scooped him at the first break to discuss the Heartland Poker Tour, the New Orleans Saints, and playing events early with huge fields.

Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

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May 22 2012, Donnie Peters

The $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship continued with play on Tuesday with Day 4 action. The clock was stopped at the end of Level 18 and play was halted for the night with just 19 players remaining. Leading the way was Hafiz Khan with 1.966 million in chips. Trailing Khan in second place was Marvin Rettenmaier with 1.87 million.

When the day began, 44 players returned to action. As things progressed, one by one, players started to hit the rail. Of those eliminated early on in the day were Joseph Elpayaa, Matt Waxman, David Chiu, David “Doc” Sands, Hoyt Corkins and JP Kelly. Falling after that were David Steicke in 27th place, Sam Trickett in 25th place and start-of-the-day chip leader Curt Kohlberg in 24th place.

Finishing in 23rd place was Nicolas Fraioli after he was sent home by Khan. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, Khan opened to 22,000 from under the gun during Level 17 with the blinds at 5,000/10,000/1,000. Play moved over to Fraioli and he shoved his last 66,000 into the middle. When action folded back to Khan, he made the call holding the . Fraioli tabled the . The flop, turn and river ran out to give Khan a winning flush and eliminate Fraioli.

The last two eliminations of the day belonged to two former WPT champions, Antonio Esfandiari (21st) and Jonathan Little (20th). Both of them were knocked out by Day 2 chip leader Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi.

It was reported by the WPT Live Updates Team that Mizrachi scored both knockouts in the last level of the day with the blinds at 6,000/12,000/2,000. Esfandiari was the shortest stack of the three and was all in with . Little had the second shortest stack and was all in with . Mizrachi held and covered both players. Although Mizrachi went into the three-way all-in battle with the worst of it, he finished with the best hand by catching a queen on the turn to win the pot. From there, Mizrachi went on to end the day with 1.168 million in chips.

Other players still remaining are Steve O’Dwyer, Barry Shulman, Tom McCormick and Farzad Bonyadi.

WPT World Championship Day 4 Top 10 Chip Counts

Although he has already been eliminated from this event, Will “The Thrill” Failla still has a sweat. As things currently stand, Failla leads the WPT Season X Player of the Year race with 2,050 points (see right). Four of the 19 remaining players still have a chance at overtaking Failla for the POY title and they are Joe Serock, Moon Kim, Matt Juttelstad and Rinat Bogdanov.

Serock has the best shot at overtaking Failla. All he needs to do is place 15th or better in this season-ending WPT Championship event to take the top spot. Currently, Serock sits in second place with 1,800 points. Kim must finish in fifth place or better to become number one while Juttelstad and Bogdanov must both win the event. This makes things a bit more interesting going into Day 5.

Speaking of Day 5, the action will kick off with the cards in the air at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) on Wednesday. The plan for the day is to once again play five 90-minute levels before calling it quits. The first bit of the day is set to be extremely tense as a cash and $40,266 in prize money lurks just one spot away. You can be sure to find the daily recap right here on PokerNews.

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*Lead photo courtesy of BJ Nemeth at WorldPokerTour.com

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