Greg Merson brought home a World Series of Poker bracelet in July 2012 in a $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Six-Max event. Known as gregy20723on PocketFives, Merson is a native of Maryland and banked $1.1 million for his bracelet win after defeating Louisiana’s Keith Lehr heads-up. He was one of nearly 20 PocketFives members to win WSOP bracelets in 2012 and entered the 2012 WSOP October Nine in third place with a stack of 28.7 million. He ultimately took down the 2012 Main Event for $8.5 million.

Merson, a professional poker pro by trade, told WSOP officials following his Six-Max win that the bracelet was quite unexpected: “It’s a pretty surreal experience. I don’t really play any tournaments. My biggest tournament score was having 5% of someone who won PCA – and I got $75,000 for that. I don’t really play. This is probably my 10th $10,000 event because I just play online cash. I never expected to have an opportunity to realistically win one of these, because they’re so tough. It feels awesome.”

Also during the 2012 WSOP, Merson finished fifth in the first ever Four-Handed event, which carried a $2,500 buy-in. The final table bubble boy, Merson cashed out for $70,000, putting him in contention for the title of WSOP Player of the Year.

Merson has eclipsed $200,000 in online poker MTT earnings in his PocketFives profile and joined our online poker community in 2006. His largest tracked score to date was worth $40,000 and came by virtue of finishing second in the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance in July 2010, edging out most of a 1,500-player field.

Following Black Friday in April 2011, Merson moved from Maryland to Toronto, where he is now part of the Canada poker community. He attended the University of Maryland, but left after a year and a half. He started playing poker professionally, briefly left to attend community college, and then returned to the game he loved.

On dropping out of school for the second time, Merson told WSOP staff, “When I dropped out the second time, you should have seen [my parents’] faces. They thought I was crazy, but I worked really hard.” He added that he played 70 hours per week during his first year as a full-time grinder.

When 56 players remained in the 2012 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, Merson was in 42nd place with a stack of 2.3 million.