Jason Mercier wins WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts for $727,000

The American pro defeated Kathy Lehne for the title, and has overtaken Scott Seiver on the all-time money list, where he now sits in 11th place with $12.89 million in career live winnings. 

A total of 11 players entered the $100,000 buy-in WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts tournament and with four re-entries the prizepool grew to $1,45 million and paid 3 players.

On Day 1 Jeff Gross and Michael Singh were the only players to be eliminated. On Day 2 the first player to bust was Daniel Colman. The American high roller beast got all his money in with A-K only to be outdrawn by Mercier's A-Q suited on the Q-6-4-9-2 board.

The official final table started with the following seating order and chipstacks:

Seat 1: Tony Guglietti -- 186,000 (47 bb)
Seat 2: Talal Shakerchi -- 44,500 (11 bb)

Seat 3: Bill Perkins -- 255,000 (64 bb)
Seat 4: Olivier Busquet -- 336,000 (84 bb)

Seat 5: Kathy Lehne -- 107,000 (27 bb)
Seat 6: Antonio Esfandiari -- 144,500 (36 bb)
Seat 7: Jason Mercier -- 256,500 (64 bb)
Seat 8: Alec Torelli -- 170,500 (43bb)

The first player to bust out from the final table was businessman Talal Shakerchi, he ran his J-9 into Alec Torelli's A-8, and he failed to improve on the 7-4-2-A-8 board.

Despite starting with a healthy stack and eliminating Shakerchi, Torelli was the next player out, he lost a flip with A-T suited against Olivier Busquet's 7-7. Torelli hit top pair on the A-9-4 flop, but Busquet hit a 7 to score the elimination.

The next player out was the host Bill Perkins, who fired two bullets, he 3bet shoved with A-J over a raise, unfortunately for him, Busquet woke up with K-K behind him, and Perkins couldn't improve enough on the J-9-8-4-5 board.

Antonio Esfandiari re-entered two times, and needed to get second or better to make a profit, but busted out when his Q-Q couldn't hold up against Kathy Lehne's A-K on the 4-3-J-5-2 board.

Even though Busquet started the day with the chiplead and managed to increase his stack even further, at some point of the finale he lost momentum as well as several pots, then shoved his remaining 17 big blinds with A-J suited against Mercier's K-Q suited. The board came Q-9-5-2-7 and Busquet finished as the bubble boy.

Third place finisher was Tony Guglietti, he got in his money with K-3 on the K-8-7-Q turn, only to be called by Jason Mercier's K-T. The river 2 didn't help the businessman and he was eliminated.

The heads-up started with Jason Mercier having a significant lead over Sun Coast Resources founder and CEO Kathy Lehne, who was the first woman ever to enter a WPT Alpha8.

In the final hand (5,000/10,000 blinds) Lehne raised to 30,000 and called Mercier's re-raise of 80,000 in position. The flop came Q-5-Q, Mercier check-called Lehne's bet of 75,000. On the 7 turn both players checked. The river was an 8, and Mercier led out for 165,000. Lehne moved all-in for 430,000 and Mercier called after pondering for a minute.

Lehne showed down T-8 for a rivered pair, while Mercier had A-A for a higher two pair.

With that, Jason Mercier won the WPT Alpha8 St. Kitts and scored $727,500 for his efforts.

Final table payouts:

1. Jason Mercier $727,500
2. Kathy Lehne $436,500
3. Tony Guglietti $291,000