The New King and Queen of Poker

It’s not the extended honeymoon most couples would dream of, but for Jason Mercier and Natasha Barbour celebrating their recent marriage by playing in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open proved to be a great idea, the young newlyweds both cashing in the $3500 event!

Just over a week ago the pair became the latest poker-celebrity couple when they tied the knot in a glitzy ceremony surrounded by friends, family and not a few fellow poker pros.

First tourney together as a married couple... Both in the money! 😍👊🏻💰 48 left in @SHRPO 3500$. Day 3 in an hour. Me 378k Tasha 194k 🎉

— Jason Mercier (@JasonMercier) November 28, 2016

It had already been an amazing year for both players, Mercier’s summer run at the WSOP making headlines almost every day, but the headlines changed from money and bracelets to love and wedding bells when Mercier proposed to his Lebanese fiancée immediately after her 3rd place finish in the $5K event.

The five-time WSOP gold bracelet winner, currently 8th in the all-time money-winners list, hopped the rail to congratulate Barbour, before stunning her and all around by dropping to one knee and popping the question – and the answer as we all now know was an emphatic ‘yes!’

So to this week’s ‘honeymoon event’ – the less-than-traditional poker tournament. As Mercier tweeted first…

Best day of my life! @natashabarbourpic.twitter.com/JFeq3kKNDL

— Jason Mercier (@JasonMercier) November 21, 2016

…followed by the newly-crowned Mrs Mercier…

36th and 35th for #teamMercier@shrpopic.twitter.com/iOMBYXO3xn

— Natasha Mercier (@natashabarbour) November 28, 2016

Hard Rock love

If it seems rather strange to be back on the felt so soon after the wedding nuptials, it has to be remembered that Natasha Barbour spent “almost every day for 11 years,” at the same Florida cardroom, firstly combining her microbiology degree at the University of South Florida with grinding her way up the stakes.

She had met her ex-husband, local poker pro Michael Raimon, there in 2009 – but their 2014 marriage was a short-lived affair, and soon she was dating the man of the moment Mercier, whose heater had just started and still shows little sign of ending.

Barbour now has over $1million in tournament poker earnings, mostly garnered over the past couple of years, which heads an impressive resume for the 29-year-old Beirut-born woman.

Having featured on ‘Poker Night in America’ in both 2014 and 2015, Barbour along with friends Marsha Wolak and Jessica Dawley started up the Epic Poker Training website.

One branch of the site, named Femme Fatale Poker Training, “offers training specifically geared towards women to help them excel in a predominately male game,” stating that “it is estimated that less than 10% of all poker players are women. One of the many goals of Femme Fatale Poker Training is to bring more women into the game by empowering them with the skills and confidence needed to win.”

If Natasha Barbour Mercier herself is anything to go by, there will soon be numerous female additions to the high-level play which she has shown over the past year or two. And for Mr. Mercier, having a successful poker-professional wife at his side shouldn’t adversely affect his game either!