Natasha Mercier Makes the Final Table of the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event

So far, 2025 has been an excellent year for women in poker, and Natasha Mercier has just added to that trend, making the final table of the prestigious $25k Super Main Event at the 2025 WSOP Paradise.

Natasha, who is married to poker superstar Jason Mercier and describes herself as a “stay-at-home mom who doesn’t like to stay at home,” has had a fair bit of success on the green felt, with live tournament cashes in excess of $1.5 million. However, her run at the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event final table constitutes, by far, the best performance of her career.

With eight players coming back to play down to the winner, she’s already locked up at least $1.1 million. The eventual winner will walk away with $10,000,000 in cash and a special, custom-made WSOP bracelet. Each pay-jump is quite significant, too, especially after the first few eliminations, so we’re headed for one of the most exciting final tables in quite a while.

Middle of the Pack

Natasha is coming back to a stack of 165 million, which constitutes 41 big blinds, putting her right in the middle of the pack. While she is technically third in chips, five of the remaining eight players have fairly similar stacks, which means that we’ll likely see some significant movements early on.

While others will be battling for chips and looking for double-ups, France’s Jean-Noel Thorel will have no such concerns. He is starting the day as a runaway chip leader, with 567 million (141 big blinds). This is far from enough to guarantee him a victory, but he won’t be under any pressure at the start, and he’ll be able to put a lot of heat on his opponents.

Mercier came within reach of a WSOP bracelet a few times before. Her closest call came in 2015, when she finished a runner-up in a $1,500 event. The next year, she almost closed the deal in a $5,000 tournament, but ended up busting in third for the best cash of her career ($350k).

She’ll be facing rough opposition at today’s final table. Thorel, the chip-leader, has almost $22 million in live cashes, and he is used to the pressure of high buy-in tournaments, being a regular feature in Triton events.

Eric Wasserson is a well-known pro with $6.5 million in live winnings and a vast amount of experience in big buy-in events, while Argentina’s Franco Spitale, the official short stack, is a dedicated lower stakes grinder who certainly won’t go out without a fight.

2025 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event Payout

A Dream Come True

While we could spend another thousand words analyzing players’ past results and trying to guess what will happen, the truth is that these things are impossible to predict. We’ve seen massive chip leaders crumble and fall, making early exists from major final tables, and players coming back from just a few big blinds to win it all.

Natasha Mercier may not be the most experienced of the remaining eight, but she is highly motivated and will have a tremendous amount of support coming from the poker world. Coming up in poker, she’s always dreamt of seeing a woman win the main event, and now, she is just a few lucky flips away from fulfilling that dream on her own.

And don’t think for a moment that Mercier will be afraid to go for it. Earlier in the tournament, she’s already shown the world that she knows how to put the pressure on and challenge even the toughest of opponents.

If she can keep that fearless spirit up for the final table and put the other players in a blender with massive pay jumps on the line, that one-of-a-kind bracelet might just find its way to her wrist!