If you were to ask the question: Who is the best tournament poker player in the world right now? The answer would have to come back Jason Mercier. Over the last few years Mercier has been the King Midas of the poker world, turning his cards into gold –well turning them into the 21st century equivalent of gold, MONEY!

Mercier’s latest triumph occurred in Event #42 of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) where he outlasted 3,121 other players to win his first WCOOP tournament, and pocketing $435k in the process – the final three competitors made a deal that saw Mercier guaranteed $375k, with $15k and $60k left for finishing 1st or 2nd respectively.

Mercier’s tournament resume over the past couple years now reads like a hardened criminal’s rap-sheet:

* 1st place in the 2010 WCOOP Event #42 — $435,000

* 1st place in the 2010 PokerStars NAPT High-Roller shootout at Mohegan Sun — $475,000

* 4th place in the 2009 WSOPE Championship in London — $440,620

* 1st place in the 2009 WSOP $1,500 PLO tournament — $237,462

* 1st place in the 2008 European Poker Championship High-Roller tournament — $944,847

* 1st place in the 2008 EPT San Remo Championship — $1,372,893

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The 2010 World Series of Poker Europe has appeared almost scripted up to this point. In Event #1 we had Phil Laak capturing his first WSOP bracelet; in Event #2 Jeff Lisandro picked up bracelet #5, while Willie Tann AND Chris Bjorin made back-to-back final tables; and heading into the final table of Event #3, the £1,000 No Limit Holdem tournament, last year’s winner JP Kelly was right in the thick of things –with a win Kelly would become the first player to defend a WSOP bracelet since Johnny Chan accomplished the feat in 1987 and 1988.

Kelly began the day in 3rd place on the leader-board, and everything was working out to form until heads-up play began between Kelly and the man who would end his run toward the poker record-books, Scott Shelley –Kelly would also have become the youngest three-time bracelet winner, besting Phil Ivey’s record which was set at 26. Alas, it was not meant to be for the young British poker pro and he had to settle for 2nd place.

Here are the complete final table results for Event #3 at the 2010 WSOPE:

1. Scott Shelley — ?133,857

2. J.P. Kelly — ?82,854

3. Jeppe Bisgaard — ?55,063

4. Paul Pitchford — ?40,862

5. Kaveh Payman — ?30,666

6. Mehdi Senhaji — ?23,239

7. Jack Lyman — ?17,768

8. Karim Jomeen — ?13,694

9. Nicky Katz — ?10,633

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Party Poker has always taken the conservative approach as far as the games it offers on the site –they were one of the last rooms to add micro-stakes games to their site, and for the most part stuck to the poker mainstays of Holdem, Omaha and Stud. So it was a little bit of a surprise to hear about their latest poker game, Double Hold’ Em.

Double Hold’ Em puts an interesting spin on the game we all know and love: The most noticeable difference is that you are dealt three hole-cards, and this is where your first major decision will come about. Each player must select one of their hole cards to be used as an Anchor-card; this Anchor-card can be used with either of the players other two hole-cards (which cannot be joined together)to make their best poker hand.

An example of how Double Hold’ Em will play out is this:

* You hold – AdKdKc and select the King of diamonds as your Anchor-card which gives you the combinations of AdKd and KdKc: If you were to choose the Kc your combinations would be KdKc and the less formidable off-suit combo of AdKc: Selecting the Ace as your Anchor-card would be even worse, since it would eliminate the Pocket Kings from your combinations leaving you with AK suited and AK offsuit!

* The Flop is, KhTdJd giving you top set with your KK or a possible straight and flush draw with AKs, so unless a player flopped the joint and you brick-out this is a huge hand for you.

You never know how poker players will react to new variants, so we will have to wait and see if Double Hold’ Em becomes the next big thing in online poker, or if it joins games like Badugi, Five Card Draw, and Lowball as failed experiments.

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A lot of online poker rooms have tinkered with the variety of games they offer going all the way back to the early days of online poker when Ultimate Bet offered games like Crazy Pineapple. But for the most part sites have realized that players like their old standbys like Texas Holdem, PLO and Stud. There have been a few games that have caught on with masses; first Razz on Full Tilt Poker which brought about a slew of mixed games as well, next came PokerStars Badugi tables, and most recently Full Tilt Poker’s Rush Poker.

The latest addition to the mix comes from Party Poker, and is called Double Holdem. Double Holdem is an offshoot of Crazy Pineapple where each player is dealt three hole-cards. The difference between Crazy Pineapple and Double Holdem is that instead of discarding one of your three hole-cards you will employ one of your cards as an “anchor”. This “anchor” card can be used in conjunction with either of your other two cards to make your best 5-card hand.

For example: Suppose you were dealt AhJhJc. In this case you could use the Jh as your “anchor” card giving you two possible hands JhJc and AhJh. A foolish move would be to use the Ace as your anchor card since your two possible hand combinations are now AhJh and AhJc, basically eliminating your pocket pair from the equation –as you can see it’s probably a bad idea to play Double Holdem after a few drinks!

We’ll keep an eye on the popularity of Double Holdem and see if the game becomes a fairly popular poker variant like PLO or Razz, or if it falls by the wayside like 5-Card-Stud.

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