The Main Event, which begins this Saturday on the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, may mark the start of the top for this year's World Series of Poker, but even if it's completed there'll still be one title left to contend, that of Player of the Year.

We bring it up because, despite intense competition, it's been the stomping ground of Team Pro in recent years.Back in 2013 the familiar figure of Daniel Negreanu won the contest having scored ten WSOP cashes across the world, starting in Australia, passing through Las Vegas after which onto France.

A closer look reveals why.

Negreanu won the $10K WSOP APAC that year for somewhat greater than $1 million, after which in the summertime narrowly missed out on a bracelet, finishing second within the 2-7 Triple Draw. He then capped off the year by winning the High Roller event on the WSOP Europe in Enghien-les-Bains, outside Paris.

A year later it was the turn of another Team Pro, George Danzer scoring ten cashes this time, with three particular highlights.

The first came in Las Vegas, where he ended his bracelet drought to win the $10K Seven Card Razz event. A BIT OF over every week later he did the similar again in almost the similar circumstances within the $10K Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo.

As if that wasn't remarkable enough he added a 3rd bracelet, this time in Melbourne, winning the 8-Game Mixed title down under (Danzer added a fourth bracelet this summer).

Now, two years later another team Pro looks increasingly prone to match the records of Negreanu and Danzer.

Jason Mercier is a person in a hurry, cramming in a year's worth of success into the distance of some weeks - actually the gap of 1 week.

Early within the Series Mercier won not one but two bracelets, and in between managed a runner-up finish. Such was his string of results that after he went three days with out a cash finish we began to get worried.

The results of that effort makes Mercier the present leader within the 2016 WSOP Player of the Year stakes. What's more his lead is substantial, several hundred points prior to second place. And let's not forget there technically remains to be plenty more to win before the Las Vegas summer involves an end.

If he manages it Mercier can be continuing with what has become something of a Team Pro tradition.

Our coverage of the WSOP Main Event begins this Saturday at the PokerStars Blog. Click here to atone for all of the PokerStars stories from the summer so far.

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WSOP Photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com

Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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