Heads-Up With IPC Tournament Director Dexter Mercado

Dexter Mercado
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  • Arpit Jain January 5, 2020
  • 4 Minutes Read

The revival of live poker tournaments in the country has brought with it the pressing need for qualified tournament directors, popularly called TD’s. Most players know them as the person making the customary “Shuffle Up and Deal” announcement, but they have a much more pivotal role to play! From setting up the tournament structures to handling the end-to-end running of the tournament and everything else in between, the entire show rests on the shoulders of the tournament director and his team – and the gig comes with a lot of stress and responsibility.

With the next India Poker Championship (IPC) series just a few days out, I took the opportunity to reach out to the Philippines-based tournament director Dexter Mercado (cover image). Mercado had donned the role of Tournament Director at the last two IPC editions and will be flying in again to Goa to run the upcoming series from January 15-19.

With over a decade of experience running poker tournaments, Mercado credits Lloyd Fontiallas with giving him his big break as a TD. Today, he, along with his close-knit team, is a regular fixture running the show at some of the biggest poker tournaments in Asia!

Taking out precious time from his busy schedule, Mercado was kind enough to share with me the story of his chance initiation in the poker industry, highlights of his career, and some standout experiences from his time running tournaments in India. Here are the excerpts.

 

Let’s start from the beginning. How did you get into the poker industry?

Actually, it was way back in 2007 – 2008, I went to work with a famous telecommunications company here in the Philippines. Around that time, one of my friends told me that there is a new game poker which they were introducing in the Philippines. He asked me if I wanted to join the training as a dealer. I went there and got the training.

Right after that, a few months later, I was dealing at the airport casino when they transferred me to Angeles Casino Filipino in Pampanga. I had been dealing Texas Holdem there for 10 months – in fact, 10-months had not even ended when my General Manager asked me if I wanted to get promoted as a floor person. But I rejected his offer as I felt that I still needed to learn more before I should grab an opportunity like that promotion.

Then I transferred to Subic, where I applied for the position of a dealer with the Subic Poker club that was opening. I didn’t expect that my job would be on the floor. So right there, as a floor person in one month, they promoted me as tournament director and operations head. Just after my first major tournament, I met APT’s Lloyd Fontillas. He asked me – “Hey, do you have any tournaments here?” I said yes, yesterday was the last day of my 500K GTD tournament but we still have a new calendar for this month.

Lloyd asked me if I was interested in working with him. They were going to host APT Philippines at Dusit. That was the start of my journey as a tournament director. I accepted, and that was the start of my journey working with well-known names like Matt Savage, Lloyd Fontillas, and David Lamb, etc.

 

How long have you been working as a tournament director? Care to divulge some perks of the job and things that you hate?

As I mentioned, I started out as a tournament director in 2008-2009. Still, I wouldn’t call myself a tournament director since I was running only local tournaments. It was at the Subic Poker Club around the time I met Lloyd (Fontiallas) that I started my journey as a tournament director running all the tournaments on the schedule.

A perk of the job is that I can travel for free, but with limited time.

 

You seem to have a very close-knit team working with you at events. Tell us more about them and the key role played by each of them at events that you run.

Actually, teamwork plays an essential role in my work. We always pre-decide who is going to be the chip master (in charge of handling all the tournament chips), who is going to run the satellites, and who will be in charge of the individual events.

Dexter Mercado With His Team
Dexter Mercado With His Team

The core team comprises of myself, my team, and the team of Roderick GO, who is a tournament director of Triton and Poker King CLUB. Since both of us work in the Philippines, our teams often work together at events depending upon who is available at a given point in time. So, we work together a lot.

Dexter Mercado and Phil Ivey
Dexter Mercado running the Triton Series in Manila

 

What have been some of the more challenging issues for you in the past, and why?

The most challenging issues are doing on the spot changes or last-minute changes and also working with inadequate staff. If you go into an event with less manpower, you are calling for trouble since this essentially means you are going to have to run multiple events by yourself.

 

How does India compare with regards to other Asian and even the western stops that you have run?

You cannot compare India with the other markets because the potential is enormous. Everybody knows that the Indian market is massive. Just like China, India is another market that has a lot of poker players, and more are joining every day. Even the players, they put in a lot of effort to play. For example, in Goa, players will wait to ride a boat to go to a ship to play an event. But when it comes to the tournaments, when you are running it, these same players go out of the way to make it easier for you to do your job running it. That’s why I love coming back to India.

 

Your team was in charge of running IPC 2019. You had previously donned the same role for the IPC series back in 2016. The very first event this time – Kick off shattered all previous records with 437 entries while the IPC Main Event logged in 777 entries. Frankly, were you expecting such numbers? How did you handle the crowd?

Actually, since my last event way back in 2016, I have been following the growth of poker in India. That’s why when we hit the 777 entries for the Main Event, I was in some way already expecting it. I was able to handle it because of the help of the players, the IPC staff, and my tournament team. It worked out really smoothly, and it was easy for us because even the players were cooperating with us because our space was not enough.

It was not always easy to get seating cards or make a decision on the table, you know. But the players in India respect your decision because before we make the decision, we make sure that if the player asks, we always show them the TDA rule book.

 

Were there any adjustments you had to make at the IPC to accommodate the massive crowd? Also, any ruling you had to make or incident that stands out?

Yes, they were some minimal adjustments made, like rearranging the setup of the area due to limited capacity and some of the structures of the event.

Once, a player from a broken table got assigned to a new table and seat. The player will assume all positions except between the button and the small blind. One of the players didn’t agree with my decision, he told me to study the TDA rules. I knew I was 100% right; that’s why I asked him for a bet. LOL. I asked him to search the TDA rules, and after a few minutes, he was apologizing, saying he was sorry and that he was wrong.

 

Apart from the obvious larger numbers, what in your opinion has changed for poker in the country in the last three years since you last visited the country to run an event?

The players are more aware of the rulings than the previous years.

 

In your line of work, you often have to make tough decisions – sometimes to the displeasure of players. What has been the most challenging decision/s you have made?

Standing firmly with my decision is the hardest thing to do, like disqualifying players and giving penalties that they can’t accept.

 

Any parting words?

You are going to see me again in Goa this upcoming January event, and I am really excited. I’m looking forward to running more events with IPC. It’s my pleasure to be part of the team. Hoping to see more familiar faces/players.

Remember, poker takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master!

And with these words, Dexter signs off!

The IPC January series takes place from January 15-19 onboard the floating Casino Big Daddy in Goa. If you are going to be at the IPC, we look forward to seeing you there. As for the others, you can follow the complete live coverage of the series right here on PokerGuru!

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