EPT12 Barcelona: Meet the double WCOOP champion for whom cash is king

Margereson is looking for his first live tournament winIt’s hard not to warm to Scott ‘Aggro Santos’ Margereson, the youngster from Chesterfield has a no nonsense approach to talking about poker that befits someone from the north of England. However, to those of you who are prone to pangs of jealousy you might want to stop reading right around now. For Margereson, who won two WCOOP titles in 2014 and took down the Sunday Million in April of this year doesn’t even like tournaments that much, preferring instead to ply his trade at the cash game tables on PokerStars.

“I mainly play 500 Zoom ($2/$5), and $3/$6 six-max some $5/$10,” he says during a break in play on Day 3 of the Main Event. “I played low stakes cash, then moved to tournament in 2012 and kinda went on a downswing at the start of 2014 and I got sick of being tied to the schedule. That’s the one thing I don’t like about tournaments. In terms of actual dollars made a year I probably make more playing tournaments but I just value my time to be able to do what I want when I want rather than being tied to a schedule.”

And with that mindset Margereson isn’t entirely sure how much of the upcoming WCOOP schedule he’s going to play. “I’m probably going to play all the no-limit Hold’em events but I don’t think I’ll play other no-limit Hold’em tournaments on the side. I’ll just grind zoom and six-max cash games.”

However things can change as Margereson admits. “That’s the same plan as last year, but after I won the second one I was just focusing on tournaments to the end because I was chasing the leader board. I was also playing games I was pretty unfamiliar with and six-max no-limit cash is much tougher than playing tournaments”

Will he win another WCOOP title?Whilst Margereson has won plenty of online accolades he’s still searching for that elusive live title. The closest he’s come so far is a third place finish at the UKIPT5 Isle of Man High Roller where he lost out to Vicente Delgado and Isai Scheinberg. “I kinda want to win a live tournament, it’s something I have to do before I quit this game and it needs to happen sooner rather than later,” he muses. “So I’m kinda chasing, when I come to these festivals I try to grind really hard but apart from that I don’t really have that many goals in tournaments any more. For example if I win this it’ll be great but in my opinion it’s more of an achievement to beat mid to high stakes six-max no-limit cash than to win a few poker tournaments,” he states matter of factly. “I think it’s more mentally stimulating and fulfilling and a lot tougher. It’s also helped my tournament game in general, especially post-flop.”

Whenever Margereson busts out of this tournament – or even should he win it – he’s got a bit further to travel than England as he currently resides in Mexico. “I’ll be back in Playa (Del Carmen) on Sunday unless I final table the Main Event. I moved out there in January 2014 and spent eight months there last year, came back to the UK for a bit and realised how bad it was. So, I went back again in January 2015, went to the WSOP this summer and since then I’ve just been travelling around a little bit.”

So apart from the nice weather, the poker community, player friendly hours and the swimming pool what was it that attracted him to Mexico? “I had a few friends already living out there, I’d only heard good things about it and there wasn’t much going on at home. Most of my friends had gone to University so I decided to move away. No real plans to go home anytime soon. It doesn’t really matter what you’re playing the hours in general are just better. For example at 2pm in Mexico it’s 9pm in CET so the peak hours are more like working hours. So you wake up at 10am or whenever. Whilst in the UK in the winter I’m going to bed when it’s dark and I’m waking up when it’s dark. It’s really miserable.”

And that’s something Margereson doesn’t want to be at the poker table or in life, you sense he’s only ever happy doing something he really enjoys and he doesn’t think that’ll always be cards. “I see myself leaving poker in the next three to five years. I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to, I still enjoy it, I still make money but eventually I’m going to want to try something new. It’s crossed my mind to learn new games, that day might come, I’m not sure. I would like to learn mixed games. It’s hard though, there’s not that many resources.”

Cards may not be in his futureAlthough Margereson has played the $25,000 at the PCA before this stop marked his debut in the Super High Roller arena. “I actually only decided the day before to play it because I thought that it clashed with the €2,000 Estrellas High Roller. Obviously I had a very small percentage of myself in the €50,000 event, like everybody else and I thought I’d make more money by playing the Estrellas event. But I realised at 8pm the night before that they didn’t clash so I decided to play that instead. I look at tournaments from a money making perspective, for example in the €50,000 I’d say that only 15% of the field would be able to walk in and beat mid-stakes cash games, but it’s a really tough field as far as tournaments go.”

Whilst the Super High Roller didn’t go as planned for Margereson, the Main Event is going much better. He’s still alive with just 110 players and started today in 17th spot of those that remained.

You can follow all the action from the various tournament floors on PokerStars Blog. The Main Event action will be on the Main Event page. And everything from the side events is on the side events page. There’s also EPT Live for your video-based needs.

You can also begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS.