Italy's Davide Suriano Wins WSOP $10K NL Heads-Up (Event #40)

Italy’s Davide Suriano has topped a 136 player field at WSOP $10,000 No Limit Hold’em – Heads-Up (Event #40), to walk away richer to the tune of $335,553, and collect his first career gold winner’s bracelet. Following his remarkable feat, the 25-year-old Italian pro who now boasts $593,138 in tournament earnings, exclaimed:
“This is the biggest accomplishment of my life. I will definitely play bigger now.”
In addition, with 40 of 65 events in the bag at WSOP 2014, Davide Suriano now adds Italy to the list of this year’s non-USA winning country’s, the others of which include Germany (3), France, Russia, UK, and Belgium. Davide Suriano also becomes Italy’s sixth ever WSOP winner, his other compatriots including Jeff Lisandro, Max Pescatori, Dario Alioto, Dario Minieri, and Italy’s first ever winner Valter Farina back in 1995.
On his way to victory Davide Suriano had to first win seven heads-up matches over three days against such top class opponents as Scott Seiver, Dan Cates, Shane Moran, Serkan Kurnaz, Ankush Mandavia and Daniel Colman, before eventually facing off against Sam Stein for the title.
Over the space of 36 hands played over an hour and 10 minute, Davide Suriano then proceeded to grind Stein into a short-stack before the defining hand was played with Stein (K-7) all-in preflop and up against the A-10 of Suriano. The dealer subsequently put out a J-10-3-A-5 board to deny Sam Stein a second career WSOP bracelet, and consign him to to a runner-up finish worth $207,347. Meanwhile, Davide Suriano walked away with the top prize of $335,553, and was awarded a prestigious gold bracelet.
Commenting on his decision to quit his job and play poker for a living, Suriano said “They [parents] weren’t so happy. They were a little stressed about that. But they always trusted me, and they always supported me. It’s been two or three years now.”
Amongst the other big names seeing a return on their $10k investment at WSOP Event #40 was Erik Seidel in 13th ($26,584), Max Silver in 12th ($26,584), and Daniel Negreanu in 10th ($26,584).