WSOP 2010 Event #56, $2,500 NL Won By Tomer Berda

Tomer Berda has just won WSOP Event #56: $2,500 NL, after defeating a field of 1,942 players over four days to pick up the $825,976 first place prize, as well as a first career WSOP title.
The Israeli born Californian was already doing rather well at WSOP 2010, having earlier placed 5th in Event #5: No-Limit Hold’em $1,500 buy-in for a $117,416 pay-day. With his latest victory at Event #56, Tomer Berda now takes his career live tournament cashes to an impressive $1,180,418.
As the remaining nine players took their places at the final table, Tomer Berda had the second largest stack and managed to keep his head above water as the other players knocked each other out.
First to exit was Alfonso Amendola in 9th ($60,580) whose Ah-10d was badly dominated by Joseph Curcio’s Ac-Kc. Joseph Curcio then found himself out in 8th ($78,705) after getting all his money in pre-flop with J-J against Vladimir Kochelaevskiy’s pocket A’s.
Ali Alawadhi then picked up $103,527 for his 7th place finish after getting all his money in on the flop with a flush draw which failed to improve to his opponents’ top pair. Hungcheng Hung was next to be eliminated in 6th ($137,946) when his Qc-Jc under the gun push was called by Tomer Berda holding As-Kc.
A double knock out saw Mike Wattel holding As-Jd ($186,250) and Salvatore Bonavena with pocket 8’s ($254,777) out in 5th and 4th respectively, eliminated by Bryan Porter’s pocket J’s.
With play now three-handed Tomer Berda did not seem pleased with his play and taking time out to speak to a PokerNews reporter on the side said: “I am playing really bad, you can write that.”
Despite his own criticism, Berda was able to dispatch Porter to the rails in 3rd ($353,260) with an all-in pre-flop race of Ad-10h against Porter’s Qs-9s. The final hand of heads-up play between Vladimir Kochelaevskiy saw the Russian moving all-in from the button with 10c-6c only to be called by Berda holding Ad-4c.
With the board running out Ah-6h-2c-3h-7c, Kochelaevskiy had to console himself with a second place finish and $510,939 in prize money, while Tomer Berda walked away with a WSOP title, the $825,976 top prize and a place in WSOP history.