Tomas Junek 
Tomas Junek from the Czech Republic has taken out the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Event 56: $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em from a packed field of 2,798 players. The 23-year-old earned himself USD $661,022 in prize money and beat out Australian David Borg at the final hurdle.
Borg was hoping to become Australia’s first gold bracelet winner at WSOP 2012 after two other Aussies – Brendon Rubie and Jackie Glazier – also had runner-up results during this series. Borg collected USD $410,517 in winnings, which was a pretty good result considering he came into the final table as the shortest chip stack.
At five-handed it was looking like it was seasoned player Eliyahu Levy’s tournament to win as he held around a third of the chips in play. But Levy got unlucky in one hand before overplaying a flopped top pair against the set of nines of Junek. That hand crippled Levy and he departed in fifth place shortly after.
The 2008 WSOP Main Event champion, Peter Eastgate, was also looking to have his first taste of WSOP gold since his mega USD $9 million win but came up short to Borg when his J♥ 10♥ failed to catch against the 9♥ 9♠ of his opponent. Eastgate departed in fourth place, which netted him USD $209,111 in prize money.
Junek had entered the final table as the chip leader and held better than a 2:1 chip advantage over Borg when heads up play started. Junek extended his lead before doubling up his opponent when his two-pair was coolered with a flush.
But it was still an upward battle for Borg and the final hand came about when he four-bet shoved with K♠ 5♠ into Junek’s 10♦ 10♥. The board came down 2♥ 5♥ 4♣ A♠ 6♥ to hand Junek what was not only his first WSOP gold bracelet but also the first WSOP cash of his career – not a bad way to start things off!
Final Table Payouts
1. Tomas Junek – USD $661,022
2. David Borg – USD $410,517
3. Daniel Vogel – USD $289,530
4. Peter Eastgate – USD $209,111
5. Eliyahu Levy – USD $152,867
6. Andrew Taylor – USD $113,092
7. Steven Goldberg – USD $84,649
8. Tomas Trampota – USD $64,101
9. Bassel Moussa – USD $49,105
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