Daniel L. Cox
Editor, Poker Insider Magazine
December 1, 2009

Las Vegas - After Phil Hellmuth's twenty-one year reign as poker's youngest World Series of Poker's (WSOP) Main Event winner, for the second year in a row the title as the "Youngest Ever" passed the torch. Now 23, Peter Eastgate's reign as the WSOP Young Gun lasted only one year as Joe "The Comeback Kid" Cada won the 40^th Annual Main Event. The 21-year-old Michigan native emerged from the second largest Main Event in history with nearly 6,500 players to claim the $8.55 million top prize at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. With a tear in his eye and his lips pursed to hold back obvious emotion, Cada lifted his new bracelet above his head and accepted his role of ambassador to the poker world.

Cada beat out 46-year-old Darvin Moon, a self-employed logger from Maryland, in a head-to-head battle of nearly 3 hours to capture the No-Limit Texas Hold'em world championship. Moon approached the final table as the only player without online poker site sponsorship, having never played the computer version of Texas Hold'em, telling one interviewer he would not be their (the online site's) 'Bitch.' Cada, on the other hand,  started playing poker online before turning 17, leaving Macomb Community College in Michigan to play poker as an online professional. Since he had just turned 21, this was the first time he was eligible to play in the Main Event. The seasoned online poker professional, with over half a million in career earnings coming into the Main Event, bought his first house at 19 while playing online at the PokerStars and FullTilt Poker sites.

From the television audience's point of view, the table that held several well-known professionals, was sure to be exciting. With two of the big names, rising British star James Akenhead and one of the world's greatest living poker players, Phil Ivey, starting short-stacked, a lot of action was guaranteed to follow. Cada entered the Final Table in 6^th place, holding less than a quarter of the chips of table leader, Darvin Moon. It took over 17 hours for the November Nine to get to the Heads-up stage of the tournament. With T$58 million of the over T$200 million chips, the Maryland logger held nearly twice as many chips as 2^nd place starter. After seven players were eliminated, Darvin Moon still had close to the same number of chips as he started the final table with, but Joe had won enough chips to take a two to one chip lead during that same period.

Finally, on the 88th hand of a topsy-turvy heads-up match, Joe Cada won a typical poker coin-flip with a pair of nines (the same hand Phil Hellmuth used to become the youngest player in 1987) to defeat Darvin Moon’s Qd - Jd. The board ran out 8c - 2c - 7s - Kh - 7c giving Cada two pair, nines and sevens. Pre-flop, Cada raised T$3 million from the button with 600k/1.2m blinds and 200k antes. Moon then re-raised to T$8 million total. After a quick trip in the tank, Cada pushed All-in. Moon quickly called his remaining T$70 million chips to put his tournament at risk. Cada's decision would have crippled him if he had lost the hand. The victory gave Cada $8.55 million dollars while Moon took home the second place share of $5.18 million.

Though Moon started heads-up with a 2-to-1 chip disadvantage, his super-aggressive playing style was extremely effective against Cada’s play. Some of the key hands in the previous eighty-seven are explained below:

With stacks around even, Moon had the button and raised to T$3 million which was called by Cada in the big blind. The flop came down Jc - 4h - 2d. Cada checked and Moon bet 4 million. Cada called to make the pot around T$14 million total. The turn was a Qh and Cada checked to Moon who bet T$6 million. Cada opted to check raise to T$16.75 million and Moon called — putting the pot at nearly 50 million chips. The river was the 5c and Cada, who had checked the flop and turn, lead out with T$35 million chips. Moon contemplated the bet for a few minutes before deciding to lay down his hand on the final board of Jc - 4h - 2d - Qh - 5c. This put Cada up T$120 million to T$72 million.

Again Moon ground down Cada's lead by taking several decent size pots to again even the chip stacks. Soon after, Cada caught Moon trying a bluff on a busted flush draw by calling a river raise with Js - Th on a Td - Ah - 3h - 6c - 4s board in which Moon had Jh - 5h. After that pot, Moon started to again chip away at Cada's stack a few million chips at a time. Moon was consistently betting a large percentage of the pot on flops, forcing Cada to back down most of the time. After about 20 hands of aggressive play from Darvin, he managed to even the chip stacks at around T$95 million each.

Shortly after the players went on a 25 minute break, Moon went on a mini-run with two medium sized pots to get up to an all-time chip high of T$122 million to Cada’s T$73 million. In the next crucial pot, Joe Cada had the button and made a standard pre-flop raise to T$3 million chips. Moon called and the flop came down 3h - 5d - Ac. As he’d been doing much of the night, Moon bet 5 million chips out of position into a pot that was about T$6.5 million. Cada had largely been folding to these bets but this hand he opted to raise to 13 million total leaving 8 million for Moon to call. Moon cut out enough chips to put in a raise to T$25 million, forcing Cada to quickly fold. This pot was good enough to put Moon into a commanding chip lead with around T$145 million to around T$50 million.

After a number of uneventful pots, Joe shoved a four-bet pre-flop after a standard T$3 million opening raise and a standard T$8 million re-raise from Darvin. Moon decided to fold to Cada’s all-in raise which brought Cada back a bit to a 2 - 1 chip disadvantage. Not much later, Cada went all-in yet again but the outcome was quite different for both players. Cada opened to T$3 million on the button and Moon called to see a flop of Tc - 5d - 9h. The flop was checked and the turn came 10d. Cada took a T$3 million stab at the more than T$6 million pot. Shocking the crowd, Moon quickly went all-in in a large over-bet of the pot forcing Cada to make a tough decision for his tournament life. After going in the tank for a few minutes, Cada called with Jh - 9d for second pair. Moon flipped over 7s - 8s for an up and down straight draw with one card to come. Needing a Six or a Jack for a straight that would crown him the 40^th World Series of Poker champion. Moon missed the river when a 3h came off the deck, giving the chip lead back to Cada when he faded the seven outer. With the stacks at T$108 million to Cada and T$86 million to Moon never again relinquished the chip lead, playing a couple more medium sized pots before the final coin-flip that awarded the Main Event title to Joe Cada.