Joe Cada Wins the 2009 WSOP Main Event

Just a week before his 22 birthday Joe Cada, a college dropout, residing in Michigan, wins the most prestigious title in the pro poker world – Champion of the World Series of Poker Main event. Cada is the youngest player to ever win a main event at the WSOP. 

On his way for this huge win, Cada overcame 6,493 players who entered this $10,000 NL Texas Holdem event. He struggled for more than 14 hours in a nerve racking final table. And for another 4 hours in a volatile heads up match against Darvin Moon, a 46 years old Maryland woods man. 

Cada reached the final table 5th with 13,215,000 chips, way behind chip leader Darvin Moon, who held 58,930,000. He then managed to gain more than 100,000,000 chips and entered the heads up match as a chip leader holding 135,950,000 compared to 58,850 held by his heads up opponent Darvin Moon. 

Heads up match was volatile, with chip lead passing between the two players for more than 12 times. It tool Moon 88 hands to finally win and gain the incredible prize money of a little more than $8.5M. 

It is interesting that both winner Joe Cada and runner up Darvin Moon played the WSOP for the first time in their lives. Moon even gained his main event entry through a satellite. 

Here are the results of the 2009 WSOP main event final table: 

1. Joe Cada: $8.5M

2. Darvin Moon: $5.2M

3. Antoine Saout: $3.5M

4. Eric Buchman: $2.5M

5. Jeff Shulman: $2M

6. Steven Begleiter: $1.6M

7. Phil Ivey: $1.4M

8. Kevin Schaffel: $1.3M

9. James Akenhead: $1.2M