Joe Cada

He regained the chip lead on the 80th hand.

His winning hand was, which he got all-in pre-flop against Moon's , which was a classic race situation prior to the flop.

Joseph Cada (born November 18, 1987) is an American professional poker player from Shelby Charter Township, Michigan, best known as the winner of the Main Event at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP).

By winning the 6,494-entrant Main Event at the age of 21, Cada surpassed Peter Eastgate as the youngest champion ever.

Between the end of 2008 and the 2009 November Nine, Cada had earned $551,788 online.

Prior to the tournament, he had a $150,000 downswing that necessitated him finding a financial backer for the WSOP.

Professional poker financiers Eric Haber and Cliff Josephy paid his entry fee in exchange for half of his winnings.

Cada enjoys playing the "Sunday Major" tournaments at various online sites and says he honed his skill pursuing the knowledge and experience of better players at online training sites.

He typically hosts many poker playing friends on Sundays to keep each other company while going through the grueling Sundays of playing the various majors.

Usually, on Sundays, Cada hosts about fifteen friends to play online at his house.

According to his CardPlayer magazine profile, Cada used several similar aliases to play with various online poker hosts: jcada99 and Joe Cada on the Full Tilt Poker website, jcada99 on PokerStars, and JCADA99 on Absolute Poker.

Cada had two previous WSOP in the money finishes, both in 2009.

Cada had been a regular online poker player for several years prior to winning the live WSOP event.

He is primarily an online poker player, with more than $500,000 in online tournament winnings at present.

Cada became a representative of Team PokerStars in 2009 in the weeks prior to becoming World Champion.

At the 2009 World Series of Poker, he had three in the money finishes (all in No limit Texas hold 'em): 64th in the 1,088-entrant June 5–7 Event 13, $2,500 No Limit Hold'em, which earned him $6,681; 17th in the 2,095-entrant June 16–18 Event 35, $1,500 No Limit Hold'em, which earned him $21,533; and 1st in the 6,494-entrant July 3–15, November 7 and 9 Event 57 $10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em, which earned him $8,546,435.

Prior to his final table victory, Cada earned a $1 million contract with PokerStars that pays for all his hotels, travels, and some of his buy-ins.

His signing with Pokerstars resulted from an interview on ESPN with Phil Gordon where he expressed an interest in signing with that specific company.

His agent had already procured him offers from UltimateBet and PokerHost as a result of his November Nine qualification.

Cada was represented by agent Dan Frank.

In the main event, Cada was the tournament chip leader after day 1C, which was the third of the four opening day sessions, but he began the final table with the fifth largest chipstack.

On June 18, 2012, he lost heads up in the 2,811-entrant $1,500 No Limit Texas hold 'em event at the 2012 World Series of Poker.

Cada is from a family of card enthusiasts, although his parents disapproved of his chosen profession.

His agent dubbed him "The Kid" (although this is already Stu Ungar's nickname), and he has also taken on the role as a statesman of the profession in the media and political circles, where he is a proponent of legalization of gambling.

Cada started playing online poker at about the age of 16.

He twice staked accounts but lost all the money in the accounts that he shared with his brother Jerome.

His first online account was with PartyPoker.

Although he was not legally able to play in casinos prior to age 21 in the United States, he could play in Canada at age 19 and play online.

After a brief sabbatical from the game subsequent to losing his money, he began to play at a casino in Windsor, Ontario across the Canada–US border from his Detroit-area home.

He earned enough to enter contests in the Bahamas and Costa Rica.

At the time of his WSOP success, he was playing approximately 2,000 hands per day online at PokerStars under the User ID jcada99.

Cada had been a professional poker player for six years at the time of his world championship.

In the 122nd final table hand Cada's stack was reduced to 2,275,000—enough for only four big blinds and about 1.2% of the combined total stack at play—due to calling Jeff Shulman's "all in" pre-flop with against.

No community cards hit either player, and Shulman was rewarded by his better high card.

Cada later went all in twice pre-flop with small pocket pairs and was dominated by higher pocket pairs on both occasions, once with vs.

and the other with vs.

Both times Cada flopped the winning three of a kind.

By the time the field was reduced to two players he had 135 million chips to 58 million for Darvin Moon.

During the final heads-up duel, Cada surrendered the chip lead, but he eventually climbed back to 120.1 million before the last hand of the heads-up with Moon.

As of October 2016, his total live tournament winnings exceed $10,460,000.