Joe Cada 2009 World Series of Poker Champion

On November 10th, Joe Cada changed poker history as the youngest man to ever win the World Series of Poker Main Event.  Few expected the record would be broken so soon, since Peter Eastgate had just set it in 2008 at the age of 22, but the 21-year-old Cada was able to withstand the competition and take down this year’s final table.  Following his win, Cada graciously allowed FlopTurnRiver.com to take a first hand look into his thoughts on his win, the final table break, and more.

As you may recall, Cada started the final table in 5th place with 13,215,000 chips.  Struggling, Cada soon found himself as the small stack of the table, even down to the point of just 2 million chips.  A majority of people hadn’t expected the comeback that Cada made, not even Cada himself.  As quoted in his exclusive interview with FlopTurnRiver.com, Joe Cada stated, “I wanted to win. I didn’t expect to win. I knew the odds we stacked against me, and it didn’t stop me from wanting it, but it did stop me from expecting it. [When I was down to 2 million chips] I was looking down at my hands and started to get very disappointed. I thought, I’m going to finish in 7th, for sure.”

However, all that changed when he was able to double up, twice, in hands against Jeff Shulman and Darvin Moon.  From there, Cada was able to add to his healthy chip stack size, get heads-up against Darvin Moon, and take down the $8,546,435 first place prize, along with the coveted World Series of Poker Main Event world championship bracelet.  Cada said the first purchase with his prize money was a bunch of push pops for his loyal friends who had sore throats from cheering him on.

The four month break caused much anticipation for this eventual win, and we wanted to get Cada’s thoughts on this recent addition to the WSOP, both as an observer and a participant.  “I tried to ignore most of the hype and the talk leading up to the final table,” he said. “I was able to put the binders on for the most part, and by the time I got to the final table I was surprisingly comfortable.”  He also highlighted both the negative and positive sides to the break. “I feel like the break may have hurt me slightly because I had a good grasp of my game and I understood the other players. But then everyone had all this time to change their games up. I do think the break was needed because allowing the media a chance to pay attention is really good for poker.”

When asked how being a World Series of Poker champion will affect him, Cada stated, “I’ll focus both on tournaments and cash games. I also want to play on High Stakes Poker, so that’s obviously higher than I’m used to, but I won’t be changing stakes online at all. I will make really careful decisions about game selection when I do finally move up in levels.”

Cada is obviously excited about his WSOP Main Event win and his new sponsorship with PokerStars, and with good reason.  He already has some major live events lined up too.  His next planned appearance will most likely be at the Five Diamond in Las Vegas this month, but he will certainly be attending the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January.

Congratulations to Joe Cada and your fabulous win!  The full exclusive interview can be found at https://flopturnriver.com/?s=joe+cada.