Sunday, November 08, 2009

Joe Cada wins the 2009 WSOP - with videos

 

Going into Heads up play Phil Hellmuth predicted that the match would be over within twenty minutes, on two plus two a poll showed mostly the same results.  In reality the match went almost one hundred hands and went almost three hours.  Everyone thought that Joe Cada would make quick work of Darvin Moon.  That did not happen obviously, in fact, it did not take Darvin very long to become the chipleader.  

Big hand misplayed on the first hand

It all started on the first hand where Darvin picked up Queens versus Joe's Nines.  Darvin played it coy limping the button and ultimately won a pot just over 20,000,000 in chips.  He really should have played a much bigger pot.  Darvin not only took the lead at one point he had Joe nearly 2-1 in chips.  

Cada however would not be denied and grew more aggressive as the match moved on.  It is sometimes difficult to see this type of momentum in the broadcasts because there are so many small pots and blind steals that really affect the psychology of the players and why they do certain things.

The big turning point will be interesting to see on television.  Joe was hemorrhaging chips and with a board of 10c 5d 9h it goes check check, when a 10d hits the turn Darvin checks and Cada bets small, Darvin then moves all in.  Joe makes the right play calling with his Jh 9d for two pair.  In reality if Darvin wanted to represent a big hand there he should have bet the flop.  That will be an interesting hand to watch on ESPN tonight.

Darvin Moon's bust out hand

 

In what will likely end up as a punctuation mark of a lot of silly play Cada with a decent lead in chips over Moon basically flipped for the WSOP title, which was probably more of a sign of frustration than anything from Darvin's part, here was the final hand:

Cada 9c 9d

Moon Qd Jd

Moon did not improve and Joe Cada becomes the youngest World Series of Poker winner besting over 6,000 opponents and winning $8,547,042.

 

How Joe got there, the rest of the final table

When a final table at the WSOP starts you expect things to be as they were here, a slow and gradual process where the blinds start to put pressure on the smallish stacks and the chips eventually go to where the started out, with the chip leaders, that did not happen this year.  Heads up play on Monday will see Joe Cada, who has  monster chip lead, face off against the Darvin Moon, who has a little less chips than he started the day with.

 

Joe Cada      135,950,000

 

Darvin Moon  58,850,000 (He started the day with 58,930,000)

Here is the hand that set up the final table:

Video of the commentators calling the action and their reaction when the King hits:

Joe Cada is set to break Peter Eastgate's mark of the youngest person to win the WSOP Main Event

 

This is pretty telling stuff because poker used to be a game for old people.  I remember going into the Bellagio and feeling like the young guy when I was thirty years old.  Poker however is a thinking mans game and it sure helps to not have the worries, thoughts and mileage on your brain that older players have.  The youth explosion in poker bares this out.  

It certainly took a lot of luck to get there though.  As you will see on Tuesday's broadcast Joe Cada is the "come from behind kid".  He put himself in some awful positions and came out of each one.  At one point at the final table he had a bit over three million in chips.  To go from that to where he is now took some gambling.

Darvin Moon's day was up and down as well

Were you one of those people that bought that "aw shucks, I am just a big old logger that is just lucky to be here", because if you were I think you are going to be surprised.  Darvin played a bit sloppy early on but he had enough chips to do so, once he got his groove though his play was very solid.  One thing I am interested to see is if his play was too solid, toward the end you saw a lot of big hands between Antoine Saout and Joe Cada with Darvin remaining relatively unscathed.  That could be his downfall going into the match on Monday night.

It was not Eric Buchman's day

As Eric came into this final table he looked like the strongest contender but by most accounts everyone had done their homework and the play was at a very high level.  It will be interesting to hear Eric's thoughs on his all-in versus Antoine Saout, Eric four bet all in after Antoine hit him with a big re-reraise.  Antoine tanked to eventually call with AdKc, Eric was dominated with AhQc and lost a pot of nearly 90,000,000 in chips.  Soon after that he was knocked out by Darvin Moon.  

The story could have been Antoine Saout

In fact, if it were not for Joe Cada it would almost certainly be, Antoine came from the one of shortest stacks to being the chip leader at one point.  He also got really unlucky, in one of the most pivotal hands of the tournament Joe Cada raised from the small blind with 2c2s and Antoine had Queens QsQh.  After that pot Antoine once again had the best hand, this time with 8s8h, Cada tabled Ad Ks.  While most people consider this a "classic flip" situation it really is not.  This was almost a 100,000,000 pot where Antoine was almost a 10% favorite.  It took a river King to knock out Antoine Saout.

Phi Ivey and Jeff Shulman were mostly spectators

Phil Ivey had to get lucky and did not versus Joe Cada.  Jeff Shulman took JJ versus Joe Cada's 33's for a 22 million dollar pot only to lose.  So the two most experienced players really never stood a chance against the steamroller that was Joe Cada.  For all the hype surrounding Ivey he was really in a tough spot, he was one of the shortest stacks, that in and of itself puts you in a position where you need to get lucky at least once to play poker.  He did not and went out 7th, Jeff Shulman finished 5th.

Let's hope that ESPN gets it right

The Jerry Yang year was very exciting, much more so than it even looked like on television.  Last years Heads up match between Eastgate and Demidov was borderline criminal given that they only showed a couple of hands when they played MANY more than that.  The Greg Raymer year they conveniently left off of the telecast the hand that crippled Josh Arieh.  It just strikes me that with all the weeks and weeks of coverage why is that the final table gets so little air time.  As the most exciting part of the tournament I think it should get three weeks minimum.  All those middle levels could really be consolidated.  I know that ESPN wants to get well known names on the broadcasts but in my opinion they could still do that and keep the integrity of the show.

A new star will be born

For pokers sake we should probably be rooting for Joe Cada, though Darvin Moon is likely the more compelling story.  It just appears to me that Darvin might Elway the whole bit and never play poker again, he almost certainly will not be traveling the world as an ambassador for the game.  So that has me rooting for Joe Cada to win, in fact, it might be hard for him to lose given his chip lead going into the heads up match.

On a side note Eric "Sheets" Haber and Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy are the luckiest SOB's on the planet.  Last year they showed up at the final table with Ylon Scwartz who came in 4th.  This year they have Cada, apparently the story there is that Joe was looking for a stake and Sheets and Bax only picked him up at the last minute.  If they have a standard backing arrangement Sheets and Bax stand to win 4.5 million (I should qualify this by saying I have not talked to any of the parties involved, so most of this is speculation and rumor and should be treated as such).

If the final table so far is a pre-cursor to the action that should be coming up we could be in for a wild ride.

Tags: joe   cada,   darvin   moon,   heads   up  

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