WSOP 2009 Final Latest – Joe Cada & Darvin Moon Battle It Out

As the WSOP Main Event final 2009 got down to five players, Jeff Shulman was hoping to emulate his father Barry’ success who lifted the WSOP title in Europe this year. However, fate had other plans in store for the young ‘Card Player Magazine’ editor who was unlucky to have his pocket J’s beaten by Joe Cada’s short stack pocket 3’s push.
He then got involved in a race holding pocket 7’s against Antoine Saout’s A 9 only to see a 9 on the flop end his tournament hopes. Shulman was rewarded with $1,953,452 for his fifth place finish and commented:
“I play differently than most people, but I like how I played. I don’t regret anything I did.”
With the action four handed. Moon briefly lost the chip lead but then turned the aggression up to another level as he proceeded to go all-in on his playable hands to regain pole position once more.
Darvin Moon with Ac7s in the small blind then called Eric Buchman’s big blind, only to be re-raised all in by Buchman holding KdTc. Moon made the call but a Kh5c9s flop improved further to trip K’s on the turn to keep Buchman’s tournament hopes alive.
The very next hand was a similar situation in reverse as all the chips went to the centre of the table with Moon this time holding KdJd against Buchman’s Ad5c. The luck balanced itself out over the two hands and Moon hit his K on the turn to knock the PokerStars-sponsored pro out in fourth for a $2,502,890 pay day.
As the action picked up three handed, Saout found himself all-in with pocket Q’s against Cada’s deuces only to see his opponent spike a 2 on the flop. A few hands later Saout was all-in again, this time holding pocket 8’s to Cada’s A K. He might have felt somewhat disappointed to see a K arrive on the river to trump his pair but third place and $3,479,670 would have to suffice as compensation for a game where bad beats go with the territory.
Commenting on his elimination of Saout, Cada said: “I got really lucky today. I was very fortunate. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. If anybody ever hears me complaining about poker, they can just knock me out. It’s really unfortunate what (Saout) had (pocket queens), but I got lucky and sucked out. That’s poker.”
The field of 6,494 hopefuls is now down to just two players and the heads-up battle is due to get underway tomorrow as Darvin Moon with 58,875,000 chips is hoping to overcome Joe Cada sitting on a 136,925,000 stack.
Cada (21) now has a chance to usurp Peter Eastgate’s record of the youngest ever winner of the WSOP Main Event.”The bracelet is everything to me,” Cada said. “Being the youngest is definitely a bonus. The $8.5 million also a bonus. So all three of those things would be my dream.”
Darvin Moon (46) continued to remain layed back throughout all the excitement and said, ““I can’t get nervous at a card table.. you don’t benefit.”