Bodog Beat

After eight days of play back in July, three months of waiting and 18 hours of play on Saturday, the 2009 WSOP Main Event has finally come to a conclusion, breaking records on the way. At 2am local time this morning, Joe Cada became the youngest player to ever win a WSOP Main Event, pocketing $8,547,042 for that win, and it came on the final hand of the longest Main Event final table ever played.

Just eight days shy of his 22nd birthday, Cada beat out the record set by 2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate, who himself bested the record set by Phil Hellmuth 20 years prior. This was the first WSOP that Cada had been eligible to play due to his age, and during the course of the summer cashed in two other events along with his monumental, record-breaking win at the 2009 WSOP Main Event.

Entering the final table just fifth in chips, Cada had an uphill struggle to reach the heads-up match, especially against a table that included several experienced players, like Jeff Shulman and Eric Buchman, and the widely acknowledged "best player in poker" Phil Ivey. However, Cada was able to catch the right cards at the right times – causing Hellmuth to dub him the "luckiest poker player in WSOP history" at one point – to meet Maryland logger Darvin Moon heads-up for the title.

Moon came into the final table with an impressive chip lead and found himself at or near the top for most of the final table, experiencing swings down to as low as third and then back up to the lead. However, by the time he was to face Cada for the title, Moon was at a distinct disadvantage, not only with almost two-thirds less chips than his opponent, but also with much less experience playing heads-up poker.

The heads-up battle lasted 87 hands over two hours and 21 minutes and came down to a classic race situation in which Cada's pocket nines went up against the Q-J suited of Moon. The board blanked out for Moon, giving Cada the title, bracelet and a place in the history books and Moon some great stories to tell his logging friends back in Maryland. Oh, and $5,182,928.