Joe Cada

Joe Cada: “The Kid” Who Brought Home Poker’s Biggest Prize

Joe Cada graduated from high school in 2006 and never went to college, yet at the young age of 21 had already become a multi-millionaire. How did young Joe Cada accomplish such a remarkable feat? He did it by besting thousands of other hopefuls to become the youngest person ever to win the World Series of Poker in November of 2009, taking home over 8.5 million dollars in prize money and becoming the latest PokerStars Pro!

Cada grew up in Michigan, where his mother is a blackjack dealer, and his father worked in the automotive industry before being laid off July 2008. Joe was introduced to poker when his family would play at gatherings, and when he was 16, started playing poker online. He and his brother Jerome shared an online account, into which they put $25 as the initial stake. At one point, the account was valued at $100, and the brothers considered cashing out, but instead decided to see how high they could take it. The account got up to $250, ten times the boys’ initial investment, but Joe lost it all in one night of playing. He was so upset at his loss that he gave up poker for several months only to get back into it and lose everything again. It looked like he might be finished with poker, but it kept calling him back. Several months after the second total loss, he started playing again and hasn’t stopped since.

Cada mainly played online because he was too young to legally play in casinos, at least in casinos in the U.S. The legal gambling age was lower in Canada, so he started crossing the border to play, even as he continued playing online. His skills quickly improved enough that he began travelling to places like Costa Rica and the Bahamas to compete in tournaments. At this point he was earning enough in prize money to support himself and his travels. He soon decided to drop out of the community college he was attending and devote himself to playing poker full-time. He was generous with his winnings, buying his parents a new house and taking his friends out to dinner.

Seeing Cada’s success, his friends became more interested in poker, and Cada started inviting them to his house each week for “Poker Sundays.” Ten or fifteen kids would gather around with their laptops, playing poker, exchanging ideas, and sharing advice. When Cada won the World Series of Poker in November, he estimated that he had around 100 of his friends in his cheering section, some of them missing school to be there, all breathlessly waiting to see if “The Kid” would take home the biggest prize of all.

In the World Series of Poker, Cada had three finishes in No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em that qualified for prize money. In the first, he placed 64th out of 1,088 entrants, earning him $6681. In the next, he placed 17th out of 2,095 entrants, netting him $21,533. But it was the final table of the main event that mattered most. The final event lasted for over fifteen hours of play, and ended with Cada facing off against Darvin Moon, a 46 year old logger from Maryland who had never owned a computer or credit card. None of the last cards matched Moon’s King or Jack, and Cada took the win with a pair of nines. For his part, Cada says his millions won’t change him; he doesn’t play for the money, he just loves the game.

But as the newest member of the PokerStars Pro team, Cada will continue to being playing a lot of poker.  PokerStars sponsors many of the top poker pros and the most recent World Series of Poker champions.

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