Maryland logger, 21-year-old deadlocked in chase for World Series of Poker title, $8.55M

Logger, young pro about even in WSOP title chase

LAS VEGAS — A 21-year-old looking to become the youngest poker champion in history and a western Maryland logger were about even in chips early Tuesday as they chased the World Series of Poker main event title and its $8.55 million top prize.

Joe Cada of Shelby Township, Mich., began play Monday night in Las Vegas with more than double the chips of 46-year-old Darvin Moon, but Moon erased the lead in 12 hands.

The self-employed logger from Oakland, Md., revealed a pair of queens during a showdown to rake in a pot worth millions of chips. Cada shook his head after he lost and briefly stood up from the table, walking over and chatting with two of his supporters.

The lead changed several more times before the players took a 20-minute break after one-and-a-half hours at the table.

Cada was ahead by less than 4 million chips after 52 hands, with 194.8 million chips in play.

The chips don’t have monetary value. One player had to take all his opponent’s chips to win the tournament.

Moon cut into Cada’s chip lead on the first hand of the night, when each player was dealt a pocket pair, but Moon’s queens were better than Cada’s nines. A king to pair the board kept both players from betting on the river, but Moon picked up more than 25 million chips on the hand.

With a stack of cash and a gold bracelet on the felt, and nearly 1,500 screaming fans in a capacity crowd at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, Moon and Cada began a tug-of-war to end an epic tournament that began with 6,494 players in July.

“For the last four years, I’ve been waiting to play this tournament,” Cada said Monday. “Now, it means everything.”

After a 115-day break, Cada and Moon endured more than 14½ hours through 276 hands at the final table on Saturday and early Sunday when they outlasted seven others to make it to heads up play.

If Cada wins, he would become the youngest main event winner in the 40-year history of the series, breaking a record set last year by Peter Eastgate of Denmark that was previously held for two decades by 11-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth.

Moon entered heads-up play with slightly fewer chips than he started the nine-way final table with, making him an underdog in chips for the first time all tournament.

When asked what his strategy was to outplay Cada, Moon said: “Win. Just win.”

Unlike Cada, who said he regularly plays about a dozen tournaments at a time online or three at a time in heads-up cash games, Moon hasn’t played a single hand of online poker. He doesn’t own a computer or have an e-mail address.

Moon, who called the World Series of Poker a “dream come true,” said a title in gambling’s most prestigious event isn’t about winning extra money.

“Me and my wife were walking up the hall and she said, ‘Do you know how much money you’re guaranteed now?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care,’” Moon said. “I don’t even look at that. If you look at that, you’re going to go crazy.”

Second place in the tournament is worth $5.18 million.