When Joe Cada shocked the poker world in 2009, At the age of 21, you could not fill a phone booth with the number of professionals who were impressed by his game.

His Championship Participation and His Pay $ 8.5 million were widely

At this final table of 2009, two hands stand out in particular.

The first, he had three hands and pushed all the carpet. only to get called by pocket jacks. He hit a three on the flop. The second, he had two pairs and, again, was found while pre-flop – and found himself against the queens. He has found a miracle 2.

Boy, has the perception of Cada, the resident of Shelby Township, changed over the last decade because he could become the first man of the post era -poker to win a second championship. He is already the first champion to make another Main Event final table since the early 2000s, when players' tournament entries skyrocketed in the thousands. "This guy is amazing," Phil Hellmuth, who considers himself the best Texas Hold 'em No-Limit player on the planet and who won his WSOP bracelet 15 record Wednesday night, said on ESPN's Wednesday show. evening. "I do not think he played well then (in 2009), but he gets better and better."

"He became a superstar. "

Cada, now 30 years old and unkempt rather than 21 and without a mustache when he won the Main Event, is among the nine finalists at this year's Main Event, which continues at 8:30 Eastern Thursday evening. He is joined at the final table by Muskegon's Nic Manion, 35, who has become a chip leader with the most incredible hand We will see apart from the movies – aces against two opponents, both with pocket kings .

While many poker professionals have egos of the size of the Stratosphere and can not make the slightest criticism of their game, Cada has never cared much about perception.

He is not a self-promoter, he is not tinsel. Do not travel around the world like many poker stars today, including Ryan Riess of Clarkston, the 2013 Main Event Champion. Years after winning his first million, Cada was still wearing the same clothes that he wore in high school. His only major investment was a condo in Canada, so he could play poker online after his ban in Michigan

"I know, from whatever, there will be people who will talk and say things, "says Cada. The News recently. "It's like that in any public sport or public place."

"You are going to be criticized He comes with the territory

" I proved it to myself since I was a teenager and I started it. "

Really, Cada prefers to let his game speak, and he's been talking volumes in the years since his Main Event Championship

Cada clinched a second place finish at a WSOP tournament in 2012, for $ 412,424. There were two quarters in 2013, $ 161,652 and $ 83,558, and in 2014, he won his second bracelet – a first place finish in a $ 10,000 buy-in tournament that earned him $ 670,041. 19659006] C & # 39; was the first indicator Cada, nicknamed "The Kid" to be the youngest player to win Main Event, it was for real

(Photo: WSOP)

Then, after depositing the first open tournament In this year's WSOP, he won second place for bracelet No. 3 and $ 226,218. (This came after an emotionally tough off-season home in Michigan, as his father, Jerry, suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.)

Fewer than 100 poker players earned three WSOP sanctioned wristbands, founded at The Old Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas in 1970. (It now takes place at the hotel and Rio All-Suite casino.) Only 43 have already won a fourth, which Cada is trying to accomplish this week. In short, he prepares a CV Poker Hall of Fame, even if he's 10 years old from the moment he is eligible.

"(Nine) years old, I called you the luckiest player in the history of poker!" poker legend – and notorious grump – Mike Matusow wrote on Twitter early Thursday morning. "(Nine) years later, you have all my respect!"

These all-in surges in 2009, with low pocket pairs, were considered ranging from cowardly (kind) to reckless (not so nice). Playing at this year's Main Event earned him a lot of respect, especially as he dropped to 9,000 chips – from a pile of 50,000 chips – all over the world. along Day 2, and that he stopped climbing up to seven …

At the players table on Wednesday, he folded several pairs of pre-flop, including nine (which, coincidentally, is a hand that has special meaning, since it was in the main hand of the 2009 Main Event – hence his Twitter nickname, @ cada99).

Wednesday's two hands really stood out, including an all-in bluff – he had nothing and his opponent had a pair of kings but folded. "Cada later told the opponent, the Australian Alex Lynskey.

This hand showed some ser

Another huge hand was the result of a little luck – but hey "That's poker." Cada was pre-flop all-in with an as-six of hearts, at-a-10 off-suit of his opponent. "We saw the heart of the game. a champion more than once, "said ESPN analyst, Norman Chad, during Wednesday's broadcast

Cada, surprisingly, was chosen by another ESPN analyst, Lon McEachern, to win the Main Event. was done before the tournament started, and McEachern and Chad joked how bad the choice was on Day 2, when Cada ran on the fumes. Now, that sounds like a prediction brilliant potential

Only four men have won two main events – Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Johnny Moss and Stu Ungar. The largest number of them was the 312. The smallest was six.

Cada beat 6,494 in 2009, and there are 7,874 participants this year, the first place paying $ 8.8 million. Each member of this year's final table already has a guarantee of at least a million dollars, bringing Cada's winnings to the Career Tournament to more than $ 11 million, the eighth record of all time. Another Main Event title would allow him to rank second behind Antonio Esfandiari, with over $ 21 million, with $ 18 million of a win.

The Main Event will go from nine players to six on Thursday, six to three on Friday, with a champion on Saturday.

"The Kid," said Chad, of ESPN, "could become" The Legend ".

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