Darvin Moon had a chance to take Joseph Cada out earlier in the heads up match. On a board showing TT95 Darvin Moon check raised Joseph Cada all in on the turn and even it was not an easy decision for Cada to put his tournament life on the line only holding J9 he decided to make the call. Darvin Moon could show the 87 for the open ended straight draw and it was an excellent decision made by the 21 year old Joseph Cada and as the river was a brick, Cada was suddenly back in the lead which was extended a bit before the final hand of the 2009 World Series of Poker hand.

Holding 99 Joseph Cada made it 3 million to go and faced an 8 million re-raise from Darwin Moon. Cada announced all in and Moon decided to make the call with his QJ of diamonds. The board did not help any of the players and as Cada had Moon out chipped the WSOP champion 2009 was finally found. Cada is the youngest Main Event winner ever and once again PokerStars managed to have their sponsored player taking home the title. Cada will now replace Danish Peter Eastgate as the new WSOP Main Event champion for PokerStars.

Cada surely had his luck on the final table where he was all in three times. First against Phil Ivey with 44 versus A8 and shortly after Cada saw his 33 in big trouble against Jeff Shulman’s jacks but hitting a set on the flop once again doubled Joseph Cada and this time to a more than healthy 22 million stack. Cade increased his stack but once again came in trouble when down to three players where he decided to make a play for the pot re-raising French Antoine Saout all in holding deuces. Saout had an easy decision holding pocket pair queens but once again the flop helped Joseph Cada as the third deuce accomplished the “Cada heater” sending Antoine Saout to the rail in third position.

Cada surely is a well deserved champion as beating a field of 6493 fellow players requires a lot of skill and Cada has shown great play and poker skills during the tournament.

At the first break the chip count has changed quite a bit since the beginning of the day. Darvin Moon has increased his stack and now holds 95 millions versus Joseph Cada’s 99 million. This despite Moon has been very tight whenever he has the button and he has been giving Joseph Cada quite a few walks. Cada is the aggressor in the Heads Up match for the WSOP title 2009 but Moon still manages to put in some well timed raises making Cada fold hands.

Moon has been seen doing this with air which makes it tricky for Cada to determine how to play him. Cada must still believe he is the favorite to win the title as he keeps getting a free walk in the big blind and if Moon begins to fold a few more hands when Cada raises from the button then Moons stack will depreciate very fast.

Moon on the other hand know he has to risk something and if he continue to play back at Cada we might very well soon see a winner as a big pot can develop each and every hand even without the players holding strong hands.

It seems Moon has a clear tactic regarding how to play against Cada and our money is on Darvin Moon as the WSOP champion 2009 right now.

The final table is down to two players who tonight will battle it out for fame, glory, a WSOP bracelet and a difference of a little more than $3.300.000 between first and second price.

Joseph Cada is to be considered a huge favorite as he holds the chip lead having almost 136 million chips against Darvin Moon’s 59 millions and with Joseph’s experience from the internet playing heads up against Darvins lack of experience it seems like an uphill battle for Darvin where he needs to become lucky to win the title.

Cada himself certainly have had the heater of his life at the final table as he was down to 2.000.000 chips and had to double through a lot of times not to be hitting the rail.

The final hand of the evening Joseph Cada called when French Antoine Saout once again reraised all in after an opening raise from Cada. This time Cada instant called and find himself a small dog with AK versus Saout’s pocket pair 8’s. Both the flop and turn were safe for Antoine but on the river Cada spiked a king to end Saout’s run for the title. Winning this coin flip ensured Cada a minimum extra payday of almost $1.500.000 but more important it also gave him the lead in the match against Moon.

Moon on the other hand had a bit of a roller coaster ride entering the final table as the chip leader only to see his chips dwindle during the day to around 30 millions until he finally got lucky in the hand who eliminated Steve Begleiter in 6th position. Steve open raised the pot and faced an all in raise from Moon which was called instantly by Steve. Moon needed help from the deck as his AQ was in really bad shape against Begleiter’s QQ. This hand also bricked out both on the flop and turn but the A on the river sent Begleiter to the rail and Darvin Moon back in the chip lead with almost 64.000.000 chips.

Who will win the WSOP title is yet to be seen but surely Cada is the favorite when the final table will be concluded tonight at the Rio in Las Vegas.

Finally it has begun the WSOP final table 2009. At the dinner break players we are down to seven remaining players and with an interesting situation as Phil Ivey have managed to chip up a little and has 14.900.000 chips in his stack. The chip lead has shifted from Darwin Moon to Eric Buchan with Darwin Moon absolutely not being as tight as expected. However it seems he made a playing mistake early on in a pot where he made a real odd move on a KJ2 rainbow board holding A4.

Moon bet 2.300.000 and was raised to 6.750.000 chips by Antoine Saout and Moon decided to make a play at the pot without having any folding equity at all. Antoine made an easy call holding J2 for bottom two and doubled up through Moon.

The two players lost was Kevin Schaffel who got all his chips in holding AA against Buchan’s KK but a third K on the flop and the case king on the turn sealed Kevin’s run for the bracelet and he graciously bowed before hitting the rail in 8th spot.

James Akenhead was the first player to leave the final table after a roller coaster ride. Coming in to the final table as the short stack Akenhead managed to triple up in a hand before he got it all in with 33 against Schaeffel’s 99 and with no help from the board Akenhead left the tournament in 9th place.

An exiting evening at the WSOP is waiting for the spectators and especially it is interesting to see if Phil Ivey can continue to put pressure on his fellow table contestants and accumulate more chips here and there. If so he will be a dangerous opponent to face tomorrow when a few more people are out and the steps in prize money increases quite a bit for every extra player who leave WSOP final table 2009.

Although the professionel English poker player James Akenhead will be starting the final table with the shortest stack, one can be sure he is not going to rail easily. Being born in 1983 he is one of the youngest players at the final table, but still has more experience than some of the older players.

Being from the internet generation of poker players he has played his fair share of hands online and even has quite a lot of live poker experience as well. His biggest result came at the 2008 World Series of Poker, where he finished second in Event 2, a $1.500 No Limit Texas hold’em tournament. James earned $520.219 for second, which is his biggest payday so far in live tournaments.

By making the final table James Akenhead will of cause be looking forward too an even bigger payday now, as he is secured at least $1.263.000. But making the final table also brought a sponsor deal to Akenhead by Full Tilt Poker, where he now plays under his own name “James Akenhead”.

As warm up for WSOP final table James Akenhead played the £ 10,000 No Limit Hold’em – World Championship Event at WSOPE in his hometown London, where he finished in 9th place earning $109.687. As only one out of tree to make final tables in both main events this surely most have boosted his confidence before the big one and he most be keen on making it beyond the 9th place this time.

The biggest problem for the young English player is of cause his low chip count. Starting with only 6,800,000 he will need double though quite fast, but with some luck he will surely have a shoot at the title.

Tomorrow when WSOP final table 2009 begins Antoine Saout will be one of two remaining European players at the table. The French player qualified online for $50 and has turned this in to a minimum of $1.263.000 but he is still in the tournament and are aiming for a much larger cash out.

Antoine will begin the final table in 8th position in regards of chips but since he qualified for the final table Antoine has made a few remarkable results in other tournaments. In September he reached the final table in WSOPE finishing in 7th position taking home $188.000 and in October he played a high roller tournament in France to sharpen his form. The result and final table experience from WSOPE is without doubt extremely useful for Antoine as he learned a lot about endgame play in London. He will surely understand how to use this experience when he return to Las Vegas to play for the first prize of $8.500.000.

Should Antoine win the title this year it can be expected that a poker explosion will take place in France and with notable names like Nicolas Levi, David Benyamine, Bruno Fitoussi, Anthony Lellouche and PokerStars pro Betrand Grospellier there is plenty of French poker stars who the French poker community can build a strong foundation on. However having the WSOP champion will beat any of the aforementioned names in popularity and will secure the interest in poker growing to extremely heights in France.

In only 3 days the remaining 9 players at the WSOP finale table will battle for their share of the astonishing price pool of over $27 million. But who will be the next World Champion of Poker? Most people would say Phil Ivey of Full Tilt Poker without any hesitation and no doubt he is one of the favorites, but his low chipstack can not be totally disregarded when considering his chances becoming WSOP champion 2009.

Many Bookmakers have now released the odds for the 2009 WSOP final table and if you are looking for some extra action when following the final table this is surely a fun way. Betfair is currently offering the following odds on who will win:

Darvin Moon 5,2
Eric Buchman 5,2
Phil Ivey 6,8
Steven Begleiter 8,0
Jeff Shulman 7,0
Kevin Schaffel 16,5
Joseph Cada 14,0
James Akenhead 16,5
Antoine Saout 19,5

Not surprisingly the bookmaker’s odds reflect the current chip count in many ways and the big favorites for title are the two chip leaders Darvin Moon and Eric Buchman. But Phil Ivey stands out in a big way with only odds 6.8 to win, which does certainly not reflect his chip count.

Coming in to the final table Phil Ivey only have about 5 % of the chips and his chances to win should therefore be around 20 to 1 if one leaves out any skill factor. Of cause Phil Ivey may be the best poker player in the world and certainly the best at the final table, but is he that good?

In our opinion it would be a mistake to back Phil Ivey with the current odds. Especially if one consider his low stack and that only one mistake or bad beat could send him to rail and thereby leave out any skill factor what so ever. To make this a good bet one would need at least odds 12 or 14 to account for this unpredictable factor.

We recommend choosing someone other than Phil Ivey to win as his odds is to low and does not reflect is chances. Certainly one can find better value in some of the players at the table.

You can follow the final table from November 7th where play will continue until 2 remain which will play again on November 9th for the title.

During day 8 at the 2009 WSOP Main Event, Phil Ivey showed in a hand he played against George Smith that is he only human too when he managed to misread the board and mucked the best hand on the river in a 2.180.000 pot.

This error could prove to be extremely expensive for Phil Ivey as if he had taken down the pot he would have had more ammunition during the rest of day 8 and could have improved the amount of chips he took with him to the final table. We will never know but Phil Ivey might have mucked a hand costing him the WSOP 2009 title and $8.500.000.

In fact with the recent successes many of the other final table contestants have showed in tournaments in Europe (Kevin Schaffel, Antoine Saout and James Akenhead), Phil Ivey could have used a few more million chips in his stack. The pot against George Smith would have meant a more than 22% increase to Phil Ivey’s stack giving him quite a bit extra room to play at the final table.

See Phil Ivey mucking the best hand here:

Joseph Cada who is in fifth chips position revealed in an interview with ESPN Inside Deal that he has been staked for the WSOP Main Event 2009 and will have to give away half of his proceeds to his backers. Staking or backing is a know phenomenon in poker and Joseph Cada could tell that the reason for being backed was that he went through a poker downswing just before WSOP and lost in the area of $150.000 in total in cash games and poker tournaments which made the $50-$60.000 budget for WSOP fairly expensive as the variance in the very big WSOP fields are enormous.

Luckily one of Joseph’s friends who were backed by the famous poker tournament player Cliff ‘JohnnyBax’ Josephy and his friend Eric ‘Sheets’ Haber managed to introduce Joseph Cada to these guys and they decided that Joseph was a good horse and put up the buy in for his WSOP participation even his tournament results were limited due to him only being 21 years old. Cliff ‘JohnnyBax’ Josephy and Eric ‘Sheets’ Haber do not regret the decision to back Cada as they will minimum receive more than $630.000 for the $10.000 initial investment in Joseph Cada’s poker skills and should Joseph go ahead and become the WSOP champion 2009 the payout to the backers will reach an astonishing $4.250.000 and most likely be the record pay out made to tournament poker backers ever.

Joseph himself is still happy even he has to give away a lot of cash and states that he knew what he could win and are not even close to be thinking about the massive amount of money he will have to give his backers because without them he would not have been at the final table in the 2009 Main Event edition of WSOP.

We wish Joseph and his backers the best of luck when final table action begin next month in Las Vegas at the Rio.