Event #57: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em MAIN EVENT - World Championship

Eight full days of play in July. 115 days of waiting. And 17.5 hours of play today. That's how long it took to pare a starting field of 6,494 players down to our last two: Darvin Moon and Joe Cada. If you wanted drama today, the place to be was in the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio. We had more drama than ESPN can possibly fit into one two-hour broadcast. Kings into aces? Yeah we had that. Twice. Coin-flip situations? Sure. Ask Phil Ivey and Jeff Shulman. Under-pairs making sets against over-pairs? Not a problem. Joe Cada was the master of that. In the end it seemed like it was going to come down to who ran best. There was no doubt that Joe Cada and Darvin Moon were the two players who accomplished that task. They are the last two standing after a grueling day that saw the players eliminated in the following order: 9th - James Akenhead 8th - Kevin Schaffel 7th - Phil Ivey 6th - Steve Begleiter 5th - Jeff Shulman 4th - Eric Buchman 3rd - Antoine Saout We'd be remiss if we didn't give some attention to Ivey. He came into the final table with a short stack, and despite his best efforts to grind up a stack couldn't get much going. He seemed to be card-dead and lost a key flip against Cada when his ace-eight couldn't run down Cada's pocket fours. If Ivey had won that hand, he would have had about 24 million and Cada would have been out. Instead Cada doubled up and Ivey went out a short time later. Cada, by the way, was down less than 3.0 million chips in the early-going. He had to survive double-up after double-up after double-up -- not exactly the least stressful way to make it to heads-up play! Moon had his own up-and-down day. He baffled his opponents with the lines he took in hands, including a very strange line against Begleiter in which Moon check-raised from 5.0 million to 15.0 million on the flop and then folded for 6.0 million more, getting about 7.5-to-1 on a call. He started with almost 60.0 million in chips and fell all the way to 30.0 million at one point. But it worked out for Moon; he's still standing at the end of the night with 58,850,000 chips. Seven other players have none. Everyone will take Sunday to rest up. We'll be back here in the Penn & Teller Theater at 10pm local time on Monday night to determine who will be the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion. That's when Joe Cada, with the remaining 135,950,000 chips, will try to take Moon out and claim the last bracelet of the 2009 WSOP. See you then!

Darvin Moon has the button. He folds. Small blind Joe Cada opens to 2.55 million. Big blind Antoine Saout opts to shove all in, drawing a quick fold from Cada. Last year's final table -- including the heads-up portion -- lasted a total of 274 hands. We've now eclisped that mark.

Joe Cada has the button. He opens to 2.5 million. The new short stack, Antoine Saout folds the small blind. Darvin Moon calls from the big blind to a flop of       and checks. Cada makes a continuation bet of 3.75 million. Moon quickly announces a raise and shoves 10.0 million in the middle. Joe Cada raises all in, and why not? He's running hotter than even Darvin Moon. Moon usually calls quickly if he's going to call, and here he takes his time. That's a sign that he's going to fold, and sure enough he folds after about thirty seconds. Cada's now the far-and-away chip leader at 91.9 million. Moon slips to 63.1 million.

We've got fireworks right away! There is a dead button for this hand, the first hand back from break. To begin with, Joe Cada comes in raising to 2.55 million from the small blind. Saout then announces a three-bet to 7.3 million from the big, and action comes right back to Cada. After a minute or two, he announces, "All in," and Saout instantly makes the call with his towering stack! With Cada now at risk for his tournament life, the cards are turned up: Cada:     Saout:     With a long pause building the suspense, the crowd again comes to life as the two opposing halves of the room yell back and forth at each other. Alternating cries of "Deuce!" and "Queen!" bombard the stage as the dealer burns a card and runs the flop:       Ecstatic celebration comes from Camp Cada as their man finds his deuce, taking an improbable and commanding lead in the hand. The turn and river come   and   respectively, and Saout can not re-improve to tally the knockout. Instead of being forced to watch the other two men bag up for the night, Cada is now the chip leader with 78,600,000, all courtesy of that two-out deuce, the most important card of Cada's young career!

A break sprung upon us with no warning and no explanation. We've been sitting still waiting for the action to start for nearly a half hour with no signs of life. Jack Effel is back on the microphone now though, and it looks like we'll be back in action shortly.

Hand No. 271 - Darvin Moon has the button. He makes it 3.0 million to go. Eric Buchman is in the small blind and moves all in. Moon shrugs and calls. Really. Buchman:     Moon:     It's role reversal from Hand No. 270. This time Buchman has the weak ace and Moon has the two Broadway cards. The flop is      , no help for anybody. But we know how good Darvin Moon runs, so no surprise that the turn is the   to give him a pair of kings and the lead. Buchman is down to a river ace to remain in the tournament. No sale -- the river comes   and Buchman is busto! Moon stands up from his chair and offers Buchman a few words and a handshake. The other players also offer their congratualtions to a crest-fallen Buchman. Just a short while ago he seemed in control of this final table. Now he's out in 4th place. Darvin Moon now has approximately 76.0 million.

Joe Cada has the button. Action passes to small blind Antoine Saout, who raises to 2.5 million. Big blind Darvin Moon re-raises to 6.0 million. Saout is tanking again and eventually makes the call. The flop comes down      . Saout, sitting behind his massive chip stack, checks to Moon. Moon takes the pot down with a single bet of 10.0 million on the flop.

Darvin Moon has the button. When action passes to small blind Eric Buchman, he open-shoves and gets big blind Joe Cada to fold.

Joe Cada has the button. He puts in his standard opening raise of 2.5 million. Everyone else folds.

Eric Buchman has the button, and Darvin Moon is sitting out this hand. Buchman makes it 2.5 million to stay in, and Antoine Saout announces a re-raise from the big blind. He puts out a three-bet totaling 9 million, and Buchman wastes no time moving all in over the top of that. The shove sends Saout spiraling into the think tank, and he spends a long, quality session in there. Several minutes of gear-turning pondering follow, and Saout looks a bit unsure of his decision. Finally, and quietly, he says, "I call." Buchman has the covering stack, and so it's Saout now all in and at risk. The news is good though. [u]Showdown[/u] Buchman:     Saout:     The flop comes out      , drawing a big reaction from the crowd for the first time in what seems like hours. The turn pairs the board with the  , changing nothing, and the awakened crowd again grows loud. The   fills out the board, and that too is a blank for Buchman. In the biggest pot of the 2009 Main Event, Antoine Saout has picked up the monstrous double. He's skyrocketed all the way up to 89,200,000, while Buchman is left with just 9,800,000 chips to work with.