Joe Cada
Joe Cada became famous when he won the WSOP Main Event at the young age of 21. Before he won that tournament and the $8.55 million prize, he was already a success in online poker. He comes from a township in Michigan, and he has been playing online since he was fifteen. He did two semesters in community college, but left because he was making a lot of money playing online poker. Cada was able to pay cash for a 2,400 square foot house when he was just 19.
Cada says that poker is his life, and that college always came second. He said that he always wanted to play as a pro, and that he'd been successful even before he started college. Between 2008-2009, when he entered the WSOP, Cada won $551,000+ in online play. However, the game can be wildly varied, and he lost over $150,000 just before he began tournament play. He only entered the WSOP when two investors put up his entrance fee in exchange for a percentage of his winnings.
Joe Cada is a big proponent of online poker, and in an interview with Time, he said that he supports people's right to play online. He says it's not gambling, but a hobby, and that denying people the right to play online poker strips them of their rights. Joe Cada believes that everyone will be able to play online soon.
Currently, Cada plays for PokerStars as a sponsored professional, playing over two thousand hands per day as "jcada99". After his recent success, he said that he was considering upping his stakes a bit. He also plans to learn other poker variants in order to increase his WSOP success. This past year, Cada cashed in three different no-limit Texas hold 'em events.