Three years have passed since Joseph "Joe" Cada became the youngest player ever to win the Main Event at the 2009 World Series of Poker ($8.5 million). Cada wrote in his most recent blog post that he played a lot of poker after the title but that things changed a lot on Black Friday.
"Before Black Friday, I used to play online poker all the time. Some weeks I'd play for 80 hours. I'd just wake up and play poker and that's really all I did. Then once Black Friday happened, I haven't played online since. It's a whole different life I've been living since Black Friday."
Instead of playing poker every day, he is now busy running his own business: Cada's Poker & Sports Grill...
"I run a business now. My name's on the door at Cada's Poker & Sports Grill in Sterling Heights, Michigan. We opened about a year ago. I think Black Friday was part of the decision that went into opening the bar, especially since I didn't know how long online poker would be gone. I've always wanted to open a bar. I used to work at a bar and it's something I know pretty well. I also wanted a bar that had a charity poker license. You can't obtain those anymore in Michigan. They put a moratorium on them. I basically found a really nice place that was in a good location that had a charity poker license already. We bought it and renamed it Cada's."
Got burned out after the World Champion title
"Poker is something I've always loved to do. But after a while, and after all the publicity of the WSOP Main Event, I got burned out on poker a little bit. I wanted to continue playing but I needed a break. I figured it was a good time after Black Friday to take some time off and get into something else. I mean, I wasn't quitting poker. For sure. But it was more that I could play every month or every other month or play just for the World Series and the big tournaments. Then during the breaks I could spend my time elsewhere."
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